Rena Soutar

Rena Soutar is the first Reconciliation Planner at Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation. In this role, Soutar works with the Park Board, the City of Vancouver and First Nations communities to uphold the organizations’ commitment to the 11 Reconciliation strategies, as well as the Board’s endorsement of the mission to “decolonize the Park Board”. Soutar works cross-departmentally on  projects such as park naming and monuments, memorials and public art processes and policies to ensure integration of Indigenous history, heritage values and memory practices. At the root of Soutar’s work is the belief that:  “There’s no such thing as a culturally neutral space.”

Soutar’s role is to help the park board be “an evolvable organization in which every employee and commissioner recognizes the humanity in themselves by recognizing and respecting the humanity of First Peoples” and one that sets an example in treating reconciliation as a process of decolonization.

Prior to her work as Reconciliation Planner, Soutar worked with the Cultural Planner for several years. She has worked on project consultations with the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Lil’wat peoples in environmental, cultural, and intergovernmental contexts. Her engagement with Aboriginal artists on public art installations includes outreach to every province and territory across Canada. She is the author of Songhees, a cultural biography of the Songhees Nation in Victoria, BC. She is also editorial contributor to “O Siyam: Aboriginal Art Inspired by the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games”, a book chronicling the Venues Aboriginal Art Program, a project which she also coordinated.

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Jérôme Dupras

Jérôme Dupras is the bassist for the Cowboys Fringants and President of the fondation pour la protection de l’environnement (Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.)

His research and multidisciplinary approach are focused on building a scientific method that can be used to value nature, including urban parks to foster greater awareness and investment in nature. He works at both a grassroots level and with major stakeholders and decision-makers to help spread new thinking and engagement in the environment.

Dupras also has a very successful musical career and his band is a platform for spreading engagement in several issues, including environmental ones. 

A professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at l’Université du Québec en Outaouais and a researcher at the l’Institut des sciences de la forêt tempérée (Institute of Temperate Forest Sciences), Dupras runs the Laboratory for Ecological Economics. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the Université de Montréal and a postdoctoral degree in Biology from McGill University.

Dupras’ scientific work was recently recognized by the Government of Quebec when he received the Quebec Emerging Science Award. He continues to be Involved in several conservation and greening projects, including being Co-Founder of the Green Belt Movement and spearheading the planting of 375,000 trees for the 375th anniversary of Montreal.

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