The Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent, a large landscape collaborative group of partners, will gather in Fernie on Oct. 13-14 for their 7th annual conference. The public is invited to attend this event, which will highlight key issues in the region, including tourism and visitation, cultures that promote conservation, and landscape changes in the 18 million acre Crown of the Continent region in northwest Montana, southwest Alberta and southeast British Columbia. The annual conference serves as one of the primary vehicles to achieve the core mission of the Roundtable—to connect people to enhance culture, community and conservation in the Crown of the Continent. During the past six years, this conference has moved around the Crown to feature and celebrate different regions. The organizing theme of the 7th annual conference is “One Backyard: cCelebrating a Shared Landscape.” We will explore how the challenges and changes in our businesses, cultures, communities and landscapes are within our shared experience, transboundary in nature, and cause for partnerships and celebrations.
There are three objectives and expected outcomes for the conference. Exchange new information and ideas, connect people working on similar issues, and foster a sense of regional identity; celebrate the links among the culture, community, and conservation values of the Crown of the Continent and how people are working to enhance these values; examine two compelling issues facing the Crown of the Continent – impacts and opportunities from visitors and how culture inspires conservation - and build our collective capacity to address them at a local and regional scale.
The annual conference is preceded by a tribal roundtable meeting on Oct. 12, where natural resources managers from the Tribes and First Nations in the Crown of the Continent will highlight climate adaptation work, water sovereignty and policy issues, youth education programs, and explore tribal leadership perspectives on natural resource issues.
For more information about the event, visit Crownroundtable.org or contact kimdavitt@yahoo.com.