Transboundary Initiative

 

Since 1999, the Environmental Studies Program of the University of Montana has joined with the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary to offer the Transboundary Planning, Policy and Management Initiative. This graduate program, supported by the Henry P. Kendall Foundation, offers student research and internship support, shared courses and faculty exchange to explore and develop the knowledge and skills necessary to manage across domestic or international administrative boundaries.

The University of Montana and the University of Calgary are ideally located within a living laboratory for transboundary work. In between the two university campuses lie millions of acres of federal, state, provincial and tribal/first nation lands including the Blood, Salish-Kootenai and Blackfeet Reserves, the Flathead National Forest, the Crowsnest Forest Area, Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks, Akamina-Kishenina Provincial Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex; municipalities like Kalispell, Choteau, Browning, Fernie, Pincher Creek and Crowsnest Pass; the Waterton gas fields; and working forest and grassland landscapes used for crop agriculture, grazing, forestry and recreation. The demands on these landscapes are diverse and cross numerous ownership/management boundaries. The program takes advantage of the proximity of these examples to put students in the field, meeting those most intimately involved with the issues and application of policy, to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges of transboundary management within the region.

 

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Courses

Each academic year, the Transboundary Planning, Policy and Management Initiative brings graduate students from Canada and the United States together for an intensive course that includes a field component. The course travels over a transboundary region, meeting with managers, landowners and citizens that engage management and planning on the ground in the region. The first two courses centered on the themes of large carnivore management and oil and gas development. In the coming year, the course will focus on subdivision, private land use and recreation.

Students and faculty meet in the classroom before and after a nine-day field trip. On the field trip students see the region first hand, hear from those working with transboundary issues and spend time discussing US/Canadian approaches. Most importantly, US and Canadian students get to know each other and develop a new appreciation for and understanding of the other culture. Students work in teams of mixed US and Canadian membership, to produce a report that summarizes an issue and discusses the relevant stakeholders and approaches to improved management.

Internships

The Transboundary Initiative also develops graduate student internships. Internships bring practical, real-world exposure to issues, approaches and people that provide a unique learning opportunity for environmental professionals. The EVST Program has a long history of internship education. We put this experience to work to provide students with outstanding internship opportunities on both sides of the US-Canada border.

The Henry P. Kendall Foundation currently funds an internship in a government agency or non-governmental organization dealing with transboundary issues. Other, unfunded internships are available as well. Internships are supervised by staff of the organization offering the internship and EVST faculty. They may occur during the school year or the summer and may be taken for credit toward the graduate degree.

 

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Research

The Transboundary Planning, Policy and Management Inititative seeks to promote student and faculty research aimed at resolving issues relevant to transboundary management and planning. The Initiative participates in research workshops designed to develop relevant research questions through the input of government and non-governmental organizations throughout the region.

Through the support of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation we are also currently able to offer competitive research fellowships to graduate students doing transboundary research projects.

Examples of transboundary research/creative projects completed by Environmental Studies graduate students include:

• Wolf Management in Southern Alberta: Lessons for State Management in the United States
• Impacts of Coal Bed Methane Development in Southeastern British Columbia
• Kyoto Protocol Emissions Reduction Unit Trading: Is Canada Required to Accept US ERU's under GATT and NAFTA
• In Defense of the Sacred-creative works about the sacred in the region

Get some ideas for research topics. (Word document).

Learn More About the Area (Virtual Tour)

The BC Flathead Virtual Tour	These slides are a tour of part of the Canadian Flathead River drainage in southeastern BC.	Cabin Creek Drainage	The top of Cabin Creek
Road crossing Cabin Creek	Across the Flathead Valley from the Cabin Creek Road	Forrest along the Cabin Creek Road	North side of the Howell Creek drainage in the distance
Looking up Cabin Creek drainage	The ridge separating Cabin and Howell Creeks	Howell Creek near the confluence with Cabin Creek	Flathead River near the British Columbia-Montana border
Fire break about 100 m north of the British Columbia-Montana border. Constructed summer 2003.	Closed Flathead, BC border crossing station	US-Canada border marker by the Flathead River (Canada is North, Montana is South)	On the Sage Creek side of the Flathead watershed
The Flathead River and the Howell Creek drainage in the background	The Flathead River from the east. Cabin/Howell ridge in the distance	Sage Creek side of the Flathead from the west	Flathead River looking east just north of the previous photo.

Springing from the mountains southeast of Fernie, British Columbia, the Flathead River flows south across the Canada/US border to become the North Fork of the Flathead River in Montana, running along the western boundary of Glacier National Park and into the mainstem US Flathead River outside of Columbia Falls Montana. Through this shared watercourse, the province of British Columbia and the State of Montana are inexorably linked.

The University of Montana Environmental Studies Program provides the following introduction to the area. To the left are links to take you to some of the websites of the numerous agencies and groups interested in the Flathead watershed.

Find out about two species listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act, the bull trout and the grizzly bear.

More information on the BC coal mine proposal, coal bed methane resources in BC and the BC coal bed gas lease auction.

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