Exploring place-based, historically-grounded and community-led solutions to local environmental challenges requires attention to myriad cultural, social and ecological considerations. It also necessitates co-developed research collaborations, including knowledge co-development produced from different worldviews to inform ethical practice.
Currently, we are focussing on human-environment relationships in the fire-adapted landscapes of British Columbia. This work includes both identifying community-based solutions for wildfire preparedness, as well as collaborative and decolonizing research paradigms to support Indigenous and community-led restoration (and resource management) initiatives. For the latter, one research avenue is a collaborative landscape history co-developed by Indigenous Elders, forest managers, archaeologists, and researchers in an area of wildland-urban interface currently being managed for wildfire mitigation. Our work is also seeking to examine how collaborative research and Indigenous-led restoration initiatives can restore both ecological and cultural values in fire-affected landscapes. Collectively, this work is aligned with and contributes towards helping to create space for Indigenous-led land stewardship, including through Indigenous governance systems, and in the spirit of reconciliation.
Insights arising from these co-developed and collaborative initiatives are contributing to the ongoing innovative and resilient responses arising from Indigenous peoples and local communities despite the ongoing impacts of colonial industrial approaches to land and fire management.
Photo: Sarah Dickson-Hoyle
Current projects and collaborations:
Wildfire: Community-based solutions to a wicked problem (2017-2020) Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies – Community Solutions Grant. Co-Investigator (with Lori Daniels).
Restor(y)ing fire-adapted landscapes: landscape change, Indigenous co-management and restoration in Secwepemcúl’ecw
Future Forests Fellowship // Sarah Dickson Hoyle Bio
Wildfire in a dynamic ecocultural landscape
Public Scholars // Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz Bio
Key outputs:
Copes-Gerbitz, K., Dickson-Hoyle, S., Hagerman, S. and Daniels, L. BC Community Forest Perspectives and Engagement in Wildfire Management. Report to the Union of BC Municipalities, First Nations’ Emergency Services Society, BC Community Forest Association and BC Wildfire Service. September 2020. 49 pp.
Ravensbergen, S., Copes-Gerbitz, K., Dickson-Hoyle, S, Hagerman, S. and Daniels, L. 2020. Community views on wildfire risk and preparedness in the wildland-urban interface. Report to the Union of BC Municipalities, First Nations’ Emergency Services Society, BC Community Forest Association and BC Wildfire Service. February 2020. 32pp.
Daniels, L.D., Hagerman, S. and S. Ravensbergen. 2018. Wildfire Prevention and Fuels Management in the Wildland-Urban Interface: BC Community Perceptions. Report to the Union of BC Municipalities, First Nations’ Emergency Services Society, BC Community Forest Association and BC Wildfire Service. 30 pp.