Climate change and multiple stressors are key threats to biodiversity and ecosystem health. In the salmon watersheds that encompass much of western North America, many salmon populations are struggling and fisheries have collapsed. My group and I, the Salmon Watersheds Lab, aim to do collaborative research that can helps address this pressing challenge: How can we best steward salmon watersheds given multiple stressors and oncoming climate change? To address this, we seek to understand: 1. How salmon watersheds, as complex socio-ecological systems, work? 2. How they are changing? 3. What can be done to improve for their effective conservation and management? For example, glacier retreat is posing new challenges and opportunities for salmon; sea level rise is challenging the resilience of estuary nursery functions; and shifting flow regimes call for new ways of watershed management. Across these topics, collaboration and co-development can help align research priorities and approaches with local peoples and places. In this era of rapid change, forward-looking science can help inform forward-looking conservation and management.

The Natural Resources & Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) at UNBC hosts a weekly lecture series at the Prince George campus. Anyone from the university or wider community with interest in the topic area is welcome to attend. Presentations are also made available to remote participants through Zoom Webinar. Go to http://www.unbc.ca/nres-institute/colloquium-webcasts to view the presentation remotely.

Pre-registration (free) is required to attend this presentation; https://unbc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9EFnY3qaRoCjRXZuzX8iEQ

Past NRESi colloquium presentations and special lectures can be viewed on our video archive, available here.

This event is funded by the Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP). The FWCP is a partnership between BC Hydro, Fisheries & Oceans Canada, First Nations, Public Stakeholders and the Province of BC, to conserve and enhance fish and wildlife in watersheds impacted by existing BC Hydro dams.