LEEF Announces Dr. John Reynolds as BC Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation and Management

BURNABY – The Province will invest $2.25 million through the Leading Edge Endowment Fund (LEEF) to help fund the new Tom Buell B.C. Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation and Management to be held by Dr. John Reynolds at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell announced today.

Establishing this B.C. Leadership Chair at SFU will stimulate and provide leadership for large collaborative research projects to help maintain and enhance productive salmon stocks and the ecosystems that they support.

“We are committed to making B.C. a world leader in sustainable environmental management,” said Coell. “B.C. leadership chairs are designed to attract world-class faculty to strengthen the province’s capacity for innovative research and promote B.C. as a centre for cutting-edge research.”

John Reynolds is a Canadian who completed part of his doctoral studies at SFU before taking up a professorship in the UK. He is returning to Canada as an internationally respected expert on fisheries biodiversity and conservation. As leadership chair, he will examine threats to Pacific salmon, such as overfishing, habitat changes, and climate change to produce practical management tools and advice.

“I am delighted to have this opportunity to set up new research programs aimed at enhancing our understanding of the dynamics of salmon and their ecosystems and converting this information into advice for better conservation management,” Reynolds said.

The funding for the B.C. Leadership Chairs was established with an initial provincial commitment of $45 million for LEEF. Twenty leadership chairs will each receive a total endowment of up to $4.5 million, which is cost-shared between the government and the private sector.

“This government initiative allows us to raise equivalent matching funding with the very generous support of private donors,” said SFU president Michael Stevenson. “The chair was named, at their request, in honour of the late Tom Buell, one of the province’s leaders in the effort to make environmental concerns central to corporate responsibility.”

“I know that Dr. Reynolds will be a great asset as the LEEF BC Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation and Management,” said Martha Salcudean, chair of the LEEF board. “These internationally peer-reviewed projects provide a unique opportunity to further strengthen our world-class research to benefit all British Columbians.”

This is the province’s fourth B.C. Leadership Chair:

· The first LEEF Chair for Spinal Cord Research was awarded to the Rick Hansen Institute at UBC. Dr. John Steeves, a recognized leader in spinal cord research was appointed as the B.C. Leadership Chair in Spinal Cord Research in 2002.

· The second LEEF Chair for Prostate Cancer Research at the Prostate Centre at Vancouver General Hospital was awarded to Dr. Martin Gleave in July 2005.

· The third LEEF Chair for Depression Research at UBC was awarded to Dr. Allan Young in November 2005.

· The remaining B.C. Leadership Chairs will be awarded by the end of 2006.

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