Fall 2022

Newsletter Archive

Executive Director's Message

Over the past month we have been enjoying our glorious fall weather with some days in the field. In September we attended the annual Kainai Ecosystem Protection Association (KEPA) Summit. This year's theme was Water Conservation for the Future and focused on water protection, conservation and Siksikaitsitapi relations to water. Congratulations to the entire KEPA team for a fabulous event.

In early October we spent three days in the field installing our first beaver dam analogue as part of our Working With Beavers initiative to enhance watershed resiliency and restoration. BDA's are an excellent example of a nature-based solution that enhance climate resiliency. Read all about this work in our article below. A special thanks to Elliot Fox, OWC, and our partners Blood Tribe Land Management and Cows and Fish for all their hard work!

I was also fortunate to spend three days with Elliot Fox at the Calgary Foundation hosted Active Reconciliation Treaty: 7 retreat in Banff. Through a systems change approach, the highly competent team from The Trico Changemakers Studio provided learnings of how to incorporate and mobilize reconciliation and decolonization to our work. This highly immersive experience was transformative and provided opportunity for learning and unlearning. I am most grateful for the opportunity to attend.

Our work over the next few months is focused on our newly defined research areas of ecological connectivity, biodiversity an ecosystem-based climate adaptation and focused on what Miistakis does best - working collaboratively to advance conservation solutions. Some highlights include working with Waterton Lakes National Park to facilitate their upcoming post-Kenow fire research symposium and climate-adaptation workshop - learning all about nature's resiliency to climate impacts and how we adjust ecological monitoring to account for climate impacts. We area also kicking off a new initiative to delineate a Calgary-based regional ecological network (read all about Calgary Connect below!).

Also, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year and invite you all to share in this important milestone at our upcoming Wine and Cheese event. Hope to see you there!!

Danah Duke, Executive Director