The Role of Boundary Spanners in Advancing Collaborative Wildfire Management in Western Canada
Western Canada is increasingly experiencing impactful and complex wildfire seasons.
In response, there are urgent calls to implement prescribed and cultural fire as a key solution. Unfortunately, there has been limited investment in individuals and organizations that can navigate the complexity and expertise required to implement prescribed and cultural fire.
Working towards collaborative solutions requires navigating jurisdictional silos, a lack of respect for certain forms of knowledge, and a disconnect between knowledge and practice.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
In this perspective, we highlight the important role of ‘boundary spanners’ in building trust, relationships, and capacity to enable collaboration. We highlight five case studies from western Canada where individuals and organizations are working across organizations and knowledge systems to convene workshops, host joint training exercises, support knowledge exchange and communities of practice.
We need collaborative approaches to implement prescribed and cultural fire.
Investing in boundary spanners is integral to proactive wildfire management.
Read the paper — Boundary spanners catalyze cultural and prescribed fire in western Canada by Kira M. Hoffman, Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, Sarah Dickson-Hoyle, Mathieu Bourbonnais, Jodi Axelson, Amy Cardinal Christianson, Lori D. Daniels, Robert W. Gray, Peter Holub, Nicholas Mauro, Dinyar Minocher, and Dave Pascal.
