Grants and Contributions

Project will use participatory action research to explore with these communities how fuel break food forests can integrate Indigenous land stewardship and sustainable agriculture that works with boreal ecosystems into critical wildfire protection infrastructure. Further, this project seeks to share knowledge between Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation, Teslin Tlingit Council, and other communities interested in exploring this co-benefit for successful fuel break food forests across the north.

The project objectives are to analyse historic ship traffic throughout Inuit Nunangat, to model ship source underwater noise near communities, conduct in-situ sampling of potential ship-sourced air and water pollution, evaluate potential for non-indigenous species introduction from ships, and to develop risk maps and recommendations for shipping governance.

The project aims to characterize present and future cyanobacteria risks (e.g., field surveys and bioassays), as well as historical perspectives to reconstruct long-term records of environmental change (e.g., paleolimnology). Examining lakes with varying morphologies and underlying permafrost conditions can aid in understanding different lake sensitivities to cyanobacteria blooms in northern environments.

The project aims to identify current whale core-use areas and the contributing ocean and noise conditions, they will use an autonomous underwater vehicle, called a glider, to collect ocean and acoustic data in the eastern Beaufort Sea.

This project will use Geotechnical Seismic Isolation techniques, remote sensing and community-based monitoring to map and understand the vulnerabilities of coastal communities. This project will work synergistically with community monitors focusing on sharing knowledge, to create programs that can collect quality data into the future and ensure the long-term value of the programs.

The Department of Environment and the Government of Nunavut will conduct a telemetry study on wolves with tracking collars within both the Qamanirjuaq (migratory) and Northeast Mainland (tundra wintering) caribou ecotypes and annual ranges, in order to understand wolf movements within and between caribou herds, predator-prey interaction, demography (survival and recruitment) and seasonal cycles in predatory behavior. These management activities will assess whether the relative stability of the Qamanirjuaq herd can be correlated to the more intensive wolf harvest measures undertaken on this herds’ range and whether these removal measures will have a biologically positive or negative effect on the long- term health, productivity, and abundance of both the Qamanirjuaq herd and the wolf populations, the latter being a key-stone species in wildlife ecosystems.

This project addresses a fundamental knowledge gap about the effects of permafrost thaw on northern aquatic systems by advancing a geologically-based framework for characterizing and classifying permafrost-affected lakes. The project, led by Aurora Research Institute in partnership with Northwest Territories Geological Survey, was codeveloped with Indigenous organizations and aims to sample over 200 lakes affected by permafrost degradation in the Northwest Territories to assess stability of lake basins, catchment area, hydrological processes, sediment and geochemical fluxes. Results will contribute to the needs of the Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, Łı´ı´dlııKu˛´ ˛e´, K’asho Got’ın˛e, and Yellowknives Dene First Nations, the Gwich'in Land Use Planning Board and the Inuvaluit Land Administration, with opportunity to scale up and apply the study design concept to permafrost-affected lakes in Nunavut and Nunavik, as part of a longer-term climate change monitoring study.

The Thermokarst Mapping Collective project is led by Northwest Territories Geological Survey in partnership with Aurora Research Institute. This project maps detailed classifications of thermokarst and permafrost thaw features across the Northwest Territories landscape for dynamic change monitoring. Investment and collaboration in this study supports a future opportunity to scale up and apply the study design concept to Nunavut and Nunavik for large-scale climate change monitoring across Canada's North, so as to improve Canadian models to predict the effects of climate change and to enhance mitigation and adaptation.

This project will document the history and impacts of the oil industry at Norman Wells in order to support Sahtú Dene and Métis participation in closure and reclamation of the Norman Wells oilfields and strengthen present and future Indigenous roles in monitoring, stewardship, and decision-making. A key priority is to achieve certainty about water and food security, including access to clean drinking water, fisheries, and tǫdzı (boreal caribou).

The Wilfrid Laurier University research team along with staff and students from the Environment and Natural Resources Technology Program at Aurora College’s Thebacha Campus in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, will evaluate how pre-fire forest conditions mediate forest resilience in the face of megafire events. These activities aim to remeasure the burned permanent plots to advance understanding of the impact of pre-fire conditions on post-fire outcomes, notably for caribou lichen and soil carbon combustion; and to establish a network of new forest monitoring plots in the burned forests around Fort Smith and Tsu Lake camp. In its collaboration in training college students in fire ecology research methods, this research project will establish a research and monitoring infrastructure for the college’s Environment and Natural Resources Technology Program and support its transition to a polytechnic university.