Congratulations to Dr. Loren McClenachan!

Congratulations Dr. McLenachan!

Loren McClenachan, Canada Research Chair in Ocean History and Sustainability, and Gerald Singh, Ocean Nexus Chair of Global Change and Sustainable Development, have been awarded $120,000 for their project “Learning from the past to adapt to an uncertain future in BC's coastal communities.”

Their goal is to collaborate with communities to develop locally appropriate plans for adapting to environmental stressors such as declining fisheries and climate-induced changes.

"Learning what local people have tried in the past can generate options that might be contextually relevant and tied to local identity," says Singh. "Through trialing these options in simulations of projected future change, we can evaluate them against a range of possibilities, essentially 'future-proofing' them."

With remote field work and video meetings, they’ll integrate oral history, local ecological knowledge, modern community priorities and historical adaptations to environmental change.

Then, using an innovative combination of video conferencing, computing and interactive simulations– where real people can make decisions in simulated environments and see the potential consequences – the researchers will stress-test adaptation options against uncertain environmental changes.

“We hope that by collaborating with communities and looking for solutions over long time scales,” says McClenachan, “we’ll produce evidence-based, relevant results to guide policies that impact coastal ecosystem health and food security.”