The Hakai Institute (formerly the Hakai Beach Institute) is a scientific research, teaching and meeting center established by Eric Peterson and Christina Munck on
Calvert Island, a remote island on the exposed Pacific edge of the
Great Bear Rainforest on the Central Coast of
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
, Canada. The Hakai Institute is a program of the Tula Foundation, a British Columbia-based private foundation also founded by Peterson and Munck. The Hakai Institute specializes in "long-term ecological research". It has active research programs in archaeology, earth sciences, terrestrial ecology and marine ecology. The Hakai Institute enjoys partnerships with neighbouring First Nations, local schools, government agencies and the BC universities.
History
Hakai Institute was founded in 2002 by the Tula Foundation with the goal of purchasing and preserving land along the
Central Coast. Over time, the focus shifted to scientific research. In 2008, the institute partnered with British Columbia universities and the
Wuikinuxv First Nation to conduct a comprehensive ecological study of
Rivers Inlet.
[
In 2009, the institute purchased the former Hakai Beach Resort on Calvert Island. The fishing lodge was converted to an ecological observatory and opened the following spring to host the 2010 Coastal Guardian Watchmen conference. In 2014, the institute established a second ecological observatory on ]Quadra Island
Quadra Island is a large island off the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is part of the Discovery Islands, in the Strathcona Regional District.
Etymology
In 1903, the island was named after the Peruvian Spanis ...
near the town of Campbell River. The institute has since partnered with numerous universities and government institutions in researching the ecology of the wider British Columbia Coast
The British Columbia Coast, popularly referred to as the BC Coast or simply the Coast, is a geographic region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. As the entire western continental coastline of Canada ...
.[
]
''Hakai Magazine''
In 2015, the Hakai Institute launched ''Hakai Magazine,''online magazine
An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to an online only magazine was the comput ...
publishing short and feature-length journalistic stories on topics related to coastal science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
, ecology
Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...
and communities. The founding editor of the magazine was science journalist Jude Isabella.
References
External links
Tula Foundation
Research institutes in Canada
2002 establishments in British Columbia
Educational organizations based in British Columbia
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