English transcript
Nadine Templeman: The Coastal Environmental Baseline Program was established in 2017 to inform better decision making in areas of existing high or increasing vessel traffic. The objectives of the program are to determine the physical, chemical and biological baselines at six sites across Canada, and those are in the coastal zone.
Chris Lewis: Here in Iqaluit, we're expecting shipping traffic to continue to increase in the North. We have a new deep-water port, construction is currently happening. We have a new small craft harbor and it just seemed to be a really good fit.
We collect information on different species diversity from everything from phytoplankton up to fish species. We have food web studies going on in the coastal areas and in the larger Frobisher Bay. We really work closely with the community to identify what's important to them and then work with them to try and identify people that can help us answer those questions.
Kirt Ejesiak: I think our team really feels we're contributing to a larger project. It's something that was started over 30 years ago. We understand the baseline research that was done back then. We're trying to replicate that with newer tech using unmanned systems.
Chris Lewis: So Arctic UAV has a lot of knowledge and expertise when it comes to flying drones and because the tides are so high here in Iqaluit and the intertidal areas are so important to invertebrates and clam areas around the community, it just seemed like it was a good fit.
Kirt Ejesiak: In today's instance, we went to a historic site. It's an area where we were five years ago going back to capture that information, doing an aerial survey, looking at detailed maps to look at either erosion over time, looking at areas that may be of interest to the community.
Chris Lewis: And by having them map out the intertidal areas. It's really, really helpful and complementary to a lot of the other studies where folks are looking at species biodiversity or looking at species affiliation with different types of habitat.
Kirt Ejesiak: And then the ROV side looking at what's going on underneath the water, if it's looking at new species, if it’s looking at validating species that were there 30 years ago we’re trying to capture that imagery so that we know what changes are happening over time.
Chris Lewis: If you want a program to be successful, you need to acknowledge and work with the knowledge experts and the communities, the people that live here that have grown up here. You want to do stuff that's important to them to address community concerns. And if you're doing that and you're working hand in hand, it's going to build trust. It's going to build partnerships and you're just going to go a lot further.
Kirt Ejesiak: I think our project really capitalizes on local knowledge. It's important to recognize these areas are important historically, important for harvesting, important for many reasons. Our ancestors were in these areas and just understanding what's their benefits. My kids and my great grandkids, just knowing that that information is being passed on.
Chris Lewis: One of the deliverables for the program will be to make sure that the data that's collected as part of the program is also accessible by the public too. So it's a really great snapshot in time of where we are at this moment, and it'll give us some really great reference points for the future to see how human impacts are actually going to affect some of these ecosystems.