The Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA) is the provincial organization responsible for monitoring, evaluating and reporting on key air, water, land and biodiversity indicators. AEMERA’s work informs environmental decision-making by policy makers, regulators, planners, researchers, communities, industries and the public.
AEMERA’s mandate is to provide open and transparent access to scientific data and information on the condition of Alberta’s environment, including specific indicators as well as cumulative effects, both provincially and in specific locations.
Our People
Click to view our organizational structure (updated November 2, 2015).
Science Advisory Panel
The independent international Science Advisory Panel provides scientific peer review and validation of science implementation to AEMERA. The Science Advisory Panel provides a science audit function of the programs and activities delivered by AEMERA. Advice from the SAP will be used to guide continuous improvements in AEMERA’s scientific standards and processes to ensure they are credible and will meet or set global best practices.
Indigenous Wisdom Advisory Panel
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) refers to the knowledge cultivated by Aboriginal and local peoples over a period of hundreds of years through their direct contact with, and understanding of, the local environment.
AEMERA strongly values TEK, and we are committed to involving and working with Alberta’s First Nations and Métis in our environmental, monitoring, evaluation and reporting programs and activities. In collaboration with our Aboriginal partners, we are working to develop strategies that are respectful and representative of traditional approaches to sustaining natural resources.
The purpose of AEMERA’s Indigenous Wisdom Advisory Panel is to provide strategic advice and recommendations to the AEMERA CEO regarding meaningful incorporation of TEK and the inclusion of Aboriginal peoples within the monitoring, evaluation and reporting system. The Panel will advise the CEO and report on the overall ability of the system to consider TEK in the appropriate context, as well as support priorities and capacity at the community level. Through this practice, community participatory processes that are based on TEK principles and practices help inform regional priorities.
Key focus areas of the Indigenous Wisdom Advisory Panel include:
- The respect and protection of TEK.
- Accepted methodology associated with uses and applications of TEK in an environmental monitoring context and science-informed systems.
- Emerging and best practices for application of TEK in a science-informed system.
- Effective and efficient methods for understanding and addressing community-based monitoring priorities for environmental monitoring.