Tina Giroux-Robillard is a mother, grandmother, a wildlife biologist, regulatory officer, policy analyst, and advocate who has spent her career working with and learning from First Nations Communities. Much of Tina’s work over the past 15 years has been with the Athabasca Denesųłiné on barren ground caribou stewardship, using Traditional Ecological Knowledge as a primary source of data.

Tina is currently working to create Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) in the traditional territory of the Athabasca Denesųłiné, which will be the first IPCAs in the province of Saskatchewan!

In this episode Tina shares her life’s work on Barren Ground Caribou and her passion for moving beyond mitigation to genuine conservation. She shares the stark reality facing these charismatic creatures as well as opening our eyes to the impact their declining numbers is having on the communities who depend on the Caribou for both subsistence and as an essential part of their identify. Tina reminds us of the importance of traditional knowledge is gaining a complete picture of ecosystem ecology encouraging us to forge an individual connection with the land to awaken compassion and move us into action.