Senior Wildfire Analyst, POLIS Wildfire Resilience Project
Kevin is trained as a forester (BSF, UBC) and planner (MRM, SFU), and has a certificate in conflict resolution (JIBC). He worked for over 30 years for the provincial government, designing and delivering land use plans, developing government-to-government agreements with Indigenous Nations, and leading organizational change. Kevin was an Assistant Deputy Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Operations and Rural Development, and served as the Chair of BC’s Forest Practices Board from 2018 to 2022.
Kevin’s work has centred on resolving resource conflicts through collaboration and multi-disciplinary problem-solving. His current interests include the intersection of forest management, climate change, water, and fire.
Kevin is currently a Land Use and Wildfire Analyst at the POLIS Wildfire Resilience Project at the University of Victoria. Kevin is also the policy lead at the Bulkley Morice Wildfire Resilience Project.
Presentation Abstract
What Kind of Resilience Is It? Applying Resilience Thinking to Wildfire.
The term resilience is now widely used in fields ranging from human health to disaster management to forest management. In forest management, the term is often used as a management principle or paradigm, much as “sustainable forest management” was used in the past. That broad approach has much appeal as a unifying framework that brings diverse perspectives together. However, underlying the concept are important distinctions about what resilience means and significant differences in the scale and scope of the system being managed. These all influence how resilience principles are applied to planning and management.
The talk will explore how socio-ecological resilience principles can be applied in British Columbia to manage wildfire resilience at a landscape scale.