My consulting and research have involved studies of plants, vegetation, landforms, watersheds and land use. I have worked in temperate and tropical rainforests, boreal and hardwood forests, arctic and alpine tundra, wetlands and prairies.

My experience includes pipeline, petrochemical, mineral and recreational development projects, impact assessment studies, species and landscape management, economic development and work with parks and protected areas.

Some major topics have been:

• Ecotourism
• Ecosystem Services
• Ecological Restoration and Invasive Species
• Adaptive Ecosystem Management and Project Management
• Environmental Assessment

Ecotourism

Ecotourism and appreciation for nature are means for education, protection of natural areas and economic development, often simultaneously. I have worked with design, implementation and staff training for a variety of ecotourism, natural history interpretation and museum exhibit projects in Canada, Belize, Nigeria, Haiti and the United States.

A tour guide leads visitors on a canopy walkway in Cross River State, Nigeria

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Goods and Services are those elements of the environment that provide benefits to people. Using them as a management tool is a relatively new approach. Projects I’ve worked on have identified, described or provided non-market estimates of the values of ecosystem services from water, wetlands and agricultural lands.

Diagram summarizing an analysis of key ecosystem services and their relationships in agricultural lands in southern British Columbia, with most important factors in red.

Ecological Restoration and Invasive Species

I have worked on a variety of projects from the reclamation of lands seriously disturbed by mineral development to efforts to return areas disrupted by invasive species to an approximation of the pre-invaded ecosystem.

Removing an extensive invasion by English Ivy using the ‘carpet roll’ technique

Adaptive Ecosystem Management and Project Management

I work on tools that organize environmental management programs to increase understanding and efficiency, including conceptual modeling, project management and management systems.

Diagram showing mechanisms for integrating ideas about ecosystem services (blue boxes) among stakeholders within a feedback-based adaptive management process (green boxes).

 

Environmental Assessment

Environmental assessment is a common task in a variety of contexts. As the environmental coordinator of a mineral development group and as a consultant I worked on many kinds of assessment and related management projects. I have worked on impact assessment projects for mineral development, pipeline, petrochemical and residential development projects and with assessments of the ecosystem services associated with wetlands and agricultural lands.