SDG 15
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
KEY STATs
Progress on SDG15: Between 1977 and 2025 the University of Alberta’s Department of Renewable Resources has hosted 94 Forest Industry Lectures.
Since 2003, the University of Alberta Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences has hosted 23 Bentley Lectures in sustainable agriculture.
2024 research impact
№ relevant publications: 427
№ citations: 2,181
sample Courses
- ENCS471 - Practical Case Studies in Rangeland Management and Conservation
- ENCS473 - Environmental and Conservation Policy
- BIOL366 - Northern Ecology
- BIOL367 - Conservation Biology
VIDEOS
Are prairie hares doomed by climate change?
Institutional Stewardship Initiatives
Food Services at Augustana Campus and Aramark on North Campus are implementing sustainable food policies. These policies focus on supporting local food, reducing waste, and ensuring responsible sourcing.
Forest Reserve
The University of Alberta has reserved approximately eight hectares of land on the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River adjacent to North Campus. Setting aside this land from development maintains an unbroken length of the river valley and helps to preserve wildlife habitat and biodiversity in the heart of the city.
U of A Botanic Garden’s Green School
In the award-winning Green School program at the University of Alberta Botanic Garden, children in grades 4-8 are immersed in the natural world for five consecutive school days. With a philosophy of “slow education,” children have time to observe, hear, smell and touch the natural world. Many first-time participants are “nature starved” and have never been in close contact with the natural world. An appreciation of the natural world, and their relationship to it, leads students to an understanding of the importance of conservation and biodiversity. Green School sows seeds that participants and their communities will reap for years to come.
Research institutes, centres & projects
Resilient Forests
Productivity and sustainability of our forest ecosystems and operations are reliant on a healthy and resilient forest. However, forest health and local communities that depend on the forest industry are both under constant threat from changes in climate and climate-induced insect outbreaks. The pace of these changes is outstripping the ability for trees to adjust to these threats. Likewise, traditional tree improvement methodologies are too slow to provide well-adapted seedlings for reforestation and achieve healthy forests for the future. Thus, Resilient Forests proposes to integrate rapidly emerging technologies (genomics and metabolic profiling) and mathematical models into existing tree breeding programs to select pest resistant and drought tolerant trees.
Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute
The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) detects large changes in biodiversity in Alberta with the annually updated Biodiversity Intactness Index and Human Footprint Inventory. This research provides ongoing, relevant, scientifically credible information on Alberta's living resources to meet the information needs of government planners, industrial developers and local communities.