Who We Are
Our History
The Nature-Based Solutions Foundation (NBSF) was launched in 2021 by some of western Canada’s most experienced conservationists. For decades, our founders have worked to protect scores of native ecosystems, inform critical conservation policy, and play a leading role in building the modern old-growth conservation movement in BC. Now, through NBSF, they are leveraging their experience and expertise to help drive meaningful protection of the most at-risk ecosystems.
Since its inception, NBSF has been dedicated to safeguarding Canada’s most endangered ecosystems by filling critical conservation funding gaps while working with and supporting diverse communities and partners to establish new protected areas. To date, NBSF has helped advance six vital protected area initiatives in western Canada.
Our Board
KERRIE BLAISE
Board Chair
TJ watt
Board Treasurer
Ken wu
Board Secretary
What Drives Us
Our Vision
Our vision is a Canada in which all native ecosystems, including the most endangered ones, are sufficiently protected to ensure their long-term ecological integrity, and that the human and non-human communities they sustain are able to flourish.
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SEE OUR APPROACH
SAVING ECOSYSTEMS
What Makes Us Unique?
Science-based approach +
We use the latest insights in conservation biology and landscape ecology to advocate for the adequate protection of biodiversity in order to ensure all ecosystems are represented, including the most endangered and least protected; and to ensure their long-term viability through large-scale protection so that all species, communities, relationships, and ecological processes are sustained over the long term.
Our conservation efforts are primarily centered on the most at-risk and biodiversity rich ecosystems—including valley-bottom big-tree old growth, Prairie grasslands, Carolinian forests, and more—to ensure Canada meaningfully achieves its protected areas targets.
Conservation funding gaps +
We fill critical conservation funding gaps that, if addressed, make it possible to establish new protected areas. This can include supporting land-embedded communities and land acquisitions, partnering with government funding sources, securing diverse funding to assist with protected areas development, helping develop resilient and diversified conservation economies that thrive with nature, and much more.
Key communities +
We collaborate with key communities, or “land-embedded communities”, who have maintained generations of close cultural, political, and economic links to the lands near their homes. They therefore play a central role in enabling nature protection. Our collaborations focus on co-developing new legally-binding protected areas while fostering local economic resilience by supporting community-based businesses and jobs that thrive with nature.
Our community support is flexible, designed to fulfill urgent needs—such as those related to health, education, culture, economy, and community programming—in order to reduce the financial pressures that many communities face when transitioning away from resource-based industries.
Economic Resilience +
Using a strategic conservation financing model rooted in local community needs, we support economic transitions to more sustainable and resilient economies that thrive with nature. This is a key enabler to protecting the most at-risk areas.
Conservation economies can include eco and cultural tourism, recreation, clean energy outside protected areas, sustainable seafood, non-timber forest products like wild berries and mushrooms, carbon and biodiversity markets, and so much more.
Team
EMILIE CARRIèRE
National Coordinator
SARAH GRAHAM
Administration Services Manager
Joseph Sutton
Executive Assistant
PAULA NAVARRO
Administrative Coordinator
JOSEPHINE AGUECI
Development Coordinator