The science and research effort of Round River Conservation Studies continues to grow and diversify in its role to provide scientific insights and information for the conservation of biodiversity. It is notable that Dr. Michael Soule is now an active RRCS Board Member, and our Science Advisors include Drs. Daniel Doak, M.A. Sanjayan, Richard Jeo and Barbara Dugelby. The support of these distinguished scientists provides the foundation for continued growth and influence in our science program. The expansion of the student program has also resulted in an expansion of our science efforts, with active collaborations in Ecuador and Namibia (see descriptions of these projects on our website). Additionally, the student program supports our on-going research efforts on our Taku project.

The cornerstone of RRCS science has been the analyses of large, wilderness landscapes for conservation of biodiversity. Conservation Area Designs or CAD, as we have coined them, have now been completed by RRCS and partners in 4 regions of BC (Central Coast CAD, Coastal Forest and Mountains CAD, Taku River Tlingit Territory CAD and the Muskwa-Kechika CAD), and efforts are currently underway to initiate and/or conduct regional scale analyses in the Northwest Territories, in Ecuador and possibly, in Namibia (see our website for more information on these projects). As we continually incorporate the most advanced tools and techniques in these analyses, we have also recognized that implementing the conservation recommendations provided by our research very much depends upon creating local support and constituencies to implement the conservation recommendations indicated by the analyses.

To this end, we have increasingly sought and encouraged local community involvement in the development of our research and analytical efforts. The Taku River Tlingit (TRT) CAD team used traditional and indigenous knowledge to inform the selection of focal species and the development of focal species habitat models; this ecological knowledge was not only a critical source of information for the modeling, but provided the TRT with an important and tangible link to the CAD. Using a similar approach, the first step in the development of the Muskwa-Kechika CAD was the completion of local community interviews to document local ecological knowledge about key wildlife; we used this information to refine our analytical and field efforts.

We have also invested in efforts to ensure that our research results are available and useful to local partners, through presentations, meetings and reports (available on our website or by request). Additionally, the Muskwa Kechicka CAD provided an opportunity to develop GIS-based tools that allow access, querying, map-making and use of the CAD data and models. The CAD GIS Toolkit provides a customized interface with ArcGIS that allows easy use of complex spatial data by even novice GIS users. Additionally, more experienced analysts may use the toolkit to explore the conservation implications of potential development projects. We are continuing to advance the CAD GIS Toolkit, and hope to have versions that can be applied to a diverse array of study areas in the near future.

In addition to CAD development and analyses, we have an expanding suite of scientific and research endeavors aimed at informing regional conservation. We strive to critically assess a conservation problem and appropriately invest our scientific and research efforts to best inform conservation strategies and decisions. Our science and research efforts in the Taku provide several examples of our expanding suite of tools and skills implemented to assist our local partner (see Conservation Science Projects on the Taku Project). In the Muskwa-Kechika region of British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains, we have recently completed a spatially-explicit population viability analyses for grizzly bears. This analysis assesses predicted current and future population and habitat conditions, and advances our efforts to test and validate landscape level predictions for size and connectivity of conservation areas. In Namibia and Ecuador, Round River supported researchers, with the assistance of our students, are providing unique and critical information on the value and needs of key biodiversity, supporting local partnership conservation efforts. These and many other project updates are available elsewhere in the newsletter or by visiting our website.

—Dr. Kimberly Heinemeyer, Conservation Scientist