President's Dialogue Series returns to KPU for a discussion about climate solutions

The President’s Dialogue Series is coming back to Kwantlen Polytechnic University with guest speaker Maria Strack on Nov. 20 from 12:30 to 3:00 pm at the KPU Richmond Centre for Dialogue. 

KPU President Alan Davis invited Strack, a professor in the University of Waterloo’s department of geography and environmental management, to speak about her research on using peatlands as a natural carbon capture and climate solution. 

“I was excited to have the opportunity to come out and talk more about my research,” Strack says. “There are several different groups at the university who are interested in peatlands in the region [and] the threats that they might be facing.” 

Peatlands, a type of wetland, are carbon sinks that make up three per cent of global surface area, however they hold approximately 30 per cent of the Earth’s land-based carbon. The KPU Farm, located near the Richmond campus, is on ancient peatlands at Garden City Lands. 

Strack says peatlands store more carbon than all of the world’s forests. 

“One of my goals is always introducing people to what peatlands are, how beautiful they are, and how important they are in the Canadian landscape,” she says. “So that’s always one of my goals is sharing my love of these beautiful ecosystems with other people.”

Strack has been invited to the KPU Farm while she is visiting and hopes to share the work she has been doing on peatland restoration and how that might be able to revive ecosystems.

She says that peatlands are under threat. Losses of these lands are attributed to land use pressures, including drainage for agriculture use and resource extraction by mining, oil, and gas companies. However, the biggest threat to peatlands is climate change. 

“Most of our peatlands are in boreal and subarctic regions that are just facing ongoing and accelerating climate change,” Strack says. “There’s accelerating wildfire threats, both in the intensity and the area that’s being burned every year, as well as permafrost thaw for those that are further north.”

Through her research, Strack is trying to discover if these large carbon stores will remain in the soil, come up with management solutions, which in turn could prevent the carbon from entering into the atmosphere, and protect peatlands from further damage. This is especially important in Canada, which is home to approximately a quarter of the world’s peatlands, she says. 

“It comes with a responsibility to steward this massive amount of carbon in a responsible way,” she says. 

“Really acknowledging that those lands have been stewarded by the Indigenous Peoples in Canada for time immemorial and any decisions we make on the landscape need to be done in that spirit of reconciliation and collaboration.”

The President’s Dialogue Series will continue on Nov. 25 at the KPU Surrey Conference Centre with David Coletto, CEO and founding partner of Abacus Data, a full-service market and public opinion research agency.

Coletto will speak on public opinion’s influence on post-secondary opportunities, the housing crisis, immigration, and health care. Coletto was not available for an interview before publication.  

The President’s Dialogue Series is free to attend. For more information and to register for the event, visit www.kpu.ca/president/dialogue-series.