By: Sarah Shortt, Watershed Science Manager, Athabasca Watershed Council
The Society of Ecological Restoration held a conference in Vancouver for those in North America interested in ecological restoration. Luckily for me, I was able to attend and give a talk to 55 people about the impact of riparian area (shoreline) assessments on ecological restoration and community stewardship in the Athabasca watershed.
The conference’s theme was cross-biome connections: ecological restoration on a diverse continent. During the week, there were various workshops, field trips, poster sessions, networking opportunities, and presentations. Conference attendees travelled to the event from all over North America.
My presentation was in the session called socio-economic consideration and stewardship. Three other speakers in the session shared their work on Lake Chapala restoration in Mexico, mine impacts in the Yukon Territory, and the Acadian connection to Nova Scotia Dykelands. Hearing about the Acadian connection to restoration ecology was special. My mom’s side of the family has Acadian ancestry.
I was excited to highlight AWC’s Healthy Shorelines Initiative in my presentation. This initiative has various partners collaborating on riparian restoration and community stewardship over the last 5 years. This has led to restoring and conserving 350 acres of riparian areas and wetlands, along with assessments of over 5000 km (about the width of the United States) of shoreline habitat in the Athabasca watershed. I also shared that riparian area assessments have led to community groups and stewardship initiatives. Those groups have been leading community stewardship in the Pembina River watershed and Tawatinaw watershed with water quality monitoring, Christmas bird counts, fish habitat analysis, and native species plantings along riparian habitat.
In addition to the presentations, I attended a workshop on river restoration where I practiced environmental engineering skills and learned more about building basic riffle habitats. I joined two field trips. My favorite field trip was Connecting Water, Ecology, and Community through Green Rainwater Infrastructure. We toured the City of Vancouver; viewing their Green Rainwater Infrastructure as it was pouring down rain. Seeing the rain gardens in action was so cool! It is amazing all the components and people involved in green infrastructure in such a busy city. Another field trip was to Burns Bog, the largest raised peat bog on the West Coast of North America. Burns Bog is currently 8,600 acres; however, historically, it would have been around 12,100 acres.
Another great part of the conference was meeting so many other restoration ecologists. I was lucky to meet folks from Forest Canada working on tree planting and forest stewardship in Canada and Alberta. I also had the privilege of meeting World Wildlife Fund representatives that are working on a new program called Mission Restoration. I met the plenary speaker who shared her work with the Central Grasslands Roadmap Initative. This initiative works to conserve grassland ecosystems in Canada, US, and Mexico.
Overall, I had a fun time at this conference. 5-days of learning, networking, field trips, workshops, presentations, and knowledge sharing filled my environmental cup to the brim in an exciting and wonderful way. The next Society of Ecological Restoration Conference will be international and held in Denver, Colorado. See this link for more details, https://ser2025.org/. The call for abstracts is open until January 30th, 2025.
