How Does Forestry Operate in Forest Dependent Communities?

We return this week to our conversation with Executive Director Katie Morrison and Conservation Science & Programs Manager Josh Killeen of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s (CPAWS) Southern Alberta Chapter.
Last week they painted the landscape of Alberta’s headwaters for us. We learned about the incredible value of this region to the wildlife, species, and many communities (across the continent!) who depend on them. This week we explore some of the challenges these lands are facing in greater depth. How does the underlying approach to forest management make it difficult for protection? What is the government’s role? And what are the opportunities, particularly unique to this landscape, that could result in better outcomes for all?

Learn more about Josh and Katie's work on the CPAWS Southern Alberta Chapter's website and support a future for the Highwood here.

Make sure to check out the show notes on the podcast webpage for more links and helpful resources.

You can help this community grow by sharing the podcast with your friends.

Support the show

https://wildlandsleague.org/theclearcut/

Episode Transcript

Jan Sumner (00:00):
Welcome to the Clear Cut.
Hi, I'm Janet Sumner, ExecutiveDirector at Wildlands League.

Kaya Adleman (00:08):
And I'm Kaya Adelman, Carbon Manager at
Wildlands League.

Jan Sumner (00:14):
Wildlands League is a Canadian conservation
organization working onprotecting the natural world.

Kaya Adleman (00:21):
The Clear Cut is bringing to you the much needed
conversation on Canadian forestmanagement and how we can better
protect one of Canada's mostimportant ecosystems, as our
forests are reaching a tippingpoint.
Okay, jan, we're back with thesecond part of our conversation

(00:45):
with Katie Morrison and JoshKilleen of the Canadian Parks
and Wilderness Society'sSouthern Alberta chapter.
I really enjoyed last week'sepisode.
It was great to be out inAlberta, at least virtually or
through a story and throughconversation.
So if you're just tuning intothis episode, last week we had a

(01:06):
conversation about theheadwaters in Southern Alberta,
some of the issues with forestryand the endangered species,
specifically the endangeredtrout species that they're
working to conserve, and some ofthe challenges that this
particular 50-kilometer stretchof forest is facing from

(01:28):
industrial land use, and thisweek's episode gets a little bit
more into the meat and potatoesof those challenges.
I don't want to give too muchaway, but definitely some very
illuminating thoughts and ideasthat come from this conversation
and I'm excited to get into it.

Jan Sumner (01:49):
Yes, one of the things I like about this episode
is we're not focusing oncaribou.
Caribou is a wide-rangingspecies that goes from the Yukon
to Newfoundland and it overlapswith much of the forestry in
the boreal.
This is south of that and thisis trout country.
And I really love how they haveto think about conservation in

(02:13):
a different context, because itis about how the human
activities are interacting orintersecting with the natural
world and then what we think weknow, and then we create
policies and then those policiesaren't actually reacting in the
natural world in the way thatwe thought we knew.

(02:34):
And so katie and josh really laythis out, and it's an important
reminder that we have to behumble, that we don't
necessarily know as much as wethink we do.
I mean that's evidenced by thefact that we don't necessarily
know as much as we think we do.
I mean that's evidenced by thefact that we had 100 years of
fire suppression in forestry andwe did that because we thought,
oh well, we're going tosuppress the fire so that we can

(02:54):
go in and cut what didn't burn,and that only built up the
actual fuel for the megafiresthat are happening now.
So sometimes we just don't knowwhat we don't know, actual fuel
for the mega fires that arehappening now.
So it's sometimes our.
We just don't know what wedon't know, and so this is a
cautionary approach.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and I likeyour reference to the meat and

(03:15):
potatoes, because this is meatand potatoes country.

Josh Killeen (03:17):
Oh, yeah, definitely 100%.

Jan Sumner (03:22):
Lots of cattle grazing, all right, here we go
to maximize the available supplyof timber.
The cubic meters is the unitthat's used often.

(03:54):
It's something that'sguaranteed and the company has a
right to go after that.
And then what happens is we sitdown at a table and say, oh
well, we've got these otherrequirements and you have to
plan for that.
Sit down at a table and say, ohwell, we've got these other
requirements and you have toplan for that, and you have to
kind of adjust.
Maybe you know, move yourharvest blocks this way or that
way or sequence them differentlyor various other things.
And that's how governments andindustry try to make up for this

(04:21):
fiber first approach and try toincorporate or integrate some
of it.
What are some of the thingsthat get argued for here or that
have to be addressed in thislandscape?
And not necessarily fully,because you're starting with a
fiber first mentality.
But once you start to sit downand plan and you're going in and

(04:41):
you're going to clear cut is itfull tree harvesting?
Do they do anything differentin terms of the amount?
Has it decreased?
You know what are some of theingredients that would make up a
plan that might incorporatesome of these things.

Josh Killeen (04:58):
Yeah, that's a great and complex question, I
think.

Jan Sumner (05:01):
Yeah, of course it is.

Josh Killeen (05:05):
I think one thing is that we have to kind of
recognize that sometimes ourgoals for timber supply are too
ambitious for the ecosystem thatwe're taking our timber from
and that we simply can't take asmuch timber as we are and
maintain these ecosystems.
I think that always has to be astarting point in these

(05:27):
conversations, but it's oftennot, for the reasons that I
think you've described a littlebit there, that there's this
assumption that the timbersupply must be obtained, the
mill must be fed and that mustincrease over time, time we must
increase shareholder value andso on, and that puts us in a

(05:47):
very difficult position whenthat conversation isn't even
really on the table often and weend up in the place that you're
describing, where we'renegotiating over small changes
to the boundaries of a clear cutor moving a clear cut from one
year to five years from now, butthat isn't enough to change

(06:13):
what's happening to theseecosystems.
So you know, in some cases Ithink that there is value in
making those changes to certaincuts and they can be beneficial
and we can see some incrementalprogress.
But I think when we look atsomewhere like the highway, that
just doesn't make sense.
Its value is so high from theseother perspectives and honestly

(06:37):
, its timber value is quite lowthat I think we make a mistake
to start having discussions likethat when the one we should be
having is is this even asensible idea to be doing
clear-cut harvesting there, orshould we not be doing that at
all?

Jan Sumner (06:53):
How accessible is it ?
Is it something that you talkedabout highway access?
Is this something I know?
The road network in Alberta isreally quite extensive, both the
official roads and theunofficial roads.

Josh Killeen (07:08):
Yeah, this is a particularly accessible place
because it's on a major, veryclose to a major paved highway,
and so it's somewhere that a lotof people recreate, that a lot
of people see when they'redriving, and that has kind of
made it very high profile.
And it's actually, you know,there's many areas across the

(07:29):
region which have these kinds ofissues, but this is a
particularly high profile onewhich makes it really important
from the perspective of raisingawareness of these issues and
trying to make changes.

Katie Morrison (07:43):
And I was going to add as well and it's kind of
lost me for a moment now I'llcome back, I can jump in because
I think you know it's one ofone of the other sort of unique
or different things aboutforestry in in the region that
we work in is that, um, it isvery accessible um and very
highly used by many of thecommunities you.

(08:04):
You know not just Calgary, thiscity of 1.3 million people or
whatever we're at now, but a lotof you know small communities
that live and work and play inthis region.
So it's, I think, less easy forforestry companies to get away
with things, or it's much moreobvious to people what the

(08:28):
impact of forestry on thislandscape is, because they're
out there all the time and youknow, in contrast to many
communities in the north, a lotof these communities are forest
dependent communities are forestdependent.
They rely on the forest, foryou know the ecosystem services

(08:49):
for um, you know air, water,recreation, livelihood, um, but
they're not forestry dependentcommunities.
They're not.
They're not working for themill or working um in in the
forest sector.
So they're, they're feeling theimpacts but but not seeing or
not getting the benefits.
So I think it creates adifferent dynamic but also a

(09:13):
real opportunity for thesecommunities to get quite engaged
.
And so you know, I think whenyou asked the work that we do
earlier and I kind of justdescribed all the problems do
earlier and I kind of justdescribed all the problems.
One of the key roles that weplay in all of those pieces is,
you know, providing that scienceand landscape knowledge and,

(09:34):
you know, being able to andpolicy, being able to look at
all these complexities in detail, but also supporting these
grassroots communities that youknow up and down the slopes want
to be engaged in forestrybecause they're seeing the
impacts and so they often cometo us for support, and in both
getting that sort of landscapeknowledge, but also in how to

(09:57):
mobilize and how to push backyou know on government policy
and on forest operating plans.

Jan Sumner (10:11):
So if these species some of them are endangered or
threatened, we have a federallaw, we have the Species at Risk
Act.
Is there not something and youknow, I say this with an
abundance of experience ofhaving worked in Alberta to say

(10:33):
that the federal governmentshould use its laws to intervene
in Alberta is like a huge Iknow on caribou, and we've
talked at great length about howthe species at risk act is not
being enforced.
It does apply, but it's notbeing applied in a way that will
protect caribou.
So what's the state of playhere with these various fish

(10:55):
species that and I'm assumingthere are other species that are
threatened because of theseactions as well?
So it's like what the heck?

Katie Morrison (11:04):
I mean as well.
So it's like what the heck I'vebeen waiting to jump into this
rant, janet.
So you know we talked aboutthese being aquatic species.
They're living in, you know,sometimes relatively small
streams and up to you know,slightly bigger rivers, but it's
this really large network ofnetwork of the entire

(11:25):
hydrological system in theseeastern slopes.
So there are these tinyrivulets of water that, as
they're seeping out of thatforest floor that has been
stored through that snow melt,and that seep keeps dripping
into these little rivulets andthey start to get bigger and
bigger and they drip into, youknow, a slightly bigger stream

(11:49):
and it's that whole system ofwater in that landscape that
creates that habitat.
It creates the clean waterbecause it's being filtered.
You know, in that forest floorit's cold because it's been
underground, it's coming off atthe right times.
So that is what creates that,that that habitat, so that whole

(12:11):
system is, is small c criticalhabitat.
Um, for for these species it isessential that that entire
system is functioning to supportthese species at risk.
When the species, species werelisted and the government got
around to, the federalgovernment got around to

(12:32):
identifying big C criticalhabitat, so critical habitat
that is defined in legislationas the habitat that is essential
for these species to surviveand legally protected.
They did it in a way that isalmost impossible to enforce,
rather than you know for manyspecies.
They sort of draw lines on themap and say you know, this area

(12:55):
is critical habitat.
Here's the restrictions thatyou know.
You cannot destroy criticalhabitat within this area, which
you know is much easier toenforce, much easier to grasp
With these native trout species.
What they've done is describeda series of habitat

(13:15):
characteristics that could makeup the critical habitat within
this network of streams.
So they call the entire networkpotential critical habitat and
then the legally protectedcritical habitat are areas where
some of these habitatcharacteristics exist.

(13:36):
It's not a defined list.
It could be one of them, itcould be all 12 of them or
anywhere in between, and there'snot really a good way of
defining that.
I always say it's like kind ofjust a gut check.
You go and look and be like Ithink that feels like critical
habitat, um, and and that's, andnot only that.

(13:58):
But it is then up to adevelopment proponent, a forest
company company, mining company,pipeline company, to do that
assessment themselves, determinewhether, based on this vague
list of criteria, criticalhabitat exists in the area that
they are going to be working in?

(14:20):
And if they think it exists,they then tell DFO that they
think critical habitat existsand they will apply for a permit
to destroy critical habitat.
So, if these characteristicsexist, it's the water course
with those characteristics, plusa 30 meter buffer on the

(14:42):
riparian, because the riparianis what you know, produces food,
it controls runoff, it controlstemperature, but it's this like
super complex, like almost likeunidentifiable, vague
description of critical habitat.
And so we see, you know, timeand again, um, that it is not

(15:09):
being identified as criticalhabitat.
And actually I'll tell you astory.
You know, this highwood placewhich, um, we talked about, is
right on this, right next to ahighway in kananaskis country,
which is a high recreational usearea.
I was out last summer fishingthe Highwood River, driving back

(15:30):
past this area which we hadalready identified that was
planned to be cut, and drivingalong and, you know, took a look
over because you know we'd bepaying attention to it, and
there was a bridge over theriver and I was, like you know,
slam on the brakes, stop andlook, because they didn't have a
permit to build a bridge overthe Highwood River and destroy

(15:54):
that critical habitat on eitherside of the stream.
We knew that they didn't have apermit We'd been checking yet
the bridge went ahead and wasbuilt and I think that's just
one of those examples of becauseof the location of some of
these things.
You know, if that had been farin the back country, in an area
that no one went, no one wouldhave seen that, no one would
have reported it, it never wouldhave come to attention.

(16:17):
But because it's an area thatpeople can actually see and pay
attention to, you know there wasa few other people around that
time that brought that to us.
There was my rant, josh.
Anything I missed on that.

Jan Sumner (16:32):
That's a great rant and I'll let Josh go, but I am
going to have a follow-upquestion on that, and then I'm
going to let Kaya go onsomething I want her to explore.

Josh Killeen (16:42):
Well, I just wanted to add about all those
critical habitat definitionsthat Katie was describing.
It kind of boggles the mindwhen you try to understand them.
It just seems so overly complex.
And when I started sort oflearning about this and
increasing my understanding ofthis issue, I spent many days
reading through all of thesedocuments trying to understand

(17:06):
what it was that was differentabout the way this definition
had been made.
And it was so strange to me andI kept going back to Katie and
I was like Katie, are you sureit's like this?
Because it just doesn't makesense, like it can't be like
this.
But no, it absolutely was.
And it's just this set ofdefinitions which has created so
much ambiguity and so much of alack of clarity around what

(17:29):
needs to be protected by theSpecies at Risk Act that it's
become almost unenforceable andthat's leading to so many of
these issues that Katie wasdescribing that Katie was
describing.

Jan Sumner (17:44):
Yeah, so I want to just put in Katie used the
acronym DFO, that's Departmentof Fisheries and Oceans.
It's the federal departmentthat enforces the Species at
Risk Act in the water.
So, since it's so difficult todefine where a critical habitat

(18:06):
is and I think Katie said it'sthe proponent, it's the industry
user of that landscape who hasto say, hey, this area here
where I was going to harvest, iscritical habitat, so I need a
permit to be able to go aheadand harvest.
Permit to be able to go aheadand harvest.

(18:29):
Um, that, and I I don't want tosay that I'm cynical, but let's
just say how many industriesput up their hand and say I've
got critical habitat here, youneed to come and work with me
because, um, it's, it's actually, you know, I need to stay out
of it, or or I'm going to need apermit or something like.
Like, if it's, if this is socomplex and difficult to
navigate, have they definedanywhere in Southern Alberta as

(18:50):
critical habitat?
Like, is it?
Does it exist even?

Katie Morrison (18:54):
Yeah, Good question I'm trying to think of,
you know, like, because it'snot, it's not proactively
defined, and so when you say,have they defined anywhere, you
know, we might not even know.
You know, one of the thingsthat we've been trying to figure
out is is and I'll get Josh ina second to talk about how many

(19:15):
permits are issued to forestrycompanies.
Issued to forestry companies,um, but unless a permit is
issued, then we don't know if itexisted or if, if someone
applied for a permit and wasrejected, um, we, we don't know
that there's.
There's no way of us knowingthat, because it's only the
approved permits that are postedum, and and it is then up to if

(19:39):
it's, you know, if the industrydoesn't bring it forward, it is
up to citizens or you knowother um folks sort of
watchdogging uh to to bringthese forward and generally
retro, retroactively, which Ithink is the other piece that's
really um, difficult andconcerning in this, which I

(20:00):
think is the other piece that'sreally difficult and concerning
in this If critical habitat isdamaged and the company hasn't
got a permit, that can bereported and DFO can investigate
, but I can't proactively tellDFO.

(20:21):
I think this area that I thinkis critical habitat is
threatened.
When I say I can't do that, Ido all the time.
We send letters to DFO all thetime saying we've looked at this
forest plan, this explorationplan, this, you know, whatever
development plan, and we thinkthis area, which we believe is
critical habitat, is going to bedestroyed or damaged.

(20:42):
What DFO comes back with tothat response is we haven't
heard from the proponent, sowe're going to assume it's not,
until they come to us and tellus that it is.
If they don't and it'sdestroyed, they'll investigate
after, but by then it's too late, by then the damage is done.
If they don't and it'sdestroyed, they'll investigate
after, but by then it's too late, by then the damage is done.

Josh Killeen (21:08):
So it's this, you know, like broken system upon
broken system of actuallygetting that critical habitat
protected, and so maybe I'll letJosh talk about, you know how
many permits forestry is gettingin this region and maybe why
that is happening or not, as thecase may be.
Yeah, so you kind of mentionedat the start China, that I'm a
little bit of a computer geeksometimes, so one thing that I

(21:28):
have been working on is tryingto look at how often some of the
places where we believe thereto be critical habitat have been
impacted by forestry in thepast few years since the
recovery strategies wereproduced for these species, and
what we are seeing from that isthat it's quite regular.

(21:50):
There's a lot of road building,a lot of crossings built over
streams and creeks, which arealmost certainly critical
habitat, and there are alsoharvest blocks coming very close
and sometimes even over some ofthe very small streams that
also have a big influence, andso it definitely seems like
there's a consistent pattern ofloss of critical habitat across

(22:14):
the region, and for the mostpart, there aren't many permits
out there on the registry, onthe public registry, where
species at risk permits aresupposed to be made public, and
so that's a real difficult openquestion for us is wow, why is
that happening and what's goingwrong in this system system, and

(22:41):
so that's one of the thingsthat we're trying really hard to
to push to get to the bottom of, to say you know what isn't
working here?
That we're seeing that, eventhough this, this, these species
have been listed under thespecies at risk actor, they're
still losing their habitat andand why is that happening?

Katie Morrison (22:54):
and that's really tricky but I'll I just,
you know chime in on why I thinkit's happening.
You know a partner that we workwith who's a fisheries
biologist but retired, just acitizen did a lobby record

(23:15):
search of what the ForestProducts Association, the
Alberta Forest ProductsAssociation here in Alberta,
which represents the forestindustry their lobby records
towards DFO and in a 12-monthperiod before he did that search
, afpa, the Forest ProductsAssociation, had met with DFO 25

(23:39):
times.
Afpa, the Forest ProductsAssociation, had met with DFO 25
times and in the you know sortof three-year period before that
, another 40 times.
And so, and what they are, whatthe lobby records are stating
is that they're advocating forimplementation of the Species at
Risk Act that recognizes thevalue of forestry on the land

(24:01):
base and balances conservationgoals and socioeconomic impacts.
So you know there is not, youknow, as you mentioned, jan,
there's not incentive for theforest industry to be
identifying critical habitat.
And I think they are workingreally hard to make the case
that the federal government andDFO in particular also should

(24:23):
not be identifying criticalhabitat and protecting critical
habitat because of the impacts,the potential impacts it would
have on the forest industry,which are not insignificant If
we actually put 30 meter bufferson all the critical habitat,
which is actually what needs tobe done to protect these species

(24:44):
at risk.
It would change how we doforestry in this region.
But we can't have both things.
We can't keep going business asusual, pretending that we're
not having these impacts.
If we are actually going toprotect these species, we are

(25:06):
going to need to change how wemanage that landscape, and
particularly from a forestryperspective so if the forest

(25:29):
industry, uh, representatives,are going to dfo and lobbying
you know that many times whatare the?

Kaya Adleman (25:32):
what are the arguments that they're bringing
to government?
And, um, maybe, why, in youropinion, do they not hold any
water?
Pardon my pun.

Josh Killeen (25:42):
Yeah, that's a great question.
One of the key ones that we'veseen being argued extensively is
that the industry often saysthere's no need for the federal
government and the Species atRisk Act to be involved in this,
because Alberta's regulationsalready do a good enough job

(26:03):
involved in this.
Because Alberta's regulationsalready do a good enough job and
we have what's called operatingground rules in Alberta.
So those are regulations thatthe Alberta government has for
the forest industry and theyrequire certain things, like
they sometimes require someriparian buffers on some of
these watercourses in some cases.
And what we often see theindustry arguing is well, what

(26:24):
we have there is good enough, wedon't need to do anything extra
.
And that is just not true.
There's a number of reasons why.
One is very simple that therequirements in those Alberta
regulations don't match therequirements under the Species
at Risk Act for critical habitatas simple as that.

(26:44):
They're simply not the same andthey provide lesser protection.
One of the other key ones isthat they are highly
discretionary.
The operating ground rules inAlberta are ultimately
discretionary.
The companies are sort of heldto meeting the requirements

(27:05):
within them wherever possible,but it's very straightforward
for them to apply for exceptionsfrom those, and that means that
we often see these exceptionshappen and that means even less
protection for these species.
So that's one of the argumentsthat we hear, and you can
understand why that makes usreally, really concerned,

(27:26):
because there's just clearly nocomparison between the strength
of the regulations that Albertais using versus what is required
under the species at risk end.

Jan Sumner (27:38):
Yeah.
So I'm just going to draw ananalogy because this is a very
similar argument that we hear inOntario and in fact I think,
around Canada.
But I'm going to draw a similarcomparison to Ontario.
So we have an EndangeredSpecies Act in Ontario I don't
believe Alberta has one, but wehave one.
So then there's this federalspecies at risk legislation.

(27:58):
So then there's this federalspecies at risk legislation and
every province actually backwhen I think it was in 96, when
the nature accord was signedsaid you know what Federal
government, we don't want youimposing the species at risk act
, we want you to respect ourright to govern.
So we're going to create ourbasically mirror that

(28:18):
legislation in provincial law.
And so provinces said committedto that.
They said we're going to go dothat.
I don't know how many did, Idon't think there were very many
, I think it was.
Maybe it's even only restrictedto Ontario.
But Ontario did an EndangeredSpecies Act and then exempted
forestry, mining and development.
So the Provincial Species atRisk or Endangered Species Act

(28:41):
in Ontario does not.
Those two big provisions of theAct protecting habitat and
prohibiting harm to speciesdon't are not covered for
forestry.
So basically, you're notrequired to do this at a
provincial scale and whathappens is industry has all
these requirements on them.

(29:01):
They have, you know, we have tohave set-asides, we have to,
you know, make sure that wemanage for certain species.
We have to kind of maybe drawan area where we don't do this
or we don't do that.
But these are all requirements.
They aren't legal mechanismsthat you could have a

(29:21):
repercussion if you didn't dokind of thing.
They're sort of like make yourforestry plan and then plan for
Pine Martin, for example, inOntario.
And I get the sense, havingworked in Alberta.
And what you just said, josh,is that there are a bunch of
things that they say well, weneed you to fill out these forms
and make sure you do a few ofthese things, but there's no

(29:43):
legal framework that says you'regoing to lose your license if
you don't do this.
And this Species at Risk Act,because it's not being enforced,
it's not being implemented, isalso not holding accountability.
And then the other thing that Iwas just going to comment on is
if it was working so well, ifbalance which is what industry

(30:08):
always argues is we have tobalance the needs of nature
against the needs of industry,if it actually was working.
These species wouldn't be introuble if balance worked.

Josh Killeen (30:21):
I think you've hit the nail on the head there,
exactly.
Yeah, we always talk about thisidea of balance, but the
balance has not been there forso long that it's absurd to
claim that we're balancingecological values and timber
supply values.
So I think you're exactly rightthere timber supply values.

(30:45):
So I think you're exactly rightthere.
And it's um, it's a big problem, like you say, that, um, the,
the regulations that theindustry has to follow in
alberta are ultimately theydon't have the same legal
standing that the species atrisk act has.
So that makes it reallydifficult to to hold industry to
account, to do, you know, asgood a job as they should be

(31:05):
doing.
Um, and I did also want to addthat you know you're right that
of course in the, in theplanning process, companies do a
huge amount of work to justkind of try and incorporate
various different values, andoften those, like you said,
they're different species valuesand other things.
And you know a huge amount ofeffort goes into doing that.

(31:27):
And I know, because I've workedon those plans and I've been
through that process, but theydon't have that weight, that
legal standing, that you knowtoughness, to be able to
actually be effective.
They're always nibbling away atthe edges, doing a little bit
here and a little bit there thatmight have some marginal

(31:49):
incremental gain, but they'renot doing enough to really hold
the industry to account and tomake sure that we're actually
protecting what we're settingout to protect.

Jan Sumner (32:00):
Yeah, I would agree with you.
There's a huge amount of work.
I know that producing forestmanagement plans can sometimes
run in the neighborhood ofcosting a million or more to get
done.
They hire they might haveinternal biologists, they might
hire experts externally andthey're always trying to weave
that in.
And some of the best forestmanagement planners in the

(32:20):
industry are really trying tomake the best effort they can
but at the end of the day theircompany is still going to ask
them how did we reach our timbersupply and were we able to get
to it?
And I can't agree to X or Ythat you might want to put in
here, because we need thattimber supply.
So at the end of the daythey're still held accountable

(32:41):
by their own companies to meettheir timber supply and it's
very, very difficult.
Can I just go back to somethingyou said, katie, about riparian
zones, and the reason I want toask this is again using Ontario
as an example.
But in conversations with thefederal government they've
talked about under the 30 by 30program, the federal government

(33:02):
they've talked about under the30 by 30 program recognizing
these riparian zones as thatcompanies are required to set
aside.
They can't harvest in thatriparian zone in some areas of
the country and they want torecognize that as almost like a
default protection.
So we can sort of recognizethat the companies have set
these riparian zones aside andwe're going to recognize it as

(33:25):
protection, even thoughtechnically it's not protected,
because they might not beharvesting.
But they could drive on it orthey could use it for access or
various other things, or you canhave a mine there.
So technically it's not reallyprotected.
But I just wondered if thatissue is also playing out in
Alberta, or do you have that onyour radar?
How does that work?

Katie Morrison (33:48):
Yeah, I mean I think, as you mentioned, as the
federal government and some ofthe provinces are trying to move
towards this goal of 30 by 30,trying to move towards this goal
of 30 by 30, there's a lot ofcreative exploration of how we

(34:08):
get numbers, even if it's notreal protection.
And I think those riparianzones are a good example.
I mean, do we need to be havingthose setbacks and protecting
riparian zones?
Absolutely, but you know thatdoesn't mean, as you say, that
they're fully protected.
Where you know roads are goingin there, bridges are going over
streams, that requires, youknow, access and and clearing of

(34:29):
those zones.
On either side there could beother uses, incompatible uses,
within them.
As Josh mentioned, it's it'sfairly common to get exemptions
to buffer distances so thatthere could actually be forestry
within them.
So we do need more protectionand we do need to recognize the

(34:52):
value of the riparian zones.
Second piece of that is whatwe've been talking about this
whole time is that the riparianzone itself is also not enough
to fully protect the ecosystemand even these aquatic
ecosystems.
It's a landscape dynamic and soeven with these riparian zones

(35:13):
and 30 meters is the legalcritical habitat on these, a lot
of the literature says that itshould be more like 100.
And in fact the draft provincialrecovery plan for these species
that came from the province,the draft plan had this really

(35:33):
great literature view thatlooked at that 100 meters as a
more appropriate buffer distance.
Somewhere between that draftand it becoming provincial
strategy and now federal law wewent from 100 down to 30 already
.
So even that 30 is notsufficient, but really it's that

(35:55):
whole landscape I mean we talkabout, you know, the 30, which
is not even respected, needs tobe respected, like they need to
be meeting that bare minimum offollowing critical habitat and
species at risk legislation toprotect that.
Ideally it would be, or youknow, really it should be more

(36:17):
like 100.
But ideally from the beginningof their discussions around
identifying critical habitat wewere talking watershed level or
sub-watershed level, because itis that sub-watershed that
defines the conditions and thatdefines the functioning of that
system that keeps those aquaticsystems healthy and supporting

(36:41):
species at risk and supportingus.
So we already sort of went fromwhat we really need to be
protecting down to like thisabsolutely bare minimum.

Kaya Adleman (36:56):
I mean for those boundaries.
That's a 70% loss after goingthrough all the bureaucratic
tunnels.

Jan Sumner (37:04):
It's crazy or water crossings or you know various
other things that, oh well, weactually really need this.
So it doesn't start from afundamental basis of we're

(37:27):
trying to sustain the ecologicalservices of this area.
It's kind of they're seen as acost to the industrial access as

(37:47):
we talk, um, you know a littlebit more.

Katie Morrison (37:48):
Um, I'm going to introduce it and then pass it
back to josh to talk about.
Actually, about you know someof the other work we're doing um
around this.
Um josh mentioned looking at,you know, trying to assess how
much critical habitat is beinglost and unknown to anyone.
Really no one, no one is istracking that because of this,
this broken system.
Um, but josh maybe don't wantto talk about some of the
studies that we've done in theloomis creek watershed

(38:08):
particularly, and what we'redoing going forward, um to try
and build, uh, build the casefor, for that particular cut
yeah, yeah for sure.

Josh Killeen (38:18):
So that Loomis Creek is within that highwood
area that I was describingearlier, where this large
harvest is planned but currentlypaused, and one of the first
things that we did is to workwith an aquatic biologist to
actually map these watershedsthat are within this area and to

(38:40):
assess the potential risk ofcarrying out this glick or
harvest to those watersheds, andthat's risk in the context of
some of the things we've beendescribing, like erosion and
sedimentation and, in general,the integrity of those
watersheds.
So we did a bunch of work onthat to try and get a handle on

(39:02):
what that risk might be, becauseit was really only assessed at
a very high level during theplanning stage, during the
forest management planning stage.
So we felt there was a big gapthere between what had actually
been done and what was needed tobe done, and so that was our
starting point been done andwhat was needed to be done, and
so that was our starting pointand we found that there's really

(39:27):
significant areas of thatwatershed that have a very high
risk, and the reasons for thatare because it's very rugged
terrain, it's very steep, it'shard to access and putting in
really large clear cuts would bereally, really challenging and
would almost certainly createsome huge erosion issues, and
particularly the case with roadsgoing in there as well.
And then since then, we'vereally wanted to follow up on

(39:47):
that, to kind of make that linkbetween that watershed
assessment and the native troutspecies that we've been
describing, that are in so muchtrouble, and so we're at the
moment fundraising and planningfor a much larger scale project,
which will involve lots offield work in the area and going
out and doing things likemapping populations, doing eDNA

(40:11):
testing, which we've alreadydone a little bit of, but doing
further eDNA testing to assesswhere in these streams and
creeks trout are actuallyoccupying, and also to do a
wider assessment of thewatershed itself in much more
detail to understand how itmight change and be impacted by
this planned harvest.

(40:31):
So that's more of ageomorphology aspect of the
project.
So, yeah, we think this isreally important because it will
help us to demonstrate and toshow, I think, what many of the
people who spend time in thisarea already have a very good
idea of in their minds that thisis a really key place for these

(40:52):
species and that this scale ofindustrial activity is almost
certain to have a major impacton them, and so we're working
through that process, we'redoing fundraising, as I
mentioned, and we have a part ofour website set up kind of
describing this area and all thework that we're doing, and we

(41:12):
are really hopeful that by doingthis we can really put pressure
on the regulator, on theprovincial government and also
on the industry working in thearea to say you know, we really
need to do better.
In this case, we need to makesome changes.
So, if anybody wants to supportthat work.

Jan Sumner (41:31):
They can go to your website and be part of it, be
part of something that's lookingat geomorphology.
I mean, that's just cool to say, right.
So it's like I supportgeomorphology work, that I can't
say it, but you could supportit so they can go and do that.
That would be pretty cool.

Josh Killeen (41:49):
Absolutely.

Katie Morrison (41:49):
I mean, so far we've got a really great.
You know, the community downhere has really come together
for this Highwood-Lumas Creek,both as far as showing up for
taking action and writingletters to government and some
of the grassroots communityaction that's happening as well,
as you know, showing up forthis fundraiser.
So that's been really amazing tosee.

(42:11):
But I also think there's a pointto be made that this type of
work should not need to be doneby public interest groups or
citizen fundraising initiatives.
You know, when there's an areathat has been identified as
potentially being high risk towatershed integrity by the
government and by the forestmanagement plans, this sort of

(42:34):
follow up work of let'sunderstand what that really
means in more detail both, youknow, on desktop type exercises
and field-based exercises beforewe cut, should be part of this
process and, whether it is cutor not, dependent on the outcome
of that, rather than sort ofbeing this business as usual.

(42:54):
You know that cut would havegone ahead, you know, as per
plan, had there not been such abig citizen pushback, and so
it's only because of that are weat the stage that we have the
opportunity to do this, furtherstudies and research.
But it boggles my mindsometimes that we are the ones

(43:15):
that need to step up and do that, that we are the ones that need
to step up and do that and ourpartners and collaborators.

Jan Sumner (43:36):
Not that this is part of the system to things
that we've talked about in otherregions, like in British
Columbia and Ontario, is maybewe've structured industry, maybe
the structure of industry andwhat we're requiring of the
landscape is too much.
I mean, we spoke with FrancoisDufresne, who's the head of FSC
Canada, and he said we reallyneed to be looking at what the

(43:58):
forest can provide and thendesigning our economics around
that, as opposed to saying, well, the to feed my mill, I need
this much, and then we have tosqueeze in the other values
around that.
Have either you or Josh thoughtanything about that?
Has this been part of your work?

(44:19):
I know we've thought about itin terms of making more
long-lived, value-added products.
So there are more jobs in thecreation of making things and
therefore less need for us,because people who live in
communities need jobs, and sowhat do those jobs look like?
And obviously, if you just cutall the forest down and we

(44:42):
damage the headwaters and we'reruining the native species that
we rely on, that doesn't get usvery far either.
It's maybe a delayed cost thatwe don't appreciate until we
rethink.
If it is forestry, is itforestry plantations?
Is it a different structure.

(45:03):
What does that look like?

Josh Killeen (45:08):
Or have you done any thinking on that you want to
?

Katie Morrison (45:10):
start us off, katie.
Sure, I mean, when you weresetting that up, Jen, I was
thinking about something thatone of my mentors and partners
often say, because we, you know,we hear as we have these
conversations with governmentand industry that you know well,
it's a working landscape, it'sa working forest.
You know, what do you expectfrom us?
And he always says like, yeah,it's working, and I think it's

(45:31):
working over time and it's goingto burn out any day now.
So I think we need to look atit from that sense, similar to
you know, if you were workingtoo hard and going to burn out
that this landscape, um is onthat, on that same path, um, but
that's, that's exactly.
You know, what we've beentrying to look at, um, you know,

(45:53):
for at least a decade or more,um, and others for longer than
that in this region, I would say, is not that we need to
eliminate all forestry from thislandscape.
There could be opportunity forsome timber extraction, but its
purpose, and therefore how andwhat it looks like, needs to

(46:13):
look really different.
So if the purpose is maximizingtimber, as Josh was saying, the
system is set up for now.
It's going to look like what itlooks like now.
If the purpose is, you know,watershed, the purpose is
biodiversity management, if thepurpose is fire management,

(46:35):
which is what we are not doingright now, but there are ways of
doing timber extraction thatactually manage fire around
communities.
You know timber is still comingoff that landscape, but it's
going to look really differentand so it might not be the same
type of jobs that exist.
There could be some, you know,regular type timber jobs.

(46:55):
There could be some, you know,restoration jobs.
We often talk about arestoration economy because of
the already historical impactsto this landscape.
There are also those othersustainable economies in that
region that are bringing inarguably much more than forestry
.
There's also those trade-offs,costs of water supply, as we've

(47:18):
been talking about.
Calgary is looking at investinga billion dollars upstream of
Calgary to manage flood riskwhile at the same time
increasing flood risk bymanaging our headwaters for
timber.
So I don't think there's onesimple answer of we just need to

(47:38):
do it this way instead of whatwe're doing now.
I think it is very complex,which makes it difficult, but
it's going to be, as you said,looking at what the real value
of this landscape is and how dowe manage for those values and
where does timber fit into that?

Josh Killeen (48:00):
Josh, do you want to add to that?
Yeah, I think that's a reallygreat answer.
I maybe just take a little bitof a different tack because I
think you've covered the mainpoints there.
But one thing that I really sawin the forest industry is it's
full of people who really careabout forests and most people
who get into forestry do sobecause they love being outside,
they love spending time outsideand they love these places.

(48:22):
And then they end up working inthis industry, as you were
describing, which doesn't reallydo a very good job of actually
protecting and looking afterthose places and instead is kind
of maximizing that timber, aswe've been discussing.
So I do agree with you that Ithink there's an issue with the
way in which the industry isstructured, in that we have all

(48:44):
these amazing folk who reallycare about the environment, but
they're within a system which isultimately beholden to
corporate shareholder profit,and the trend over time in
Alberta and across Canada hasbeen this agglomeration, you
know this steadily increasingthe size of companies and the

(49:07):
companies becoming moreinternational, larger scale and
more driven by that large scaleprofit motive and less able to
respond to local needs.
Less able to respond to localneeds.
And that's really, I think,partly at the heart of this
issue is that we've moved inthat direction and I think, as
Katie was describing, we reallyneed to move back to something

(49:29):
where we're thinking morelocally and we're thinking about
well, what does this placeprovide to us in terms of all
these other values, and how canwe make sure that we continue to
have those things provided tous while also having an industry
which is thriving?
And so I think that's the waywe need to think and the way we
need to move and, as Katie said,there's no easy answers to that

(49:53):
, but I think that shift in ourframe of thinking is the
starting point for making thosekind of changes.

Jan Sumner (50:02):
That is a great summary, thinking about what the
purpose is and then startingfrom there, I think that's
really important.
Well, this has been, for me, agreat conversation, and we
haven't even talked aboutwildfires.
I mean, katie, you basicallytouched on that very briefly,
but I think unpacking that onemight be an entire episode.

(50:22):
So I think we're going to haveto draw a line under this and
hopefully people have learned agreat deal about Alberta
forestry, certainly in thesouthern context.

Kaya Adleman (50:34):
Especially because we have listeners who live in
the United States and otherareas who are affected by the
impact of these watersheds.
I think this is definitely agood, very enlightening
conversation for me, buthopefully for those folks as
well.

Jan Sumner (50:52):
Yeah.

Katie Morrison (50:52):
Thanks so much for having us and we'll put some
links and reports and moreinformation in the summary notes
that folks can go on and learnmore about where we are, what
we're doing, the issues we'refacing and some of the solutions
we're proposing.

Jan Sumner (51:11):
Yeah, thanks so much .

Josh Killeen (51:13):
Yeah, thanks so much.
That was great.
That was great guys Really beenenjoying it.

Jan Sumner (51:17):
Yeah, yeah, me too.
There's so much, and I think somany people know the iconic
images of Alberta, and that'sthe other thing.
Is that Albertans you mentionedthis, josh, that people who
work in forestry, but Albertansin general love nature.
They love it.

Josh Killeen (51:34):
Yeah.

Jan Sumner (51:34):
And so it's yeah, I'm very connected to nature.

Kaya Adleman (51:46):
So that was a very interesting conversation that
we had with josh and katie, andone thing that I learned is that
in dealing with governmentofficials in the efforts to
protect these incredible troutspecies, they're dealing with
not not Natural Resources Canadaor Environment and Climate

(52:07):
Change Canada, as we usuallyhear about on the podcast, but
they're dealing with theDepartment of Fisheries and
Oceans.
So that was new for me, yeah.

Jan Sumner (52:16):
I think it depends on all the different overlapping
laws and regulatory frameworks.
So, for example, forestry is byand large looked at from a
provincial scale and theprovince will regulate forestry.
But then, in terms of theSpecies at Risk Act, it's a
federal law and that getsadministered or thought through

(52:37):
in terms of its enforcement froma federal level.
Then you go, okay, well, whichspecies is it?
And then that becomes whereit's situated within the federal
body or constitution ofdifferent ministries, and so
it's a department of fisheries,hence the trout and oceans.
So that's why they end uphaving a say in terms of what's

(53:00):
happening on the landscape withregards to forestry.
But it's also interesting thatand I guess this is the kicker
for me is that that processalmost doesn't begin until the
proponent sort of flagssomething and says there's
critical habitat here.
And that's because the natureof critical habitat is so.
It's essentially a number ofingredients that come together

(53:25):
to be deemed critical habitat,as opposed to having it
spatially defined by a federalprocess or a federal science.
And so it's this, basicallythese ingredients that come
together, and then a proponentwould say oh, by the way, we've
got these ingredients andtherefore it's critical habitat
here.

Kaya Adleman (53:44):
Is that the same with caribou?

Jan Sumner (53:47):
No, not at all.
Oh, okay, so it's different.
Okay, no, it's completelydifferent.
So with caribou, I mean,there's federal science, people
can go look that up, butessentially what it says is that
where you've got criticalhabitat, you can't have more
than 35% disturbance.
The critical habitat has to beprotected.
So that's how that runs and wecan include in the show notes

(54:09):
and things like that so you cansee how critical habitat is
determined.
You can also go back to ourepisode with Anna Baggio, who
does a really great job in termsof walking us through that, and
I think we've got severalepisodes Talk about caribou.
So feel free to go back andscroll through that.
But it is very different thanthat.
And I think and Katie alsotalks about these ephemeral

(54:30):
lakes and rivers that come aboutwhen you've got the right
conditions.
So, for example, they mightonly be there at certain times
of the year.
So that's the other difference.
I mean they, when you draw acaribou range, for the most part
you can draw the ranges, notnecessarily, true, in places,
but in this case the habitat forthe trout may change based on
where the rivers appear, becausethey are seasonally changing

(55:08):
protection or conservationpolicies.

Kaya Adleman (55:09):
When dealing with different government agencies,
there are small differences, butthe underlying frame, the frame
that values resource extraction, timber harvesting, feeding the
mill these kinds of ideas thatwe've seen on the podcast over
and over again.
I'm thinking of Peter Wood inone of our early episodes,

(55:32):
saying that in his work he feelsthat the onus is often on the
environmental groups and peoplewho care about protecting these
forests and other natural areasto show government why they need
to be protecting, and he wouldlike to see the onus flipped on
the people who are working inthe business of natural resource

(55:53):
extraction to prove that whatthey're doing is moving in with
a light footprint, is moving inwith ecological values in mind.
Do you think that would be offbase to say?

Jan Sumner (56:12):
Well, I may want to unpack that a little bit.
So I think that we've beenlogging for a long time and we
have a set of rules.
And these are public forestsright, they belong.
I mean, we do have forestrythat happens on private lands.
But these rules have been theyalmost have like an inertia and
a system of civil servants andbureaucracy that have been

(56:36):
managing these lands on behalfof Canadians and those tenures.
They lease them out to thesedifferent companies.
And in Alberta it's also very,very different because oil and
gas is all over the place.
Now, I don't think it's as muchin the southern Alberta context
, but when they say they'releasing it to oil and gas, that

(56:57):
actually is a very complexlandscape because, for example,
you might have five or six ormore leases underground on the
same plot of land, and it'sbecause different kinds of oil
and gases will be at differentlevels and so different
companies could have a leasebased on whether or not they're
going down so many meters or Xnumber of meters.

(57:20):
So you've got the complexity ofhaving essentially multiple
land users.
You know the forestry companyat the top, above ground oil and
gas sector below ground havingleases there, and all of those
have different rules andregulations on how they have to
manage the land, and there'seven competition or issues that

(57:43):
emerge between forestry and oiland gas.
So, for example, when we'vedone caribou planting in
northern Alberta, it's like,well, forestry Company X might
be trying to do a really goodjob and do restoration, but Oil
and Gas Company comes along andthey have almost a right-of-way
sometimes and so they'll come inand do an activity and it won't

(58:08):
be consistent with where theforestry company might be trying
to amalgamate all the roads andthe seismic exploration might
be expanding the industrialfootprint.
So you've got all of thesecompetitions going on between
different ministries and rulesand regulations that get written
in different ways and aninertia of 100 years of moving

(58:29):
forward.
And so when environmental issuesstart to emerge and don't
forget, some of theseenvironmental issues are very
new, like caribou the caribouscience came out I don't know,
it's like just over a dozenyears ago, right, so it's 2010
or 2012, somewhere around there.
Yet we were unknowingly pushingcaribou to the brink and we

(58:52):
were in some cases just you knowpushing those ranges past the
point of no return in some cases.
Right, we're dealing with thisrange.
That's the part of the newemergency order that's just been
declared in Quebec aroundcaribou, which was recently done
by Minister Goubeau and thecabinet at the federal
government, and that was one ofthe ranges with the Val d'Or,

(59:14):
and that range, I think, isthey're down to six or eight
animals now.
So these are complex issuesthat are playing out in real
time, out in real time andyou're right, it's.
It's not like industry is goingalong.
They're trying to get the millfed, they're trying to do what
they need to do, they're writingtheir forest management plans.
They're getting that.
You know everybody's on atimeline because they've got to

(59:36):
put that in front of government.
It does go out for consultation.
Even the public may notnecessarily know all of these
nuances and it's one of thereasons that I actually think
that environmental groups andacademics are really, really
needed.
And my perspective is at somepoint we're going to need to
have a reckoning and I think itis getting into a very complex

(01:00:00):
series of questions around howwe operate different land uses
and forestry is one of those andtrying to manage and I'm not
even going to say the B word,which is the balance word,
because it's not about balance,it's about actually making sure
that we have an ecologicalsystem that thrives, because

(01:00:21):
that's the very foundation for agood life for everybody that's
the very foundation for a goodlife for everybody.

Kaya Adleman (01:00:27):
Yeah, that brings me back to what Josh was saying
in this episode.
When they're at meetings forvarious permits etc.
It seems that they're startingwith we should protect around
this area 100 meters, and thenthat area just continually
shrinks and shrinks and shrinks,or this issue gets kicked down
the line for another three, fouror five years.

(01:00:48):
So our approach, by which we'rebasing these decisions on, is
definitely, as he was saying,not taking the ecologically
thriving system as a toppriority, which is also brings
me also back to our episode withAmy Westland and talking about
joint resource managementplanning with indigenous nations

(01:01:09):
and how you know that couldlook a lot better than in its,
than the way it is in itscurrent form.

Jan Sumner (01:01:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good reminder.
I thought you were going to goback to the Harvey episode where
he says nature is thefoundation for everything.
Right, and that's true, right.
So that B word often gets oh,we're going to balance
everything, right, but balance.
The system that we're workingin is actually supposed to
balance all these interests andit's proving that it's not

(01:01:38):
working when you've got fishthat are, as Katie was saying,
it's catch and release, becausethose species are endangered so
you can't actually even catchthem for eating.
So it's a catch and release,because those species are
endangered so they think youcan't actually even catch them
for for eating.

Kaya Adleman (01:01:49):
So it's um yeah, what I do like about this
episode is what katie was sayingabout this particular uh
stretch of forest being used andum enjoyed and needed by, not
forestry dependent communities,but forest dependent communities

(01:02:11):
, people who rely on theecosystem services from this
forest for clean air, cleanwater, and not necessarily the
benefits that come with having amill in this forest, for
instance, the benefits that comewith having a mill in this
forest, for instance and thatputs us in a very unique
position that I think we I meanwhat do I know?

(01:02:32):
I'm in my 20s, but just I think, from where I'm sitting it
could put us in an interestingposition to be able to develop a
framework by which we can dothese management planning
decisions with people who careabout the ecological integrity

(01:02:53):
of the land and be able to workwith industry in such a way that
we could all learn from for andcould be applicable in other
areas across the country.

Jan Sumner (01:03:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean we go back to thatepisode that we did with Stand I
think it was with Tegan and Iremember her saying, in terms of
the forest dependentcommunities, some of these
places are where they're nowlogging for taking biomass so

(01:03:23):
they could turn it into woodpellets and the people who are
living near that forest or inthat area are kind of like, hang
on a second, that's not what Iwant my forest to be used for.
I mean, I get it, we need someproducts, we need to make things
, we need tables and chairs, weneed floorboards, we need
long-lived products that wouldmaybe help with housing, that

(01:03:47):
kind of thing.
But I never really signed up tostart cutting my forest down so
that we could ship wood pelletsto Japan or to Ireland or the
European Union.
That's not what I think of as agreat use of this beautiful
standing forest use of thisbeautiful standing for us, in my

(01:04:09):
mind, it's always been what?
The transition that we needright now.
If we think that we needed anelectric vehicle transition, I
think we need to have atransition of how we create
fiber and what fiber we're goingto use, and then the products
that we're going to make, andthen what does that economic
system look like?
And is it all about justfeeding the mill?
And I think the answer is no.
And is it all about justfeeding the mill?
And I think the answer is no.

(01:04:29):
It's not about just feeding themill.
It's got to be about more thanthat, and certainly more
long-term jobs for forestdependent communities.

Kaya Adleman (01:04:39):
Yes.

Jan Sumner (01:04:40):
Yeah.

Kaya Adleman (01:04:41):
Cheers to that.
That was a silver lining inthis episode for sure.

Jan Sumner (01:04:47):
Well, I mean, it's a system in transition.
We're hitting up against someof these hard lines, and that's
one of the things that's comeback to us time and time again.
As we've talked about thisforestry across Canada and we're
starting to see it emerge, andother people are getting this
thought in their head too,whether it's local communities,
local land users, etc.
It's like, hang on a second.
Maybe the system that we'vebeen using for a long time is

(01:05:13):
not going to be the system thatwe need going into the future.
If you like listening to theClear Cut and want to keep the
content coming, support the show.
It would mean a lot to Kai andI.
The link to do so will be inthe episode description below.

Kaya Adleman (01:05:26):
You can also become a supporter by going to
our website atwwwwildlandsleagueorg.
Slash the clear cut and alsomake sure to leave us a review
on your favorite podcaststreaming platform.
It would really help thepodcast and stay tuned for new
episodes by following us onsocial media.

Jan Sumner (01:05:47):
That's at Wildlands League on Instagram, twitter and
Facebook or LinkedIn, of course.

Kaya Adleman (01:05:54):
See you next time.