Janet Sumner - Co-chair

Ms. Sumner has more than 25 years of experience as a professional environmentalist. She has been Executive Director of CPAWS Wildlands League since 2003. She led CPAWS Wildlands League in the achievement of substantial legislative reforms and before that she was the Communications Director for the Pembina Institute.

Ms. Sumner’s work experience has touched on many environmental issues, from pesticide use and climate change to waste reduction and pollution in the Great Lakes. Her passion though is the carbon cycle and the intersection with traditional wilderness conservation. She believes the solutions to climate change include protecting the world’s most vast terrestrial carbon stores residing in the Boreal ecosystem. Ms. Sumner is an expert negotiator, strategist and communicator with extensive policy reform experience. She also has a long history working with industries.

Cliff Supernault - Co-chair

Mr. Cliff Supernault has more than thirty-two years of experience in senior management with federal and provincial governments. As an assistant deputy minister in Saskatchewan, Cliff Supernault held portfolios in Municipal Affairs, Resource Development (Forestry, Fishing, Minerals), Economic Development, and Uranium Mining. He also spent several years as Indian Affairs District Manager in Saskatchewan.

Mr. Supernault spent twenty-two years in the Alberta Government, attaining managing director level. He specialized in Aboriginal affairs, economic development strategies, constitutional issues, and negotiation of Treaty Land Entitlements. He played a key support role in developing Consultation Policies at both Treaty 8 offices and First Nations level. He also worked with the Department of Energy and the Energy Utilities Board particularly on hearings for major oil projects. He was seconded to the Treaty 8 offices, advising on Industry, Government and First Nations relationships and implementing policy guidelines and framework for Alberta’s First Nation Consultation Policy. He also facilitated community workshops on government roles in the licensing process (i.e. mineral lease maps and Public Land Sales and Tenure).

Drew Black

Mr. Black is the Director of Environment and Science Policy at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Since 2014, he has examined and proposed solutions to develop more effective and appropriate conservation measures for agricultural and adjacent lands. He is part of a Canadian Federation of Agriculture working group that will develop a minimum standard for how Environmental Farm Plans address biodiversity and species at risk to improve outcomes at a farm and regional level.

Mr. Black is an active participant on over 20 multi-stakeholder committees or working groups, including the Federal/Provincial/Territorial/Industry Agriculture Adaptation Platform Working Group, which addresses climate change adaptation. He works closely with colleagues from natural resource sectors such as forestry, mining, oil and gas, and fisheries when coordinating joint industry positions on policy.

In the past, Mr. Black has also worked on national First Nations environmental research projects which collected traditional and western knowledge in the areas of indoor air, water quality, traditional foods, and diet.

Dr. Reg Crowshoe

Dr. Reg Crowshoe is a Piikani Blackfoot Elder, spiritualist, ceremonialist, teacher, and former Chief of the Piikani Nation, widely recognized for his dedication to Piikuni artifacts, traditions, language, culture, and history. Dr. Crowshoe is the Executive Director of the Oldman River Cultural Center in Alberta, and the Director/Developer of the Cultural Interpretative Program for the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Centre, a World Heritage Site. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and worked on several reserves in Saskatchewan before being station in Pincher Creek to work with the Peigan Band departments at the request of the Band Council.

Dr. Crowshoe has taught First Nations’ Perspectives on Holistic Science, and has generously shared and offered his assistance, ceremonial leadership, and traditional knowledge to students. In 2001, he earned an honorary Doctorate in Law and was appointed to the University of Calgary’s Senate in 2016. He has co-authored numerous works, including Akak’stiman, A Blackfoot Framework for Decision-Making and Mediation Processes and Science in the Native Community.

Chloe Dragon Smith

Ms. Dragon Smith is currently working with the Yellowknife based non-profit Ecology North, as a Climate Change Specialist. Previously, she worked with the Government of Northwest Territories as a summer student with the Protected Area Strategy, as an interpretive planner for youth engagement with Tourism and Parks, and as a biodiversity assistant with the Wildlife Division. She has experience in cross-cultural environments, demonstrated through her involvement over the past two years as a co-chair of the Canadian Parks Council’s ‘Connecting a New Generation with Nature’ working group, the team that developed The Nature Playbook.

Ms. Dragon Smith has significant international experience with protected areas through her involvement with the IUCN/World Conservation Union, attending both the World Parks Congress in 2014, and the World Conservation Congress in 2016. She was a delegate to the Youth Conference on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and panel speaker at the Canadian Parks Council Meeting of Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers. She is also a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas.

Ms. Dragon Smith has experience with Traditional Knowledge related to conservation in the Northwest Territories and is a member of the North Slave Metis Alliance.

Kate Lindsay

Kate Lindsay is a wildlife biologist; she has spent over 15 years working primarily in the fields of conservation, species at risk and land use planning. She has held roles with the forest industry, federal, provincial and municipal governments, as well as being the principal at an environmental consulting firm.

Kate is a Registered Professional Biologist (RPBio) with the BC College of Applied Biology.  She is also a member of the Association of Professional Biology.

Kate works with the forest industry to advance legislative and environmental leadership files such as; species at risk, migratory birds, climate change and biodiversity. Kate has also participated directly in the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, she was a member of the Science Committee, and the National Working Group on species at risk and protected areas planning.

Harvey Locke

Mr. Locke has been a fulltime conservationist for 18 years and currently operates his business, Harvey Locke Consulting, in Banff National Park. He is the co-founder and strategic advisor to the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative as well as to conservation and other non-profit organizations around the world. Mr. Locke is also the co-founder of the Nature needs Half Movement.

Previously, Mr. Locke was the Vice-president for Conservation Strategy with the WILD Foundation in Boulder Colorado, and was on the executive committee for the 9th and 10th World Wilderness Congresses. Mr. Locke was a lawyer and partner at a Calgary law firm for 14 years.

Mr. Locke is a recognized world leader in the field of parks, wilderness and large landscape conservation biodiversity.

Nik Lopoukhine

Mr. Lopoukhine worked at Parks Canada for twenty-four years, including as Director General of National Parks. Highlights of his career include introducing the fire management policy and programme, developing the Terms of Reference for the Ecological Integrity Panel and overseeing the carrying out of all of the Panel’s recommendations. On retiring in 2005, he served as Chair of International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas from 2004 to 2012. Other notable activities including chairing the International Society for Ecological Restoration, representing Canada at the Canadian Biodiversity Convention in the negotiations leading to the development of the Programme of Work on Protected Areas, Chairing the process that redefined the IUCN definition of “protected areas” and renewing the Protected Areas Management Categories that are used as a global standard.

Since 2012, he has served as an advisor to the Auditor General of Québec on the management of the province’s protected areas network, as advisor to the Auditor General of Canada on the application of ecological integrity principles to national parks, and as advisor to the Canadian Senate on approaches to the establishment of marine protected areas. He serves on Boards and has received numerous national and international awards for his professional and volunteer work.

John Lounds

As President and Chief Executive Officer of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Mr. Lounds has led a cross-Canada team of conservationists in establishing conserved areas and stewarding them to address declining biodiversity. More than 200 species on the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada list are found in these conserved areas and many conservation projects cover extensive geographies providing for wide-ranging mammals such as grizzly bear and caribou. Mr. Lounds’ key goal within the organization is to work with publicly protected areas organizations, such as Parks Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service, provincial parks agencies, and others, to ensure priority for conserving lands that buffer, connect or enhance corridors to existing protected areas.

Previously, with the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Mr. Lounds worked with the Government of Ontario to complete the Lands for Life process, which established a minimum of 12% of Ontario’s near-north geography as protected status.

Mr. Lounds believes that Canada, more than any other nation on the planet, has sufficient natural and wild spaces left to allow us to become a world leader in conservation. All we need is the right roadmap, or pathway, to get us there.

Louie Porta

Mr. Porta was one of the founders and a Director of Policy for Oceans North Canada.  He served as lead political advisor to Mary Simon, Ministerial Special Representative for Arctic Leadership.

He has worked extensively across northern Canada on Arctic marine conservation and biological issues, demonstrated through involvement in the creation of the Beaufort Sea Integrated Fisheries Management Framework, work as an advisor to the Students on Ice Foundation and Genome Canada, and coordinating the Western Arctic Beluga Monitoring Program.

Mr. Porta also has an expertise in Arctic development issues and has published work addressing Arctic oil and gas, Arctic shipping, strategic environmental assessment, and community consultation.

Tara Shea

Ms. Shea is the Director of Towards Sustainable Mining for the Mining Association of Canada. She works closely with mining companies on the implementation of best practices related to biodiversity conservation management at the mine-site level, including work related to the federal Species At Risk Act. 

She is engaged with multi-interest forums and recently joined the Executive Council Committee for the North American Bird Conservation Initiative Canada and the Species At Risk Advisory Committee (SARAC). She has participated in the National Wetland Roundtable, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy and the Devonshire Initiative.

Prior to joining the Mining Association of Canada in 2010, Ms. Shea held the position of Deputy Clerk-Treasurer for a municipality in northern Ontario and was responsible for organizing community meetings related to land use planning and sustainable community development.

André St-Hilaire

Dr. St-Hilaire has been a professor-researcher at INRS – Centre Eau, Terre, Environment (water, earth and environment centre of Quebec’s scientific research institute) at the Université du Québec since 2002. He is a Board member of the Canadian Water Resources Association. He has conducted research projects in six provinces (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia), all related to environmental/conservation/biodiversity issues in an aquatic environment. The focus of his work is primarily on providing quantitative tools for aquatic habitat conservation. He has worked on the St. Lawrence River system, studying the impact of changing water levels and increasing water temperature on the biodiversity of Lac Saint-Pierre. He has also provided managers with new modelling tools that help put proper policies and regulations in place.

Dr. St-Hilaire is one of the Canadian Rivers Institute’s science directors and previously sat for three years on the Research Management Committee of the Water Economics, Policy and Governance Network.

Alison Woodley

For the past 15 years Ms. Woodley has led the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s (CPAWS’) work on terrestrial parks and protected areas at the national level, most recently as National Director of their Parks Program. In 2015, she wrote a CPAWS report documenting Canada’s status relative to the international terrestrial protected area targets. She has been an advisor to the Auditor General’s Office on national parks, and a member of the federal Species at Risk Advisory Committee as well as the National Advisory Committee for the Canadian Parks Summit. She has also been involved in the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas’ work to develop Canadian guidance on “other effective area-based conservation measures”.

Ms. Woodley has experience working with Indigenous governments on protected areas, having collaborated with the Dehcho First Nations on a successful decade-long campaign to expand Nahanni National Park Reserve. She is currently working with Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation and partners to support the creation of Thaidene Nene national park reserve in the Northwest Territories. 

She has also worked for Parks Canada as a park interpreter in a national park, and in their New Park Establishment Branch at the national office.  She is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and lives in Chelsea, QC.

Barry Worbets

Mr. Worbets' 40 years of professional experience has focused at the intersection of business and environmental realities. He has spent over 30 years working for a range of oil and gas companies in senior roles related to health, safety and environment. He has strengths in board governance, climate change, and land and water policy. Recently, as Senior Fellow/Executive in Residence at the Canada West and Max Bell foundations, his research looked at improving environmental decision making and land/water policy in Western Canada.

Mr. Worbets is incoming chair to the Alberta Board of Nature Conservancy of Canada and he currently provides advice to the ranching industry through his work with the Western Ranchlands Corporation.

As a volunteer Mr. Worbets has been involved in a number of community projects including the Okanagan Rail Trail and Harvie Passage a volunteer multi-stakeholder project to reconstruct the weir on the Bow River in Calgary. He has served on numerous boards including the Alberta Water Research Institute, Parks Foundation Calgary, World Wildlife Fund Canada, Canadian Council of Ecological Areas, and Nature Conservancy of Canada.