Conserving healthy environments while developing and managing sustainable uses of them is crucially important now and for future generations. This program teaches you about the challenges and approaches used to identify, advocate, and manage for healthy ecosystems.

Our Wildland Conservation and Recreation degree focuses on portions of the landscape where conservation values along with recreation and aesthetics are priority land uses and activities, and where these intersect with other values, priorities, and uses.

Topics you will study in Wildland Conservation and Recreation include:

the promotion of and advocacy for conservation
integrated management of legally designated parks and protected areas
conservation area design
human activities across these areas

Our degree provides students with the philosophical foundation, scientific theory, and technical skills to address the challenge of maintaining functioning ecosystems across developed, developing and still wild landscapes.

Experiential learning is integrated into class work, uses case studies, practical projects, applied field techniques and includes field schools, faculty-supervised research, and undergraduate research.

Ecological systems underpin human well-being in many ways from art and culture to food security. Conservation professionals work to ensure that ecosystems continue to provide these values for future generations. However, we are facing an increasingly complex set of challenges as human populations and resource development increase and the global climate changes. Meeting these challenges requires an integration of human and ecological values across a broad range of ecosystems at increasingly larger spatial and temporal scales.

Students pursuing a BSc in Conservation Science and Practice focus on understanding and addressing the contemporary challenges facing the sustainable use and conservation of our environment. Navigating these challenges requires a strong scientific foundation, including the necessary appreciation for both the natural and human dimensions of conservation and management. This degree equips students with the knowledge to enter a solutions-based career that actively contributes to solving today’s conservation and management problems. Our goal is to provide students with the philosophical foundation, scientific theory, and technical skills to address the challenge of maintaining the functioning of ecosystems across developed, developing and still-wild landscapes.

The BSc in Conservation Science and Practice allows students to pursue one of two majors:

Wildland Conservation and Recreation
Landscape Conservation and Management
The major in Wildland Conservation and Recreation focuses on portions of the landscape where conservation values, including recreation and aesthetic values, are the priority land-use activities, and where these activities intersect with other values, priorities, and uses. Topics of study include: the promotion of and advocacy for conservation; integrated management of legally designated parks and protected areas; conservation area design; and human activities across these areas, including recreation, ecotourism and the associated positive and negative impacts on ecological integrity. Students develop the skills necessary to identify, plan, monitor, and manage conservation values within the parks, recreation and tourism sectors.

The major in Landscape Conservation and Management focuses on natural and human-modified systems across broad spatial scales. The emphasis in this major is on integrated landscapes that support a wide variety of values and activities, including the maintenance of biodiversity, the rights and practices of Indigenous Peoples, ecosystem services, and resource extraction. Courses in this major consider human activities across a range of ecological scales but with an emphasis on landscape and ecosystem-level processes. Graduates from the major develop the skills to work with cutting-edge tools and data that are necessary for the planning and management of multiple values across space and time.

Both majors are premised on an interdisciplinary and multi-value perspective. The degree is focused on the natural sciences, and draws on ideas, theory and practice from the social sciences. This broad perspective recognizes that humans are part of socio-ecological systems; thus, the human dimensions of conservation, management and natural sciences are integral components of the curriculum.

Career Paths
Park warden and park planning
Conservation area design
Wildlife conservationist
Sustainability director
Work with ENGOs
Land use manager
Environmental educator
Natural history and heritage interpreter
This degree equips you with the knowledge to enter a solutions-based career that actively contributes to solving today’s conservation and management problems.