Climate change adaptation workshops

Parks Canada's report on conservation from 2018 to 2023

Conservation priority
Climate change
Location
Canada

Since 2017, climate change adaptation discussions have taken place across the country, bringing Parks Canada team members, Indigenous partners, and collaborators together to reflect on climate change trends and projections, assess vulnerabilities and risks, and identify adaptation strategies.

The results of these workshops are informing the conservation and protection of natural and cultural heritage, as well as infrastructure, in the face of climate change.

Project highlights

  • Co-developed a Climate Change Adaptation Framework for Parks and Protected Areas with the Canadian Parks Council
  • Led 19 climate change adaptation workshops across the country
An aerial view of a vast wetland landscape with numerous small lakes and patches of forest.

Protected areas, like the wetlands and delta marshes of Wood Buffalo National Park shown here, play an important role in helping to address the impacts of climate change. Photo: R.D. Muir/Parks Canada

Climate change adaptation

A burned forest landscape with a stand of charred trees and a forest floor of green regenerating vegetation.
In Terra Nova National Park, a forest slowly recovers from a wildfire. Climate change could increase the frequency and impacts of storms and wildfires. Photo: Parks Canada
A section of a paved road has collapsed, leaving a large gap in the road. There is forest on either side of the road, and the sky is grey. An eroded shoreline has collapsed trees into a body of water, and exposed tree roots along the bank.
Erosion after a storm in Terra Nova National Park. Photo: Parks Canada

Climate change adaptation is the process of adjusting and preparing for the various impacts, opportunities and challenges brought about by climate change. It involves taking proactive measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems to the effects of the changing climate. A range of adaptation strategies should be considered, including those that resist, accept, and direct change. At Parks Canada, climate change adaptation is a complex, critical, and time-sensitive activity.

The Boreal Plains Climate Change Adaptation Workshop

Participating parks

Elk Island National Park, Prince Albert National Park, Riding Mountain National Park and Wood Buffalo National Park in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta

An aerial view of a vast wetland ecosystem with interconnected lakes and rivers surrounded by lush green forests.
The Boreal Plains are a mosaic of muskeg, meandering streams, shallow lakes and bogs, and boreal forest, exemplified here in Prince Albert National Park. Photo: Louis Barnes/Parks Canada
A White-tailed Deer standing alert in a grassy clearing, surrounded by autumn foliage and trees.
Common trees in the boreal forest include white spruce, jack pine, trembling aspen, and balsam fir, which provide important habitat to a multitude of species, like this White-tailed Deer in Elk Island National Park. Photo: Parks Canada

Workshop highlights

  • 22 regional partners participated in the workshop
  • 4 national parks across 3 provinces were included

In 2020, Parks Canada hosted the Boreal Plains Climate Change Adaptation Workshop. The workshop used the adaptation framework - a 5-step, iterative, scalable, and adaptable process, to guide the exploration of climate change adaptation strategies for the Boreal Plains ecozone. Multiple national parks sit in this ecozone, which extends east from Peace River in British Columbia, through central Alberta and Saskatchewan to the southeastern corner of Manitoba.

A panoramic view of a lush green valley with rolling hills, a winding road, and a clear blue sky with a few billowy clouds.
The boreal forest along the Gorge Creek Trail of Riding Mountain National Park. Photo: Scott Munn/Parks Canada

This 3-day intensive workshop brought together Parks Canada team members, members of the Coalition of First Nations with Interests in Riding Mountain National Park, Métis Nation of Alberta, Prince Albert Grand Council, federal and provincial governments, academia, and environmental non-governmental organizations. The participants drew on the knowledge and experience from across the region, taking a collaborative approach to share information and improve collective understanding.

The workshop centered on 5 key natural heritage themes common to the Elk Island National Park, Prince Albert National Park, Riding Mountain National Park, Wood Buffalo National Park: forests, freshwater, grasslands, wildlife, and wildfire management. Participants considered climate change related threats and prioritized the possible impacts on ecosystems, species, and people. The collaborators applied a regional focus to assess vulnerabilities and risks to the ecological integrity of the four parks and evaluated adaptation strategies relevant across the boreal plains landscape.

Outcomes

People in protective jackets and helmets clear the logs of recently felled trees in a newly created forest clearing.
Parks Canada’s fire management team work on a fuel break in Riding Mountain National Park. Photo: Sophie Deschamps/Parks Canada

Parks Canada has begun to implement selected priority actions identified in the workshop to help ecosystems adapt to climate change and to make park communities more resilient. These include working towards increasing the connectivity of habitats to enhance the resilience of species impacted by climate change, and expanding and maintaining fuel breaks to protect communities where human development meets the natural environment.

A headshot photo of Dr. Elizabeth Nelson in a Parks Canada uniform.
“The opportunity to explore climate impacts and adaptation strategies at the landscape scale along with such a diverse group of rights and knowledge holders was so powerful – I felt like we were able to explore such a wide variety of climate-smart conservation solutions with so many voices in the room.”
—Dr. Elizabeth Nelson, Science Advisor, Parks Canada

Learn more

Related links

Date modified :