Overview
The Cooperative Resource Management Institute (CRMI) was established in
1998 to facilitate interactions between SFU researchers and personnel
in environmental management agencies. It is located on the Burnaby
Mountain campus of Simon
Fraser University (SFU), Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
The CRMI helps to develop solutions to difficult multidisciplinary
problems in resource management by providing an environment where
personnel from different agencies, such as those responsible for
forestry, fisheries, water, and wildlife management, can collaborate
with SFU faculty, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and
research associates. The CRMI houses personnel from selected resource
management agencies, coordinates joint research projects, and offers
occasional professional development courses to upgrade skills of agency
staff.
The Institute produces many benefits. The university benefits from
greater concentration of expertise in resource management on campus and
from new opportunities for multidisciplinary, collaborative research
programs. Agencies benefit from engaging SFU researchers in projects
that are directly applicable to the agencies’ needs and that cover
topics that otherwise might not be investigated.
The CRMI has two types of members: personnel from natural resource
management agencies, and SFU faculty. The faculty are based in various
schools and departments, including the School of Resource and Environmental Management
(REM), and the Departments of Biological Sciences, Earth Sciences, and Statistics and
Actuarial Science. The federal department of Fisheries
and Oceans Canada (DFO) is a management agency that has located
several of its Salmon Assessment and Freshwater Ecosystem Division staff
full time on campus in the CRMI. At the end of 2006, the Forum for Research and Extension in Natural Resources (FORREX) joined the CRMI as a collaborator.
The current Director of the CRMI is Sean Cox (phone 778 782-5778); E-mail sean_cox@sfu.ca.
Management Agencies in the Cooperative Resource Management Institute
Two management agencies currently have collaborative agreements with the
Cooperative Resource Management Institute at Simon Fraser University:
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and the Forum for Research and Extension in Natural Resources (FORREX).
Salmon Assessment and Freshwater Ecosystem Division, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)
This section of the DFO carries out research and provides advice relating to freshwater habitat and fisheries resources within Canada’s Pacific
region. The groups activitie’s include:
- Designing experiments and developing databases pertaining to ecological processes in lakes, rivers, and streams of western Canada,
- Examining the effects of natural and anthropogenic activities on watersheds that provide habitat for fishery resources,
- Developing partnerships with resource stakeholders and research agencies (university and government) to enhance experimental opportunities and encourage community acceptance of research
information, and
- Communicating research results and research skills to the international science community through publication, conference attendance, student supervision, and lectures.
Much of the group’s research is designed to investigate the effects on salmonids and their habitats of:
- Timber harvesting,
- Mining,
- Pulp mill effluents,
- Agriculture,
- Urbanization,
- Water withdrawal,
- Energy generation,
- Aquaculture
In this context, these DFO researchers collaborate with students and
faculty in the Fisheries
Science and Management Research Group at SFU. Staff provide expert
advice to the public, resource managers, industrial stakeholders, and
other scientific agencies through public hearings, court cases,
management referrals, affidavits, scientific publications, and
extension activities.
Forum for Research and Extension in Natural Resources (FORREX)
The Forum for Research and Extension in Natural Resources (FORREX) is a British Columbia-based charitable non-share corporation, founded in 1998 to help people develop science and knowledge-based solutions to complex natural resource challenges. Through the contributions of staff, partners and donors, FORREX links people to knowledge, and facilitates continuous innovation and improvement in natural resource policy and management – practices that greatly influence the ecological, social, and economic well-being of our communities. FORREX believes that knowledge can make the greatest difference when it is shared, empowering people to make more informed decisions.
FORREX's goals are to…
* Integrate science, indigenous knowledge and natural resource management to promote sustainable ecosystem management practices.
* Establish long-term investments in learning about managing our natural resources by developing an infrastructure to:
- Identify needs,
- Build research and extension partnerships,
- Share and manage information, and
- Evaluate outcomes.
* Build their learning capacity through the effective use of research, technology and knowledge transfer and extension education.
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