The BEACONs Project

The Canadian BEACONs Project was founded in recognition of the need for a “made in Canada” approach to conservation planning in Canada’s boreal region. Originally established at the University of Alberta in 2003, the team includes members from Laval University, Simon Fraser University, and University of Ottawa.

As one of the most intact ecosystems remaining in the world, Canada’s boreal offers the opportunity to move away from reactive conservation planning and fundamentally shift the way we approach conservation. Rather than default to the classic model of protected areas embedded in a largely hostile landscape, the BEACONs Project offers a vision of pro-active conservation planning for relatively intact systems called the Conservation-Matrix Model. Rather than addressing "how much is enough?" with regards to protection, this model addresses "how much is too much?" with regards to human development on the landscape. It combines the strength of systematic planning for reserves with the systematic process of adaptive resource management, resulting in integrated conservation planning over large regions.

The Conservation-Matrix Model is a broad conceptual framework for the design of ecological networks to facilitate biodiversity, conservation, and sustainable use. An appropriately designed reserve network can play a fundamental role in contributing to a scientific framework for addressing questions of ecological sustainability by providing benchmarks against which management activities are evaluated. To date, much of BEACONs’ research has focused on the design of ecological benchmarks for terrestrial and aquatic conservation planning. This includes the development of a suite of software tools (BEACONs Toolbox) for the design, selection, and evaluation of ecological benchmarks and reserve networks.

Tangible examples for large-scale conservation planning of intact systems exist in boreal Canada. The establishment of cooperative agreements among industry and environmental leaders (e.g., Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement), increasing incentives to achieve environmental certification (e.g., Forest Stewardship Certification), Government commitments to boreal protection (e.g., Plan Nord, Ontario Far North), and the leadership of First Nations, provide the impetus for policy and institutional reform, and offer tangible opportunities for proactive implementation of the Conservation-Matrix Model to achieve ecological sustainability across Canada's boreal region.

To learn more about the BEACONs project and the BEACONs Toolbox, visit www.beaconsproject.ca.