This year’s Kootenay Lake Summit will bring you an evening of learning, connection, and meaningful discussions around land use impacts to Kootenay Lake. After two years of cancelling this event and hosting it online, Friends of Kootenay Lake Stewardship Society is excited to bring the Kootenay Lake community together again!

This event will feature guest speakers, a dinner, and a community discussion for you to voice your concerns and help shape FoKLSS stewardship and education projects for 2024 and 2025.

There will be a silent auction including awesome prizes from Whitewater Ski Resort, Prestige Lakeside Resort, and more!

All proceeds from this event will go directly to supporting important stewardship and education projects on Kootenay Lake including watershed and wildlife monitoring, shoreline cleanups, education, and more.

Agenda

4:oo PM:  Doors open (mingle and gathering)

4:30 PM: Opening remarks, welcome and opening prayer

4:35 PM: Seeing the Lake Through the Forest: Critical Connections (Herb Hammond)

5:05 PM: Untangling Shoreline Relations: Responding to Riparian Habitat (Corey Scott)

5:30 PM: Ktunaxa Perspectives on Dams: Their Effect on Lake Ecosystems (Chad Luke)

6:00 PM: Dinner and mingle

7:00 PM: Community Break Out Session (The purpose of this break out session is to hear what concerns the Kootenay Lake community has in regards to the health and stewardship of Kootenay Lake and potential solutions/actions they would like to see going forward. Information gathered in this session will be used to help plan and develop FoKLSS stewardship and education projects for 2024 and 2025. To frame this session, there will be an interactive activity for folks to brainstorm and discuss).

8:20 PM: Closing Remarks and Silent Auction

8:30 PM: End

Speakers

Herb Hammond 

Herb is a forest ecologist and retired Registered Professional Forester with 40 years of experience in research, industry, teaching and consulting. He is best known for his concept and application of nature-directed stewardship, which he formerly referred to as ecosystem-based conservation planning. Hammond defines nature-directed stewardship as the protection and ecologically responsible use of ecosystems through all scales of time and space. Working primarily with Indigenous Nations and other rural communities, Hammond has developed more than 25 ecosystem-based conservation plans across Canada and in other parts of the world. Hammond holds a Bachelor of Science in forest science from Oregon State University and a Masters of Forestry in forest ecology and silviculture from the University of Washington.

Corey Scott

Corey Scott is a planner at the RDCK currently working on long range planning projects. His main focus is strengthening environmental stewardship through local government policy. Over the past three years, he has been researching and developing policy that addresses wildfire resilience and riparian area protection. In his spare time, you can find him outside and appreciating the nature that he cares so much about. He loves to snowboard, mountain bike, backpack, and practice yoga. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geography and a master’s degree in planning and his professional interest is centered around how to effectively manage growth and lessen human impacts on the natural environment.

Chad Luke

Chad Luke is Ktunaxa and lives in the area of the Yaqan Nikiy with the ?amakis Ktunaxa. He is a husband and a dad of three. His teachings are hands-on and being on the land. He works for the Ktunaxa nation Lands and Resources sector. He also serves as the Vice-Chair of the FoKLSS Board of Directors. “Our teachings of the Ktunaxa ?amakis are very important to our way of life. We constantly see, hear, and feel all the cumulative effects that are happening in all our surroundings.”

Feedback

Click below to fill out our survey for feedback/comments/questions/ideas/concerns for next year’s Kootenay Lake Summit!

Feedback Survey