Abstract 987 – Pioneering Innovative Collaborations that Link Region-wide Forestry Decisions with Conservation of Grizzly Bears

Karine Pigeon, Kevin Koch, Maciej Jamrozik, Carolyn King

Indigenous self-governance is needed in forest landscape planning. Forest planning should
consider resilience to natural and human-caused disturbances including climate change, and to
be most effective, should recognize indigenous cultural recovery and stewardship. Forest
activities that impact our landscape need to take into consideration (1) the ability of Indigenous
peoples to meet their food, social, and ceremonial rights, and (2) cumulative effects on
ecosystems, wildlife, and their habitat. We aim to align forestry practices, wildlife stewardship,
and Indigenous-led cultural recovery in modernized land-use plans that preserve and create
healthy, diverse, and resilient forests. In a partnership between Nations, provincial
governments, and forest licensees, we co-created grizzly bear-focused guidance, a decision key,
for authorization managers who are responsible for the approval of harvest activities in
northwest British Columbia, Canada. This decision key considers cumulative effects on grizzly
bear populations and their habitat by proposing 5 scenarios that range from high restrictions
(i.e., no new harvest), to three levels of habitat enhancement, restoration, and monitoring, and
a final, low restrictions scenario (i.e., current best management practices). The proposed
scenarios are linked to present grizzly bear conservation concerns and landscape conditions
around the proposed harvest blocks. This project highlights our shared decision-making process
with an emphasis on the “Plan” and “Network” components of the Species Conservation Cycle
that led to the implementation of our decision key. I will share aspects of the collaborations
that were necessary to arrive at a useful product aimed at guiding effective conservation of
wildlife and their habitat. Because grizzly bears have an important role in cultural traditions and
philosophies of many Indigenous groups, and because they are seen to reflect the overall
health of the ecosystem they inhabit, stewardship of grizzly bears and their habitat is
pioneering new ways of approaching forest landscape planning.