The document discusses an environmental education and awareness summit hosted by the Kainai people with the theme of "Taking Care of the Land". The goal is to initiate relationships and ideas that foster sustainable management of natural resources through dialogue between community members, elders, academics, and Chief and Council. A definition of ecosystem is provided as a complex community of organisms and their environment functioning as an ecological unit. The traditional territory of the Blackfoot people is described as including lands in what are now Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, and Wyoming, bounded by the Rocky Mountains, North Saskatchewan River, Great Sand and Cypress Hills, and Yellowstone River. Several environmental studies and projects undertaken from 1994-2006 are listed, focused on wolf populations, bull trout

2. In the spirit of the
Iinnii Initiative
theme and Iinnii
Treaty, we are
promoting the
cultural, spiritual,
ecological
connections with
the land and
wildlife.

3. THEME:
Kainai Environmental Education and Awareness Summit:
Taking Care of the Land
- Initiating relationships and ideas that will ultimately translate
to sustainable planning and manage-ment of our natural
resources and ecosystems through fostering dialogue
between youth, elders, community members, academics and
Chief and Council.
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one
thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to
ourselves. All things are bound to-gether. All things connect.”
~Chief Seattle, 1855

4. ECOSYSTEM DEFINITION:
- the complex of a community of organisms and its environment
functioning as an ecological unit;
- the complex of a community and its environment
functioning as an ecological unit in nature;
- Complex of living organisms, their physical environment, and all their
interrelationships in a particular unit of space. An ecosystem's abiotic
(nonbiological) constituents include minerals, climate, soil, water, sunlight,
and all other nonliving elements; its biotic constituents consist of all its
living members. Two major forces link these constituents: the flow of energy
and the cycling of nutrients. The fundamental source of energy in almost all
ecosystems is radiant energy from the sun; energy and organic matter are
passed along an ecosystem's food chain. The study of ecosystems became
increasingly sophisticated in the later 20th century; it is now instrumental in
assessing and controlling the environmental effects of agricultural
development and industrialization.

5. The Traditional Blackfoot Territory included lands in what are now Alberta,
Saskatchewan, Montana and Wyoming and was bounded on the West by the Rocky
Mountains, on the North by the North Saskatchewan River, on the East by the
Great Sand and Cypress Hills and on the South by the Yellowstone River.

11. 1994 – Belly River Wolf Study (International Multi-Agency)
 The Belly River Wolf Study officially commenced on 9 May 1994,
prior to this however, wolf occurrences in southwestern Alberta
were being filed (as early as 1992) and wolf tracking by radio-
telemetry was being conducted in WLNP as early as March 1993.
 Three packs, each containing one radio-collared wolf, were found
in the study area.
 The three packs were the Belly River (the primary focus of the
study), the Beauvais Lake (occupying private ranchlands
surrounding Beauvais Lake) and the Carbondale (occupying rugged
foothills east of the Adanac Forestry Road).

12. 1995 – 2000 - Bull Trout Investigations in the Belly & Waterton River
Drainages (International Multi-Agency)
1996 – 2005 - Forest Management (Canada First Nations Forestry Program):
1996 – Forest Management Feasibility Assessment
1997 – Forest Management Planning
1998 – Traditional Land Use Training & Data Collection
- Cultural Resource (Archaeological) Assessment
1999 – Cultural Resource Assessment – Post Burn
- Entomology Research (Erin Kinsella - Graduate Thesis)
2000 - Selective Timber Harvest Planning (2000-2090)
2006 – Critical Habitat Assessment of the Blood Reserve (#148) & Blood Timber
Limit
(#148A) (Environment Canada – Critical Habitat Fund)