Last week, we launched our monthly lunch and learn webinar series. It was fun and felt so good to connect with our membership. Monthly webinar details will be shared through our emailing list, social media, and our website (web page coming soon).
Here’s a brief summary of our webinar from May 13, 2020.
Title: Cumulative Effects of Land Uses in Alberta’s Southern East Slope Watersheds
Speakers:
- Sarah Milligan, ALCES: Cumulative Effects of Land Uses and Conservation Priorities in Alberta’s Southern East Slopes. See Sarah’s abstract.
- Sarah Elmeligi, ACTWS – The C-5 Report and the ACTWS: Organizational perspectives and implications.
Webinar Summary:
Last year, the ACTWS commissioned ALCES to conduct a cumulative effects assessment of the Southern Eastern Slopes to model long term impacts of human use across the landscape. The model compared “business as usual” to “increased protection” scenarios. The purpose of this project was to provide scientific analyses and modeling that could inform land use planning along the Eastern Slopes. The results from this work will be used by several ACTWS partners to ensure that the best-available science is part of decision-making processes and land use plans in the study area.
Sarah Milligan discussed the project objectives, results, and implications. The lands with the highest conservation potential lie to the west of the study area. Results show that conservation efforts in the headwaters have the best potential to conserve native trout habitat with the least economic impacts. The full report is available here.
Sarah Elmeligi discussed the implications of projects like this for the ACTWS. Funding new research is something the ACTWS has not explored before. Although this kind of work isn’t our normal stream of work, research results are helpful and timely for various land use planning process that are happening right now. There could be other models to explore future projects like this.
Webinar Results:
Forty-one people attended the webinar and were asked a few closing questions. Here are those results.
- 51% and 46% of participants found the webinar “very useful” and “useful” respectively.
- 94% of participants said they would attend future ACTWS webinars.
- 63% and 31% of participants answered “yes” and “maybe” respectively when asked if the ACTWS should pursue projects like this in the future.
See the webinar!
A recording of the webinar can be found in our members area.
