UNB professor elected president of the Coalition-SGSL
Author: Communications
Posted on Sep 30, 2015
Category: UNB Saint John , UNB Fredericton
Brigitte Leblon, professor of remote sensing in the faculty of forestry and environmental management, University of New Brunswick (UNB) has been elected president of the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence Coalition on Sustainability (Coalition-SGSL).
The Coalition-SGSL’s mission is to promote the long-term viability of the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence ecosystem. Its goal is to work towards the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the Southern Gulf region.
With the Coalition’s community groups and colleagues from UPEI, NSCC, Dalhousie University, Stantec, DFO, Environment Canada, and from the University of New Hampshire, Prof. Leblon and Dr. LaRocque from the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, UNB, and Dr. Simon Courtenay, UNB Adjunct Professor and CRI Director, received $200,000 from the Atlantic Ecosystem Initiatives Program of Environment Canada.
The funding will allow the team to develop a bay-scale cumulative effect monitoring program for eelgrass in Atlantic Canada.
The project has several components. The first will involve community-based monitoring via SeagrassNet protocols looking at eelgrass beds as well as environmental parameters. The second involves determining the most effective and cost-efficient remote sensing technology for mapping eelgrass beds in the Atlantic region. The third involves understanding the current state of eelgrass in Atlantic estuaries. In areas where eelgrass is found to be in decline, a mitigation plan for each estuary based will be formulated.
The Coalition-SGSL is a non-profit group, bringing together representatives of all sectors: community-based groups, First Nations, business, three levels of government, and academia from the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia.
Media Contact: Natasha Ashfeild