David Marmorek
President
Key skills: simulation modeling, ecological risk assessment, aquatic ecology, monitoring design, adaptive management, decision analysis, facilitation, team leadership
David is an aquatic ecologist with 30 years of experience in predicting and assessing the potential impacts of human activities on ecosystems, and developing plans to rehabilitate damaged ecosystems and recover threatened biota. His academic background includes an Honours B.E.S. (Environmental Studies and Mathematics) from the University of Waterloo, and an M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of British Columbia. During his career he has led or contributed to multi-agency, interdisciplinary teams assessing the impacts of acidic deposition, pulp mills, forestry, hydro-electric dams, fish harvesting, power plants, climate change and urban/industrial pollution in North America, South America and Asia. More recently, his work has focused on how dams and flow management affect salmon and other species in California (Clear Creek, Trinity River, Sacramento River), the Pacific Northwest (U.S. Columbia Basin) and British Columbia (Cheakamus, Okanagan, Canadian Columbia Basin). His efforts have contributed significantly towards the development and implementation of creative, effective approaches for recovering salmon populations, managing water to meet multiple objectives, habitat restoration, adaptive management and monitoring / evaluation. David is the author of over 20 peer-reviewed publications, is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, and serves on science advisory panels for Puget Sound and Platte River ecosystem recovery efforts. He is a recipient of the Bronze Medal for Commendable Service from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is an avid skier and hiker, and proud father of two talented sons.
Clint Alexander
Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Team Leader
Key skills: decision and trade-off analysis, simulation modelling, technical facilitation, information system architecture and project management.
Clint is an integration specialist focused on decision and trade-off analysis methods for aquatic resource management problems. Focal areas include trade-off evaluations for reservoir operations, climate change adaptation, water budget studies and large-scale watershed restoration programs in Western North America. Many of his projects involve technical facilitation and the development of computer tools, such as the Premier’s Award winning Okanagan Fish/Water Management Tool, and the Sacramento River Ecological Flows Tool. Clint has over 14 years of consulting experience with ESSA Technologies Ltd, and holds a B.Sc. in Ecology from the University of British Columbia and a Masters in Resource and Environmental Management from Simon Fraser University. He enjoys grappling with global environmental conscientisation, good satire and coaching lacrosse.
Philip Bailey
Environmental Information Systems Team Leader
Key skills: GIS, expert systems, environmental information systems, ecological modeling and databases
Philip is interested in solving complex spatial problems using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). His experience has focused on expert decision support systems for environmental applications. This subject area demands a strong information technology focus as well as a multi-disciplinary ecological understanding and appreciation for stakeholder concerns.Prior to joining ESSA, Philip worked with Envision Sustainability Tools developing QUEST, educational software that helps stakeholders understand decision tradeoffs for urban futures. Earlier still, at Nobility Environmental Software Systems he was part of an award winning team that pioneered applications linking GIS with expert systems. The applications were intended to capture institutional knowledge of environmental issues and convey them through data rules using interactive digital maps.
Recent projects at ESSA have focused on environmental information systems; both large and small databases aimed at helping managers reduce uncertainty around environmental issues. Philip led the development of a GIS-enabled habitat model for Chinook Salmon in the Yukon Territory that integrated tens of millions of geographic features with biological rules to determine the effects of placer mining on fish habitat. He’s also actively involved in a multi-disciplinary database for decision makers working on a river restoration project in California. Most recently, Philip is working with a utility company to automate the storage and graphical reporting of their environmental performance data for corporate reporting using a multi-user web-enabled application. On a separate initiative he is currently working with the United States Forest Service to develop a suite of GIS tools to automate the processing of LiDAR imagery to aid in the understanding of fish habitat in freshwater streams.
Philip has a Ph.D. in Geographical Information Systems and a B.Sc. in Topographic Science and Geography. His doctoral thesis focused on pioneering spatial techniques to estimate the carbon content of the Amazonian tropical forest biome using remotely sensed satellite images. Philip also is a trained elephant mahoot.
Leonardo Frid
Terrestrial Ecosystem Sciences Team Leader
Key skills: terrestrial ecosystem and natural disturbance modelling, workshop facilitation, training, decision support system design and development
Leonardo Frid is a Registered Professional Biologist and Systems Ecologist with over ten years experience in ecological research and simulation modeling. He holds a B.Sc. in Conservation Biology and a M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of British Columbia. Over the last six years Leo has worked on the development of models for strategic planning in managing terrestrial landscapes. He has collaborated with various clients in western North America to model fire regimes, the impacts of forestry on habitat and the outcome of alternative restoration and prevention scenarios for areas encroached by invasive plants. Leo is a key member of the development team for TELSA and VDDT, two landscape simulation tools developed by ESSA that are used widely throughout North America for strategic planning by organizations such as the US Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, The BC Ministry of Forests and LANDFIRE. His scientific skills include simulation modeling of terrestrial ecosystems, experimental design and field sampling. He has worked on and published studies on rare and endangered amphibians, insect population dynamics, plant herbivore interactions, landscape simulation models and biological control. Leo has also participated and led numerous workshop groups covering topics ranging from technical and scientific issues, to strategic planning. He has delivered various courses training participants in the use of landscape simulation modeling tools for decision support. When he is not working, Leo enjoys spending time with his wife and two young daughters in the wild spaces of British Columbia.
Carol Murray
Environmental Management Team Leader
Key skills: adaptive management, state of environment reporting, environmental assessment, workshop facilitation, training, decision support
Carol is a Registered Professional Biologist and Environmental Management Team Leader with ESSA. She holds a B.Sc. in Biology from McGill University and an M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Toronto. She has over 22 years of experience across a wide range of environmental management projects in nine countries, and has managed more than 100 projects both domestically and internationally. Adaptive management is a major focus of her career, and she recently led a project to prepare an Adaptive Management Plan in New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande. Her work in this field has included researching factors that enabling adaptive management, design and delivery of numerous training workshops, review of adaptive management plans, and co-authoring several book chapters and papers on adaptive management. Carol also has more than two decades of experience with indicator development and reporting. She wrote the Plants and Animals chapter for the first state-of-environment report for BC, has since written numerous environmental indicator products in BC and elsewhere, and has also trained environmental professionals overseas in state-of-environment reporting. A third focal area involves environmental assessment: she has undertaken numerous technical reviews of environmental assessments, developed training courses for both federal and provincial practitioners, and helped raise awareness of the environmental assessment process among First Nations. Current passions include exploration of how the intersection of these fields can improve cumulative effects assessment, and inform climate change adaptation; and methods for incorporating traditional knowledge into related decision-making. She lives on a small island along the BC coast with her husband and dog.
Greg Radford
Director of International Operations
Key skills: Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, cumulative effects assessment, environmental management, risk management, policy, climate change, International Financial Institutions (IFI) environmental and social safeguards
Greg has over 20 years project and consulting experience in over 50 countries covering many diverse sectors including the mining, oil and gas, power (hydro, thermal, wind), infrastructure, manufacturing, natural resources and financial sectors. He is a global expert in the design, implementation and quality assurance of global environmental and social sustainability policies and standards. He is the former Director of the Environment, Social and Governance Department at the International Finance Corporation (IFC). IFC is the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group and he was the lead environmental expert responsible for ensuring effective environment, social and governance risk management on hundreds of IFC investments annually through the application of the IFC Performance Standards and World Bank Group Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) Guidelines. Greg was responsible for leading the multi-year review and update process of the new 2012 IFC Performance Standards. In addition, he led the IFC climate change mitigation and adaptation unit. He is also the former Chief Environmental Advisor at Export Development Canada (EDC) which is an $80 billion annual Export Credit Agency and signatory to the Equator Principles that lends globally to public and private sector clients.
In addition to international project experience, Greg has extensive experience in climate change mitigation and adaptation, natural resources management, policy development, training and capacity building. Extensive stakeholder and outreach experience includes corporate and project engagement with locally affected communities, indigenous peoples, and civil society. Greg holds an M.Sc. in Environmental Management and has five years of university academic experience lecturing in the field of Environmental and Social Impact Assessment.
Diana Abraham
Applications Specialist/Science Writer
Key skills: technical writing and editing, research, information management
Diana is a researcher and technical writer at ESSA, with experience and expertise in science writing, technical editing, and information management. Since joining ESSA in 1995, Diana’s work has included literature reviews; information gathering, synthesis/analysis and presentation; writing “how-to” guidelines for custom software products; recording and reporting the proceedings of workshops and technical meetings; and data and database management. Her skills are cross-cutting and she has applied them in a wide variety of disciplines, including environmental assessment, cumulative effects assessment, fish and wildlife ecology, forestry, and land-use planning. Diana brings to her project work a unique blend of ecological knowledge, writing and editing expertise, and an attention to detail that ensures her work products are always of the highest quality. Diana holds an Honours B.Sc. in Biology from Queen’s University and an M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Western Ontario.
Sarah Beukema
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: forest ecosystem and natural disturbance modelling, carbon budget modelling, workshop facilitation
Sarah is a Registered Professional Biologist and Senior Systems Ecologist with almost 20 years experience in ecological simulation modeling and analysis. She holds a B.A. in Mathematics and Biology from Kalamazoo College, and a M.Sc. in Zoology/Applied Mathematics from the University of British Columbia. While at ESSA, Sarah has been the lead or co-developer for numerous models that simulate ecosystem dynamics at a variety of scales. These models cover a range of issues from natural disturbances at the stand level (e.g., fire or root disease) to spatial and non-spatial landscape simulation models such as TELSA and VDDT. She has also worked extensively developing and using carbon accounting models such as the CBM-CFS3. In addition, she has led numerous workshops discussing issues ranging from dynamics of fire or bark beetles, to impacts of climate change, to different long-term planning strategies.
Samantha Boardley
Senior Environmental Specialist
Samantha has project experience across Africa and Asia in the areas of community consultation and engagement, facilitation and training, and project design. To date, Samantha has worked on climate change projects in Bangladesh, Ghana, Mozambique, and South Africa. Most recently, Samantha provided climate change adaptation, facilitation and training expertise for ESSA’s work as part of the social dimensions component of the World Bank’s Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC) study. As such, she helped to train local teams in Bangladesh, Ghana, Mozambique and Ethiopia in using pro-poor participatory tools to engage stakeholders in adaptation planning and investment.
Other recent international work has included assisting organizations to mainstream climate change considerations into strategic plans and project/program design in Ghana and Canada; and conducting a vulnerability analysis of South Africa’s water resources to climate change for the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF).
Katherine Bryan
Systems Analyst
Key skills: GIS analysis and programming, databases, web development, data portals, data synthesis and analysis
Katherine Bryan is a Systems Analyst working with ESSA’s Environmental Information Systems team. Katherine applies her GIS, database, programming, and data management skills across a variety of projects with a common theme of helping clients manage, access, and visualize information efficiently and effectively. Since joining ESSA in 2008, her work has spanned projects including GIS analysis to describe and predict the occurrence of salmon and trout species in the Pacific Northwest; the development of the TELSA Spatial Tools, a suite of custom ArcGIS tools used with the TELSA model (a landscape-level model for simulating ecosystem dynamics); GIS analysis to explore the impacts of environmental stressors on ecosystems; and development on the Trinity River Restoration Program’s Online Data Portal. Katherine holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Natural Resources Conservation from the University of British Columbia and an Advanced Diploma of Technology (Hons) in Geographic Information Systems from the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Simon Casley
GIS Analyst
Key skills: GIS, web mapping, remote sensing, spatial databases, programming
Simon Casley is a GIS Analyst working in ESSA’s Environmental Information Systems team. Simon’s recent work at ESSA has included developing an ecological land metric in support of monitoring land use changes for tracking environmental impacts; GIS analysis as part of a fish habitat monitoring program for designated Fisheries Sensitive Watersheds in BC; and GIS analysis in support of ecological modeling of a reservoir ecosystem. Prior to joining ESSA, Simon worked as a Remote Sensing and GIS Scientist on numerous projects in the UK extracting information from satellite imagery for environmental monitoring and security, and developing spatial data driven web services using remote sensing and GIS products. Simon has a M.Sc. in Remote Sensing from University College London with a thesis that explored the production of digital elevation models of Mars using high resolution data from the HRSC onboard Mars Express.
Lorne Greig
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: adaptive management, decision analysis , policy analysis, facilitation and public consultation, environmental mediation, environmental and cumulative effects assessment
Since joining ESSA in 1982, Lorne’s consulting practice has focused on developing evidence-based approaches to environmental management through support of Adaptive Management research designs, and environmental risk analysis. Ecological modeling is an essential component of this work. Much of Lorne’s work has involved collaborative analysis with multi-disciplinary groups of scientists, resource managers, aboriginal participants and stakeholders. Lorne is a highly accomplished facilitator with 27 years of experience guiding multi-agency scientific meetings and workshops. His facilitation expertise is also applied in his work on environmental conflict resolution, and facilitation of public advisory groups. Examples of some of Lorne’s experience include: a conceptual ecosystem model of the Lake Ontario fish community; a model based management approach to the Sea Lamprey control program in the Great Lakes; decision analyses for American eel in the Great Lakes; Pathways of Effects models for Fisheries and Oceans Canada; and advice to the Mackenzie Gas Project Joint Review Panel on matters related to cumulative impact assessment.
Alexander Hall
Systems Ecologist
Key skills: decision analysis, data synthesis and analysis, GIS, climate change
Alex Hall is Systems Ecologist with ESSA Technologies. Prior to joining ESSA, Alex worked as a research assistant with Environment Canada (Meteorological Service, Vancouver), the Centre for Research on Inner City Health (Toronto), and the Geospatial Data Research Laboratory (SFU), applying data synthesis and analysis, GIS, literature review, and scientific writing skills to a diversity of research topics. Alex has published peer-reviewed analytical research in the fields of both climate change and population health. His interests include integrating knowledge across disciplines to better understand multi-dimensional ecological problems and make better resource management decisions in the face of multiple objectives and stakeholders, uncertainties, and trade-offs.
Alex holds a BSc in Physical Geography with a Certificate in Spatial Information Systems and a Masters in Resource and Environmental Management, all at SFU. His thesis work uses the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3) to examine the medium-term greenhouse gas implications of burning post-harvest forest debris on Vancouver Island.
Brian O. Ma
Systems Ecologist
Key skills: Ecological modeling, data synthesis and analysis, statistical modeling, research and technical writing, programming
Brian holds a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences majoring in ecology and evolution from the University of Calgary, where he worked on population dynamics of Sage Grouse in Alberta; a M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Toronto working on diet choice rules in one-predator-two-prey communities; and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University, where he worked on how behavioral responses of African mosquitoes (Anopheles gambiae) can affect the spread of parasites leading to malaria in humans. Most recently, he was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, sharing time between the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, BC, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. During this time, he worked as an ecological modeler for a high-profile sockeye salmon genomics project, developing population models and Bayesian network models exploring the potential role of new technologies such as functional genomics on fisheries management.
Brian’s main interests lie in the coupling of individual-level responses to population-level consequences. He has extensive training in the design and implementation of mathematical, computer simulation, and statistical models that can be readily adapted to different ecological systems and applied problems. For example, his research has spanned terrestrial and aquatic systems including sockeye salmon abundance forecasting models, mosquito management models, and biological control (insects) in commercial greenhouses. Modeling approaches that Brian has used include mathematical compartmental models, individual-based simulation models, genetic algorithms, and Bayesian networks. Some of the statistical approaches that he has used include generalized linear models, principal component analysis, and model selection criteria. He has experience in a variety of programming and statistical software platforms including R, SAS, C, Python, and Mathematica.
Simon Mead
Senior Environmental Specialist
Key Skills: Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), environmental due diligence, water and sanitation, soil and water conservation, agriculture, and community-based environmental management.
Simon has an MA in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex in the UK and over 15 years’ experience working predominantly in developing countries. Recent experience includes: Equator Principles Financial Institutions (EPFI) environmental due diligence for a global agribusiness company; improving community and stakeholder engagement for industrial pollution management on the CIDA-funded Vietnam Environmental Governance Project (VPEG); leading the environmental management aspects and a Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) program for the Northern Region Small Towns Water and Sanitation Project (NORST), a multi-year CIDA-funded water and sanitation project in Ghana; and managing a climate change adaptation project for the World Bank in Africa and Asia.
Simon has extensive field experience including: leading a water harvesting and irrigation project in Ethiopia; two years in Botswana; carrying out water resources studies and environmental assessments for water supply and irrigation projects; managing a community economic development project in a mining community in Papua New Guinea; and leading environmental components for water and sanitation projects in Malawi and Uganda .
Marc Nelitz
Systems Ecologist
Key skills: developing decision support systems, research and technical writing, assessing environmental impacts, peer reviewing scientific studies, and engaging diverse audiences (through facilitation, interviews, and surveys).
Marc is a Systems Ecologist working in Vancouver with ESSA’s Environmental Management Team. He works in the areas of Regulatory and Policy Implementation, Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation, Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management, and State of Environment Reporting. His passion is to improve natural resource management by bridging gaps among science, decision making, and environmental policy in light of uncertainties, and to do so by working with a diverse set of clients and collaborators – academics, non-governmental organizations, government, First Nations, and industry. In pursuing his passions, he has contributed to implementation of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy, developing scientific approaches for designating Temperature Sensitive Streams and Fisheries Sensitive Watersheds for the B.C. Ministry of Environment, assessing vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to climate change, supporting the Canadian Wildlife Service in developing a risk management framework for migratory birds, and examining the role of freshwater stressors in the recent decline of sockeye salmon on the Fraser River for the Cohen Commission. His research on climate change and Fraser River sockeye salmon have been featured in the Globe and Mail.
Marc holds a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Environmental Biology from the University of British Columbia and a Master’s of Resource Management from Simon Fraser University. He is also a Registered Professional Biologist with British Columbia’s College of Applied Biology.
Nick Ochoski
GIS Modeller and Programmer
Key skills: GIS modelling and programming, web-mapping, remote sensing, RADAR, LiDAR, ecology
Nick Ochoski is a GIS modeller and programmer with a background in remote sensing and ecology. He holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Geomatics and a M.Sc. in Geography with a specialization in GIS and Remote Sensing from Carleton University. Before joining ESSA, Nick worked on a variety of projects for the Federal government and independent research labs. He has experience working with an assortment of remotely sensed data types including RADAR, LiDAR, and multi/hyperspectral and has undertaken field work in various environments as a means of investigating various environmental problems, especially those related to invasive species in wetland ecosystems.
While working with Environment Canada, Nick developed and carried out a 2-year project looking at the detection and monitoring of invasive vegetation along shores of the Great Lakes using RADARSAT-2 imagery. The project made use of several RADAR data types as well data derived from fieldwork and various GIS sources. The methods developed for this project are now being used by the Canadian Wildlife Service in order to monitor and control the spread of harmful vegetation in freshwater ecosystems.
Nick carried out a series of projects for the Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Laboratory at Carleton University which included: web-mapping, statistical and spatial analysis of raster imagery, object-based image classification and aerial imagery flight planning and acquisition. Much of this work involved the assessment and monitoring of forest health.
To date, at ESSA, Nick’s work has focused on GIS modelling and software development, including work on the River Bathymetry Toolkit, which is concerned with the automated processing of LiDAR imagery for the purpose of understanding fish habitat in freshwater waterways. Most recently, Nick has begun work on a project for Utah State University which involves the creation of a software package that will assess the accuracy of digital elevation data over the Grand Canyon.
Darcy Pickard
Senior Statistician
Key skills: sampling design, design of experiment, simulation modeling, data analysis, and workshop facilitation.
Darcy Pickard is a statistician with over ten years of applied statistical experience including most recently, five years applying statistical methods to ecological problems. She holds a B.Sc. in Statistics, minor in Ecology and a M.Sc. in Statistics from Simon Fraser University. Darcy has worked on a range of research projects involving study design, data analysis and simulation modeling, in British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, New York, Oregon and California. Recent analytical projects have involved: guidance for Wildlife Habitat Area effectiveness monitoring in BC, analysis of before after control impact data to inform decisions regarding the re-introduction of sockeye to the Coquitlam reservoir, developing fractional factorial designs to improve the efficiency of large fire management simulations, numerous fish related analyses (e.g. redd datasets, habitat suitability modeling, smolt outmigrant monitoring etc…), and a simulation study to evaluate alternative monitoring plans for salmonids in the Columbia River Basin. She has helped to facilitate two large multi-year and multi-objective monitoring design projects: the Collaborative Systemwide Monitoring and Evaluation Project in the Columbia River Basin, and the Trinity River Restoration Program in California. Darcy enjoys working with people and helping to bridge the gap between biologists and statisticians. She believes it is very important to understand the data first hand and makes it a priority to get out in the field and get her hands dirty. In addition to her statistical expertise and facilitation experience, Darcy is educated in ecology and field techniques making her uniquely suited to integrate between the two domains.
Marc Porter
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: fisheries science, habitat modeling, fish/wildlife monitoring and evaluation, GIS analysis, EIA, statistical design and analyses, technical writing, facilitation
Marc is a Registered Professional Biologist and Systems Ecologist at ESSA with over 20 years experience in fisheries and wildlife sciences. He is particularly skilled in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) for integrating biological and physical information. Marc has a Bachelors degree in Wildlife Biology and a Master’s in Zoology, both from the University of Guelph. His projects at ESSA involve both analysis and technical facilitation, and recent work includes monitoring, evaluation and restoration plans for salmon, steelhead and bull trout in the Columbia Basin; development of a comprehensive adaptive management framework to evaluate the effects of restored river flows in California’s Trinity River on listed fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles; evaluating the effects of watershed restoration projects on salmon production; scoping the feasibility of restoring anadromous salmon to the Canadian reaches of the Upper Columbia River; and development of GIS-based models for describing and predicting occurrences of fish species in BC watersheds. He is also currently assisting in the development of a provincial-scale habitat monitoring program for designated Fisheries Sensitive Watersheds in BC. Before joining ESSA, Marc’s work experience included analyses of large scale inventory datasets of both fish populations and their habitat, and he was involved in a suite of field-based fisheries and wildlife research focused on the effects of BC logging practices. Additionally, Marc has undertaken fish and wildlife inventories throughout BC, Ontario, Alberta and the Yukon.
Frank Poulsen
Quantitative Systems Ecologist
Key skills: ecosystem modeling, software development, GIS and statistical analysis
Frank holds a M.Sc. in Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. He wrote his Master Thesis on Numerical Modelling of Mussel Growth at the National Environmental Research Institute in Denmark, developing an ecological model of Blue Mussel growth on longline system in Sweden. The model included simulating hydrology, vertical water column mixing, nutrient cycles, algae and mussel growth. Frank has also utilized advanced spatial and statistical methods to analyze field data in ArcMap and Matlab. Amongst other activities, Frank has conducted fieldwork for Parks Canada, and completed work on several technical environmental topics for Alaska Fish and Game.
Donald Robinson
Senior Systems Ecologist
Key skills: ecosystem modelling, spatial modelling, forest growth and yield modelling, workshop facilitation
Don is a Registered Professional Biologist and Systems Ecologist with 20 years experience in ecological simulation modelling and analysis. He holds BSc and MSc degrees in Zoology from the University of British Columbia, with additional graduate studies at Cornell University. At ESSA his skills are applied to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem management problems requiring a combination of mathematical ecology, statistics and probability, and numerical methods.
Besides simulation modelling he is also very interested in multivariate visualization and in the development of user-oriented quantitative tools to enable and strengthen decision making for natural resource management. Don also has an ongoing interest in spatial modelling of natural systems and in the development of cross-scale approaches to spatial processes. Don has led and participated in numerous workshops to clarify and solve management problems having a large science component, and assisted in the development of technical approaches to develop science-based responses to resource management problems.