The Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP) was invited by Parks Canada to participate in its Horizon Scan. This scan was meant to identify emerging or “horizon” issues that could impact ecosystem conservation and management in Canada’s protected and conserved areas in the next 5 – 10 years. The CRP was also asked to contribute priority research questions to help inform Parks Canada’s broader research agenda going forward. Members of the CRP Leadership Circle met in March 2021 to identify emergent issues that are likely to impact protected areas, including Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs).

They also identified a list of objectives Parks Canada should incorporate into their research agenda, based primarily on the recommendations of the Indigenous Circle of Experts Report, We Rise Together. This briefing note provides a summary of the CRP’s discussion and related academic literature with an emphasis on social science issues around governance, cultural keystone species, and other issues emphasized in the ICE Report. As these issues are inherently place-based, and thus most appropriately addressed at the local scale, it is important to emphasize that the CRP’s input is not on behalf of any Indigenous government or Nation in the country.

The CRP believes that Parks Canada should engage with every individual Indigenous government whose rights, title, interests, and responsibilities have been (and continue) to be impacted by Parks Canada, developing true nation-to-nation, government-to-government, or Inuit-to-Crown relationships.

Key themes included: 1. Indigenous Peoples are rights holders, not stakeholders 2. Indigenous Peoples’ systems and forms of conservation governance is critical to the success of conservation 3. Indigenous knowledge systems: Two-Eyed Seeing Based on these key themes, priority research questions were identified by the CRP for Parks Canada to address as part of its research agenda.