Podcast appearances and mentions of harvey locke

Canadian conservationist Harvey Locke on replanting millions of hectares of native forest

Jay interviews Harvey Locke. Initially trained as a lawyer, Harvey worked as a lawyer and partner of Calgary law firm for 14 years before pursuing his passion for protecting wild places. In 1999, after many years of volunteer work for conservation initiatives, Harvey became a full-time conservationist dedicated to national parks, wilderness, wildlife, large landscape and connectivity conservation and climate change.Harvey is co-founder and senior advisor for Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and Nature Needs Half. He is a frequent speaker at major conservation conferences and universities around the globe. His writing and photography have been published in newspapers, magazines, books, and peer-reviewed journals.In addition to a number of conservation awards, Harvey received an Honorary Degree from the Faculties of Science and Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary in June 2018. He is also a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.Support the show

Discussion avec Jean Lemire et Harvey Locke, animée par Kateri Monticone. Un nouveau cadre mondial pour la biodiversité vient d'être signé à Montréal dans le cadre de la COP 15. Quels sont les principaux objectifs visés, quelles sont les retombées attendues de cet accord et quelles sont les actions à prendre au Québec pour atteindre les cibles proposées. Jean Lemire, émissaire aux changements climatiques et aux enjeux nordiques et arctiques pour le gouvernement du Québec et Harvey Locke, écologiste, auteur et photographe, récipiendaire de nombreux prix pour ses activités d'écologistes répondent à ces questions instrumentales pour la nature. L'article COP 15 : Le moment Montréal pour la nature est apparu en premier sur Rivercast Media.

Épisode 1 | COP15 - Le moment Montréal pour la nature Discussion avec Jean Lemire et Harvey Locke, animée par Kateri Monticone. Un nouveau cadre mondial pour la biodiversité vient d'être signé à Montréal dans le cadre de la COP15 … Plus L'article COP 15 : Le moment Montréal pour la nature est apparu en premier sur Rivercast Media.

Harvey Locke is a Canadian conservationist, writer, and photographer. He is a recognized global leader in the field of parks, wilderness, wildlife, and large landscape conservation. He is a founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Beyond the Aichi Targets. In this episode, Harvey clarifies a powerful concept he's helped to define at a global level – ‘Nature Positive' – and helps us understand the implications of this concept for business and investment.Related links: Nature Positive (Nature Positive Org, 2022)Beyond the Aichi Targets (IUCN, 2022) UN Global Framework for Managing Nature (UN, 2021)Click here for the episode web page.For more insights straight to your inbox subscribe to the Future in Sight newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram. Brought to you by Re:Co, a market intelligence company helping clients achieve resilient competitive advantage in the long term.Produced by Chris AttawayArtwork by Harriet RichardsonMusic by Cody Martin

We sit down with one of the co-founders of Nature Needs Half, Harvey Locke, and talk to him about how the crazy (or not so crazy?) idea for protecting half the planet came about. We also ask Harvey how protecting half the world will work and what it will mean for humans and nature. Learn more about Nature Needs Half at natureneedshalf.org. Follow Nature Needs Half on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. If you have a comment, question, or idea for the show please email us at podcast@natureneedshalf.org. This episode was written and produced by Courtney Burk and Ruth Midgley and edited by Josh Brouwers. Special thanks to everyone at the WILD Foundation for their support. Support the show (https://www.wild.org/support/natureneedshalf/)

Harvey Locke is an Alberta based conservationist and is also the co-founder and senior advisor for Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. 

Canada 150 Visitation Unless you've been living under a rock this past year, you know that 2017 represents the 150th birthday of Canada. As a nation, we were born just 150 years ago on July 1, 1867. Now this wasn't the Canada we know today, but a teeny tiny Canada with a lot of well, wilderness. Canada, such as it was, was made up of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and that's it. Upper Canada then became Ontario and Lower Canada, Quebec. Looking at the rest of what would become the rest of Canada, in the far west, there was the Crown Colony of British Columbia, but it would be 4 more years before it became a province on July 20, 1871. The vast majority of what is now Canada though, remained as either Rupert's Land or the Northwest Territories. If the water's flowed into Hudson Bay, it was part of Rupert's Land, and if it flowed north into the Mackenzie River system, it was part of the Northwest Territories. Alberta and Saskatchewan did not join Canada as full provinces until 1905. Canada's National Park system began with the 10 sq km Banff Hot Springs Preserve in 1885, with just a tiny section protected around the Cave and Basin Hot Springs. It sowed the seeds of Canada's National Park system though and was the third National Park in the world behind only Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. and Royal National Park in Australia. Today Canada's National Park system includes 47 National Parks and 970 National Historic Sites. These include the Cave and Basin, Abbots Pass Refuge Cabin, Banff Park Museum, Banff Springs Hotel, Howse Pass, Skoki Ski Lodge, and the Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station. Other sites across the Mountain National Parks include Athabasca Pass, Yellowhead Pass, the Jasper Park Information Centre, and the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton. Across Alberta, you can add Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Calgary City Hall, Nordegg, Atlas No. 3 Coal Mine, Coleman, Fort Edmonton, Fort Macleod, Fort Whoop-Up, and the Turner Valley Gas Plant. 2017 was a year steeped in history but also steeped in tourism. The Trudeau Government decided to make all visitation to National Parks and National Historic Sites free for 2017 and this led to huge fears that the parks would be inundated. I have been a strong critic of Parks Canada's focus on bringing more and more cars through the park gates for the past decade while allowing the backcountry to wither. All the marketing has focused on 4-5 million visitors pointing their cars and buses towards the same 2% of the park. Over the past few years, I have watched the park get swarmed by more and more and more visitors. In iconic locations like Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, and Peyto Lake, I've witnessed the crowds growing to levels unimaginable just a decade ago. Many of the park roads, like Sulphur Mountain, Lake Louise, and Moraine Lake, are one lane in and one lane out. This creates finite limits on the amount of traffic the roads can accommodate. In past years, I experienced wait times as long as 2-1/2 hours driving the 3 km or so between the Village of Lake Louise and the actual Lake. With traffic jams like these, nobody is having a good experience. Over the past year, after the announcement that park passes would be free this year, there was well-justified fear that these delays would just get longer and longer. Parks was regularly criticized by Banff and Jasper town counselors for their lack of transparency and discussion on how to deal with the influx of traffic. As the season approached, though, the pieces began to fall into place. Parks Canada made some very bold moves that dramatically reduced the congestion within Banff National Park. Some of these moves included: Permanent parking boundaries along narrow roads such as the approach to Moraine Lake, Johnston Canyon and Lake Minnewanka. These reflective pylons made sure that narrow sections of road weren't choked by cars parking in the driving lanes and making it very difficult for cars and buses to negotiate the road. Free shuttle buses between Banff and Lake Louise, Banff and the Lake Minnewanka Loop as well as from the Lake Louise Overflow Campground and both Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. These buses proved to be incredibly effective with some 280,000 people using these new shuttles. An additional half a million people took advantage of the local Roam bus routes during July and August. The Calgary to Banff bus averaged 260 people per day when it was running. This brought it into Banff where visitors could connect with other regional options. The free Lake Minnewanka shuttles average 470 people/day The free shuttle between Banff and Lake Louise has been averaging 200 people/day while The shuttles between the Lake Louise Overflow Campground and Lake Louise has moved over 150,000 people this summer. In an interview with Gord Gillies of Global News, Park Superintendent Dave McDonough indicated that Parks Canada was planning: "to continue and improve that shuttle service as we go forward because as we continue to see we anticipate we'll continue to see increases in visitation over time, and this is a great way to get people out of their cars and eliminate some of that congestion issues that are associated with those increases." This was just one prong of the traffic management in the park this summer. Parks also had an army of traffic control personnel at all the intersections in the Lake Louise area this summer. They were part of ATS Traffic from Calgary and they did a superhuman job of keeping the vehicles flowing. Not once this years did I experience the huge delays that I have had in past years trying to get from the Village of Lake Louise to the actual Lake. Moraine Lake Road was much easier to negotiate without miles of cars parked half-way into the traffic lanes. On most days, by 9 am, the Moraine Lake Road was simply closed to most vehicles. Buses were given a priority but most private cars where SOL by 9 or 9:30 am. With all of the shuttles, traffic cones, flag people, and free park passes, what are the actual numbers this year? In the end, the increases were lower than many of us anticipated. In July and August, Banff had 1.7 million cars enter and exit the park. This was up 7% over 2016 and overall the vehicle numbers are up 3.5%. The town of Banff counted 4.6 million cars so far this year which is an astounding increase of 21% over 2014. A full 1.7 million of those were during the summer. While the maximum vehicle count was 34,275 on July 2, the average count was 27,512. This means that almost every day was above the congestion point of 24,000 cars. The town helped to alleviate this by manipulating the traffic lights to bias busier sections of road. The main bottleneck within the town of Banff is Sulphur Mountain Road. Cars come into Banff, drive Banff Avenue, cross the Bow River Bridge and then head up Sulphur Mountain. On the way down, they descend the road and hit a traffic light on Spray Ave where the traffic begins to stack. They then turn left for a short distance to wait to turn right onto Banff Avenue. The traffic continues to back up here. The challenge of biasing the lights to move this traffic up and down the mountain means that the Mount Norquay exit into Banff can backup. I June this year, I had to call the Park Wardens as the offramp coming from the east had backed up into the traffic lanes of the Trans Canada, setting up a dangerous situation. For 2017, as much as I didn't think I'd be able to do this, I need to give Parks a gold star for pulling some rabbits out of their hats at the eleventh hour. They were pilloried in the media for the simple fact that they didn't communicate with local communities, nor offer any additional support to help them deal with the realities of massive potential increases in tourism. Overall, it looks like Banff will see no larger increase in numbers then it has over the past few years. Visitation has been growing at a rate of around 5%/year and this year will fit right into that trend. Visitors seem to have gotten the message that things would be busy and so they are taking advantage of early and late season to try to avoid the biggest crowds. Did everything go smoothly, nope! However, I was impressed with most of the traffic control. With tightly controlled traffic at sites like Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, the parking at Lake Louise and the road to Moraine were simply closed when they reached capacity. This meant that all the cars that wanted to visit were simply turned away. They had the option to head back to the highway and use the shuttles, and thousands took advantage of that option. To a certain extent, it actually reduced the number of bodies swarming the shoreline of these two iconic sites. Here is my call to action! There is a fear that much of the critical work that ATS Traffic did this year may have been a one-off, with funding coming from the Canada 150 funds. We simply can't go back to the chaos of past years. If you support the work this amazing group did this year, be sure to contact Parks Canada and make your voices heard. I for one, want to make sure that, at the very least, this is the new norm. Why were the increases in visitors not even higher? It has to do with the simple fact that there are only so many hotel rooms in the region. As the season got busier, so did the hotels get more expensive. There is a point at which there is simply no way for more people to access the mountains. When the rooms and campsites are gone, then people are limited to day trips from larger centres like Calgary. That being said, the current 4% increase in visitation still represents an additional 200,000 people visiting Banff this year. These are unsustainable growth numbers. At some point, park managers will need to begin to say yes to saying no! We are nearing the moment when we need to begin to say "NO, you can't visit Lake Louise". We are too close to beginning to love this place to death! Farewell to Bear 148 If you're a regular listener to this podcast, you've heard me talk time and again about grizzly 148. This 6-1/2-year-old daughter of Bears 66 and 122, better known as the Boss, ran out of luck this summer when she wandered outside of Banff National Park just one too many times. This summer, the buffaloberry crop in Banff was not very strong, but in Canmore, we had fabulous berry patches. This attracted 148 out of the park and into the area around Canmore. In episode 38, I talk about the translocation of Bear 148 to northern Alberta and Kakwa Provincial Park. You can listen to the episode at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep038. Essentially, after returning back to Canmore she had another run-in with people illegally violating a closure and bluff-charged them. This was the final straw for Alberta Environment and Parks, and she was trapped, trucked and translocated far from her home range. With a distant translocation like this, the odds of her surviving were very slim in the first place. Bears become intimately connected to their home ranges. They need to know where all their seasonal foods can be found and at what time of year. Moving them to a new territory is like being forced to shop in a new grocery. Not only is it difficult to find things that you usually eat, but it may not even have the same foods. There may also be other shoppers pushing you away from the best selections. Near the end of September, 148 wandered across the border with British Columbia, likely in search of late season foods, when she was legally shot by trophy hunters. Ironically, B.C. is set to ban grizzly hunting permanently as of Nov. 30. She had the misfortune of crossing the border just over a month too early and it cost 148 her life. Over the past few years, 148 became a symbol of what's wrong in Canmore. What good are wildlife corridors if animals are punished for using them? What good are corridors if people ignore the closures and put themselves and the wildlife in jeopardy? On Oct 7, well over 100 Canmore residents came out to say goodbye to 148 and to pledge to do better in the future. This has also become a major election issue and many of the presentations really focused on the need for political will if we are to keep grizzlies on the landscape. I was lucky enough to record the presentations during the event and I want to present them here. Please keep in mind that I was recording speakers using an old-fashioned bull-horn so the audio quality is not perfect - but their message is! First up was Harvey Locke, co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon and long-time conservationist. Following Harvey was Bree Todd, Bree is one of the co-creators of the Bear 148 Appreciation Page on Facebook and has been a strong voice advocating for viable wildlife corridors. Local NDP Member of the Legislature, Cam Westhead followed Bree. He vowed to help the province work harder to improve the situation for bears in the Bow Valley. Following Cam's presentation, the group marched through Canmore towards the Civic Centre for the final two speeches. First was Bill Snow of the Stoney Nakoda. He is the Stoney Consultation Manager and was instrumental in spearheading a Stoney grizzly study in 2016. The last speaker was Kay Anderson, another outspoken advocate of bears and corridors in Canmore, and one of the main organizers of the march. In addition to the presentations, I had the opportunity to speak to a few people outside of the presentations. First up is Mayoral candidate Ed Russell. Finally, I had the opportunity to ask Jeff Laidlaw a few questions. Jeff is looking to be elected to Canmore's town council in the upcoming election. Overall, this was a great event for Canmore. I showed that local people really care about our bears and keeping our corridors wild. This is our last chance to make the right decisions for wildlife. Let's hope that Bear 148 is the last bear to die because of local apathy. And with that, it's time to wrap this episode up. Don't forget that Ward Cameron Enterprises can offer you the expertise and local knowledge to make your visit to the Rockies a memorable one. Don't forget to check out the show notes for links to additional information and photos from this week's event. Drop me a line using the contact page on this site if you'd like to book a step-on or hiking guide, workshop facilitator or speaker. If you'd like to connect with me personally, you can hit me up on Twitter @wardcameron or at www.facebook.com/wardcameronenterprises. And with that said, the hills are snowy white so it's time to tune up the snowshoes - snowshoe animal tracking season is just around the corner. I'll talk to you next week.

I was really pleased to record the presentations at the Buffalo Homecoming celebrations held on March 2, 2017 at the Cave and Basin National Historic Site. The Eleanor Luxton Foundation and Bison Belong co-sponsored the event which was a gala evening with first nations blessings, dancing and drums - and some amazing stories. The return of plains bison to Banff National Park has been a long time coming - more than 130 years. Bison are not only a keystone species in the mountain national parks, but their absence has been reflected in the very ecosystems that the park was designed to protect. Ecosystems began to change immediately after the loss of bison, reflecting the absence of this key ecological component of the landscape. When biologists talk about ecological integrity, they are talking about preserving all the components of that ecosystem. For thousands of years, bison were one of the defining characteristics of most western landscapes. The sound of their thundering hooves could be heard for miles and they helped to define the landscape in which they lived. In the end, they were reduced to just 64 animals. Like a beaver can alter the landscape around it and benefit many other species, so do plains bison re-engineer the prairie and mountain landscape. Bison are aggressive grazers, helping keep trees from encroaching onto grasslands. At the same time they are also prodigious producers of, well buffalo apples. These patties feed massive numbers of insects which, in turn, support ever increasing numbers of insect eating birds. This reintroduction is about more than just ecology. It combines cultural, historical and ecological values. To members of the first nations of the eastern slopes and prairies of Canada and the U.S., bison were an integral part of their culture and lives, long before the coming of the white man. The west was home to many different tribes, many of which have long been traditional enemies. Despite local animosities, there was always one thing that bound them together - bison. In 2015, eleven different tribes signed a historic buffalo treaty. The signatories include Canada's Blackfoot Confederacy: Blood, Piikani, Siksika, and TsuuT’ina; and in Montana, the Blackfeet Nation, the Assiniboine and GrosVentre Tribes of Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of Fort Peck Indian Reservation, the Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Indian Reservation. Since this original treaty, the three nations of the Stoney Nakoda, the Samson Cree and 10 additional first nations groups from Saskatchewan have also joined in the signing. In episode 19, I shared a little information on the recent re-introduction of bison into Banff National Park. During this event, you'll hear the stories of the event from the people responsible for doing it. Harvey Locke shares some of the history of the project and of the genesis of the initiative. His passion really sets the scene for this story of reintroduction and renewal. If this project is successful, Banff's bison herd will join only three other wild herds of bison in North America Parks Canada Employee and author Karsten Heuer was in charge of the project. His presentation details the incredible efforts that were required to pull this reintroduction off. Along with long and very inclusive public consultations and environmental impact assessments, as the project lead, it was his job to coordinate the many moving parts that would be necessary in order to get to the point we are today - a day with wild bison once again roaming their native landscapes in the mountain national parks. The logistics were daunting. The bison had to first be selected. They were selected based on several criteria. They were disease free, a critical aspect of any reintroduction, but they were also young , giving them many opportunities to produce new offspring during their lifetime. All of the females were pregnant, and they are joined by six young bulls to help keep the herd going. They are currently being held in an 18 hectare (45 acre) soft release pasture until they've had the chance to give birth twice - giving them time to bond to their new home range prior to being released to a much larger temporary habitat. Imagine the logistics of this relocation! They loaded the bison into specially designed shipping containers that were attached to a long line and transported by a heavy lift helicopter. Each container held 3 or 4 bison with their horns covered by pieces of garden hose held on with duct tape. They were also tranquilized slightly to help reduce their stress while still allowing them to stand during the transport. Each shipping container also deployed a parachute to provide drag and help prevent them from spinning during their helicopter journey to their new home. After the last crate was successfully delivered, they crates were kept closed for an additional 30 minutes to give the buffalo time to calm down. When all the conditions were right, the doors to the shipping containers were opened and the bison all emerged into their new home. They'll remain here until June of 2018 when park officials plan to release them to a much larger 1200 sq km or 463 sq mile reintroduction zone. Along the way, there are lots of performance measures that will help them to reassess the success of the project. In 2022, they hope to be able to come to the decision as to whether long-term bison reintroduction is feasible in Banff National Park. This project is one of the largest of its kind in the mountain national parks. It involved very close consultations with many first nations, environmental and conservation groups. I hope you're as excited about this as I am. Bison have been missing from Banff for almost as long as Canada has been a nation. I can't wait for the day when I first encounter a wild bison in Banff National Park. I want to especially thank Marie-eve Marchand with Bison Belong for collaborating with me to record the audio for this presentation. Her tireless work towards bringing these majestic animals back to Banff deserves all of our thanks. Special thanks also go out to Karsten Heuer for all the work he and his team at Parks Canada did to pull off this amazing feat of logistics and careful planning. This could be one of the most significant events to take place in the mountain parks for many years to come. Special thanks also go out to Harvey Locke with the Eleanor Luxton Foundation for the great work they do in preserving Banff's natural and human history. Finally, I want to thank the politicians across the various political lines that cooperated with the project as well as the numerous native elders and counselors that were integral to moving this process towards completion. Once again, we are all buffalo people.

Feature #1: Last month, astronomers working on the Hubble Space Telescope announced the discovery of another, fourth moon around Pluto; this moon is so small that it could fit easily inside Boulder County (a pretty tricky thing to find at a distance of three and a half billion miles). The researchers who found the new moon were making observations in support of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which is en route to fly by and study Pluto in 2015, and continue onward to explore the mysterious region beyond Pluto’s orbit known as the Kuiper Belt. How On Earth’s Ted Burnham recently met with Alan Stern, principal investigator on New Horizons, to talk about what the discovery means for that mission. [An extended version of the interview also is available.] Feature #2: The significant loss of species on Earth is primarily due to human destruction of habitats, forests and other wild nature, to make room for new development and agriculture. Climate change is also accelerating the rate of species extinction. Among the efforts worldwide to protect wilderness and nature so wild animals can survive is a Boulder-based nonprofit called The WILD Foundation. Harvey Locke is the organization’s vice president for conservation strategy and he helped launch the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) several years ago and oversees a global campaign called Nature Needs Half. Y2Y's goal is to create a continuous 2,000-mile corridor for wildlife from Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. to the Yukon in Northern Canada. Harvey joins us in the studio to talk about that campaign and the science behind wildlife preservation targets. Co-hosts: Susan Moran and Joel Parker Engineer: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Susan Moran Show Producer: Joel Parker