The forest sector in Newfoundland is rapidly changing, with mill closures, shrinking employment, shifting cultural and social expectations, and conflicts and uncertainties surrounding land use and tenure. This project utilizes interviews with forest managers and other stakeholders, as well as document analysis, to evaluate the opportunities and challenges facing forests and forest communities in Newfoundland. Research questions include: What is the current forest policy framework, and how has this changed over time? How does forest management align with forest policy? Who is making decisions in the forests of Newfoundland, who is benefiting from these decisions, and who is excluded? After data collection, researchers will place Newfoundland’s forest sector within the broader Canadian and global context, in order to provide recommendations and to identify research gaps.

This project, funded by the Harris Centre Applied Research Fund, has four main objectives: To assess the supply and demand of locally produced food in western Newfoundland, to gather and analyze views on the potential and barriers for developing farmers' markets in this region, to examine farmers' market governance models in other jurisdictions, and to evaluate the current efforts to develop a farmers' market in the Corner Brook area.

Researchers at the Environmental Policy Institute (EPI) are exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the local food system. This project, funded by the Humber River Basin Project, will consolidate existing data from reports and publications and contribute new data in the form of a food resource inventory, a food costing study, and interviews with food producers, community members, government representatives, NGOs, and regional planners.

This initiative will build on the successes of “Green Books” events hosted by the Environmental Policy Institute at Grenfell and involving numerous other organizations including the College of the North Atlantic, NL Public Libraries, Random House, and the City of Corner Brook. In addition to a talk by an author who has written a book about food security, there will also be a panel discussion component that will include speakers working on food security in the province from diverse backgrounds.  We will use the panel to brainstorm a research agenda on food security for the region.

The carbon footprint of an organization is t he amount of greenhouse gas emissions related to the organization’s operations. It is also often referred to as a Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Conducting a carbon footprint requires collecting, analyzing and presenting data on these emissions. These metrics serve to track progress in emission reduction and efficient resource utilization. This project is funded by the Regional Collaboration Research Fund.