miistakis logo
header

Winter 2014

Newsletter Archive

 

Executive Director's Message

 
article image

March is always our busiest time of year at Miistakis. March marks our fiscal year end which comes with financial reporting, budgeting, auditing and annual work plans. We also have several projects winding down this month so our office is a hive of activity - you can literally feel the energy. This month marks the end of our Highway Wilding five-year partnership with Parks Canada, the Western Transportation Institute and the Woodcock Foundation. This road ecology project has been successful in demonstrating the importance of wildlife crossing structures to maintaining connectivity for wildlife. Highway Wilding, the documentary film, has been screened 300 times around the world and viewed by more than 71,000 people. If you haven't seen this film I encourage you to watch it.

We are getting ready to launch Conservation in Your Community: a series of applied conservation tools designed for municipalities. This toolkit includes five tools to assist municipalities in addressing conservation issues. The tools address: understanding how the Alberta Land Stewardship Act's (ALSA) conservation and stewardship tools could be used in their community, identifying and mapping community values and priorities, evaluating a local landscape's suitability for specific conservation purposes and weighing development interests against conservation priorities to map out mutually acceptable land use zones. Stay tuned for the release this spring. We will be using the hashtag #conservationtools to promote these tools on Twitter.

We are also pleased to announce our upcoming Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) conference to be held in conjunction with Mount Royal University's Under Western Skies conference September 9-10, 2014. The conference will explore the diverse and growing field of citizen science with sessions on program design, evaluation, policy implications, technology and applications in parks and protected areas. For more information or to be added to our conference contact list, please email events@rockies.ca.

Enjoy the rest of our newsletter.

signature

Danah Duke
Executive Director