What makes biodiversity so important? Why is it so often discussed in environmental writing? How do we measure what a healthy amount of biodiversity looks like? Can you have too much, to little? What about human impact and its effect on biodiversity? Tara Narwani is the science communicator at The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI), and she came on to discuss these questions.

In 1919, soldiers were returning home from World War 1, the average family was getting around using horses, and the new population of Canada was seeking to settle into farm country and prosper. Clearing land was an essential part to homesteading back then, as such, many fires were lit to burn brush to build “productive” agriculture land. With no resources available to fight forest fires, once a fire was lit it tended not to stop. With over 2 million hectares burned over 10 days, multiple fatalities and burned communities, this fire was one of the largest and most catastrophic wildfires in Canadian history. Peter J. Murphy has spent the last 3 and a half decades researching these fires that were almost lost to the history books. An incredible story.

Grind and pound…I bet you didn’t expect this episode to be about tree planting, did you? But apparently that’s exactly what’s needed to be a good tree planter, you have to ‘grind’ your way through the bad weather and rough terrain, and ‘pound’ your way through tree after tree until the workday is done. Wilson spent 10 years in this world grinding and pounding trees till the cows come home. He has since joined the planning side of the plant and is a silvicultural forester organizing plants and many other crucial aspects of forest regeneration. We discuss the reality of planting and get into some of the basics behind how we decide what to plant where and why.

Conservation is a word we are all familiar with, but what does it mean really? There are so many ways to define conservation based on what you are measuring and what you hope to accomplish. To some, it is pure, untouched wilderness, void of human contact. To others, protecting a small wetland or riparian area is also success. What about our role in protecting species from extirpation or extinction? What is our obligation? Do we spend countless millions of dollars protecting one charismatic species because public perception says it is important, while other, equally as important, species blink out of existence because we haven’t made a movie about them yet? How do we make the hard decisions, the ones no one wants to make?

Healthy landscapes are something everyone wants. But what does that mean? How do we define what “health” in a landscape looks like? How do we know that we are correct in our assumptions? How do we know the parameters we use to measure sustainability are objective? How do we find out what is right for ecological health and resilience? David Andison has spent decades researching these questions and their answers. We dove into the depths of how we manage our natural world, where we may be going wrong, and where we need to be headed. The first 46 minutes is very philosophical, discussing the mindset and society needed to create healthy landscapes. The last 44 minutes was more specific around age-class distributions, habitat availability, and forest management.

Sustainability starts with education. If we want to see a sustainable future, one where we focus on the importance of ecology, conservation and sustainable energy, we need to spend time instilling environmental values on the children of today. Forest education is at the forefront of creating an eco-centric future. We need to teach our children the excitement and wonder that exists in our forests and natural ecosystems, it is crucial to a better future. MJ and Patti have worked for the last 19 years building a forest education system that helps build relationships and lasting change. MJ is the executive Director for the Lesser Slave Lake Forest Education Society(LSFES) and Patti is the Executive Director of the Boreal Center for Bird Conservation(BCBC), which is a partnership between Alberta Parks and the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory(LSLBO). Together, MJ and Patti make an unstoppable team of learning power. We discussed the importance of building environmental values, how to get people excited and methods for building your own forest education system.

We all want healthy forest ecosystems, clean water and vibrant communities. We can achieve these goals through sustainable forest management(SFM). However, we need to continue to push the boundaries of what SFM is in order to ensure we don’t miss something. This means constant research, consultation and not being afraid to change how we do things in order to protect all values for all people, for ever. Indigenous people have been on this continent for thousands of years living with the land, instead of trying to tame it. Indigenous values have been all but lost in our society, and indigenous people have knowledge to offer that could help us better define SFM. We need to find a way to help indigenous communities feel heard and respected, so they can feel safe to share and help us all move towards a better system of forest management. Fabian is one man trying to bridge that gap between the western model and the indigenous one, to help us find a new and better path forward together.

Fire is a crucial part of the boreal forest. Without it the whole system falls apart. First Nations people have been using fire as a tool to manage the forest and help maintain ecosystem health for thousands of years. They would regularly burn the landscape, under safe and manageable conditions, in order to achieve very specific and controlled outcomes. These outcomes include habitat creation, growth of specific plants for medicine or food production, improved grazing land for ungulates, etc. Along with many environmental benefits that existed from indigenous burning, there was also a deeply cultural aspect. Indigenous people say that burning provided them with a connection to the land that was directly tied to community health. With burning outlawed the last century, many communities have lost the ability to connect to their culture and feel empowered by their ancestral knowledge. Amy Cardinal Christianson is an indigenous fire researcher trying to get cultural burning back on the land to rejuvenate forest health and ultimately for the benefit of all people.

We don’t know a planet like this. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere today then there has ever been in the entirety of human evolution, which is over 3 million years. This means that the greenhouse effect is in full swing and even if we stopped greenhouse gases today, the earth would continue to warm beyond what we have ever known. Adaptation is a necessity, and we need to be ready. It’s not the end of the world, but it is the end of the world we know. Jason Edwards has a positive and hopeful message about how we can begin to adapt to our changing environment. He has spent a long time collaborating and researching adaptation and how best to go about it. We have the tools and knowledge to make this happen, so let’s get started.

I thought we could take a look back into our history to see how we got here, and perhaps tease out what might happen next. I wanted to talk to someone with first hand experience with the evolution of sustainability and environmental stewardship. Luckily, I knew a guy. Peter Murphy is a legend in environmental management circles. He has devoted the last 70 some odd years of his life to environmental integrity. He even remembers when the word “sustainability” was first coined. He has a wealth of knowledge and he is worth listening to. Without him, we would likely not be where we are today in regards to sustainability.