TEAM

David Flood is from Matachewan First Nation, an Ojibway band that is signatory to Treaty 9 area in northeast Ontario or the height-of-land. He has over 30 years' experience in Forestry and Land Management combined with roles in First Nation advocacy, policy and in leading business development. Currently he serves as the General Manager for Wahkohtowin Development which is a social enterprise held by three First Nations to design pathways to full participation Forests and Land Management across their respective Territories. The desire is to fulfill inherent land stewardship responsibilities, community well-being and diversification into climate change and action activities, such as RAD - that supports Indigenous People having a sustainable environment in their homelands. David is passionate about cultural revival and investing in the youth – elder intergenerational relationship this is fundamental for emerging Guardian Programs to keep the circle intact for the individual youth but also their interconnectedness and place in this world – Wahkohtowin.

A member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Gwen's career has been centered around providing advice, developing strategies, and managing natural resource-related projects for First Nations and their partners, including in land and water planning, protected areas planning, and policy. Gwen has worked with the Mescalero Apache, the Makah Tribe, the Okanagan Nation Alliance, and other First Nations and First Nations organizations. As all levels of government aspire to improve indigenous relations Gwen has been developing capacity in those and other organizations to advance reconciliation. Gwen has been recently working on indigenous-led conservation including caribou habitat protection and old growth protection with the Okanagan Nation Alliance and negotiating and planning for the South Okanagan Similkameen National Park Reserve and an indigenous proteced and conserved area in Canada. Gwen has a Master of Science in Renewable Resources with a thesis specialization in forestry hydrology and this grounding along with strength in indigenous perspectives, facilitates strong strategy development. Gwen has been advising the evolving provincial policy environment in British Columbia, Canada, for forestry and climate change, land use planning, and Indigenous-led conservation in BC. Gwen teaches courses in Ethical Space and Indigenous Leadership at University nuhelot’ine thaiyots’i nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills and is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. Gwen has provided Ethical Space training and consulting to many levels of government and is coordinating lead author for the Transboundary Policy Options chapter of the North American Biodiversity and Climate Change Assessment. She is a member of the RAD Network Leadership Circle.

Samantha Whiteye is a community leader from Eelūnapéewi Lahkéewiit. She is very passionate and dedicated to her work within Southern Ontario and the Indigenous Communities she actively serves. Samantha comes from grassroots immersed experiences which she utilizes her lived experience and understandings to create space, advocate and lead conversations centering on Truth and Reconciliation.

Leading with an ethical two eyed seeing approach Samantha demonstrates leadership as a changemaker in the environmental sector.

Samantha is very knowledgeable and connected to her Lunaapeew/Lenape culture as she continuously weaves the medicine and teachings into her work and daily lifestyle.

Over the past couple of years Samantha has worked closely with Carolinian Canada Coalition as Director and founder of the Indigenous Leadership Pillar within the organization to help shift the narratives in conservation.

Steven is Managing Director at Nature for Justice (N4J) and leads their First 30x30 Canada program. Steven is a member and former tribal chief of the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation, former CEO of the Nation’s Economic Development Department, and served as the Nations’ lead negotiator in the creation of the Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area—“The Land of the Ancestors”. He was also a core member of the Indigenous Circle of Experts, contributing to the historic report, “We Rise Together”, which presents a pathway for achieving Canada’s conservation targets through “the creation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas in the spirit and practice of reconciliation”. Steven is also part of the Leadership Circle of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP).

Terry Dorward is the West Coast IPCA Conservation Director for IISAAK OLAM Foundation. A member of the TLA-O-QUI-AHT First Nations, Terry grew up in Port Alberni and was raised by his great-grandmother, Susan Marshall from Xwisten (Bridge river) of the St`at’imc Nation. At the early age of 12, Terry participated in the 1984 marches and blockades that declared Wah-Nah-Jus/Hilth-Hoo-is (Meares Island) a Tribal Park. It was this profound experience that politicized Terry to have an awareness of the struggles to uphold and protect Indigenous title and rights. Terry graduated from Malaspina University with a Bachelors of Arts with a focus on colonization/decolonization and was an elected councillor for Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations from 2010-2016, and from 2018-2022. From November 2007 to January 2023, Terry was the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks Project coordinator that helped deliver cultural, educational, stewardship, and economic projects in the rainforest. Terry was one of the co-founders of the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks Guardian program that continues to monitor and enforce Tla-o-qui-aht traditional laws within the region. Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks continues to be upheld nationally and internationally as a successful, ongoing developing IPCA.

Dani Warren is a Cree woman from Montreal Lake Cree Nation (Treaty 6, Saskatchewan) on her maternal side and is of Scottish, English and Danish descent on her paternal side. Today she lives in British Columbia with her partner and son. Dani was present for the visioning and development of the RAD Network starting in 2022 and served as a Leadership Circle member from June 2024 to June 2026. Dani is grateful to be the incoming Executive Director of the RAD Network. She brings extensive experience in Indigenous-led forest carbon and stewardship finance, most recently as Associate Director, Partnerships for the Great Bear Carbon Credit LP — an entity owned by seven coastal First Nations throughout the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii. There, Dani led carbon credit sales, managed key partnerships with stakeholders, market actors and government while driving revenue growth for First Nation shareholders in compliance and voluntary markets. Dani holds a certificate in Forest Carbon Management from UBC and brings a grounded, community-centered approach to advancing Indigenous-led climate action. Dani has been an active member of the pipe band community since 2004, when she began playing the bagpipes as an Air Cadet. Since 2010, she has performed with both competitive and non-competitive bands throughout the West Coast of North America.

Growing with the crystal-clear waters of Bineshii Okaningaming, Skeleton Lake in the traditional homelands of the Anishiinabeg, Robinson-Huron and Williams Treaty lands - Erin walks with vision and all of life in mind. Sharing through her Otipemisiwak Cree-Métis, Icelandic-Isles kinship and love for our ancestral knowledge in our times of prophecy and planetary health transformation. 

Erin is woven through fields of community and collective leadership; Director of Wise Practices for the RAD Network, lead faculty in Indigenous Leadership at the Banff Centre and Associate Professor with Royal Roads University.  Erin co-convenes the Indigenous Leadership stream within the International Leadership Association, is a Fire Keeper for the World Ethic Forum, and Earth Ambassador within the Home for Humanity movement.  At home, Erin is a board director and teacher for Feather Carriers: Leadership for Life Promotion and bioregionally, through the Gojijing Truth and Reconciliation Roundtable - Friendship Circle and has recently co-founded Bineshii Okanin Centre for Sacred Places. 

Erin acknowledges the brilliance of all life’s teachers and experiences in her bundle alongside carrying a BA in Environmental Studies and Law, MA in Global Leadership, and post-grad certification in land based Eco-Psychology.  A recipient of the RRU Founders award for the co-creation of the Weavers, she later participated in the co-creation of the Community Weavers Framework.  She has had the privilege of receiving mentorship in the Getting to Maybe systems change residency and as a Positive Deviant Fellow with Wolf Willow Institute.  

Erin believes in our inherent capacity to flourish through complexity naturally walking between and bridging different worlds and ways of knowing, braiding pathways towards what is possible and the essence of what is being called to life.

Dr. Darcy Riddell is a fifth generation British Columbian, living with her two children in Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish territories. She has worked with environmental initiatives, capacity-building organizations, philanthropy and Indigenous-led organizations to advance justice and protect nature, specializing in convening, transformative learning, multi-stakeholder engagement, policy advocacy, and scaling innovation. She is a contributing author to the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment. Previous roles include BC Program Director at Makeway, Director of Strategic Learning with McConnell Foundation, and Program Director at Hollyhock Leadership Institute. Her work is inspired by early involvement in ground-breaking campaigns and multi-stakeholder Great Bear Rainforest Agreements, which enshrined First Nations governance, protected areas and ecosystem-based management in 6.4 million hectares of the Pacific coast. She holds an MA in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness (CIIS) and a PhD in Social-Ecological Systems, focused on the scaling impact and transformative dynamics in the Great Bear Rainforest model (University of Waterloo).

Mary-Kate Craig is a mother, entrepreneur, researcher, consultant, and passionate community builder whose work is related to transforming how we live on the Earth. She lives in an urban intentional community in the Treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit and the traditional territories of the Attawandaron, Anishinnabe and Haudenosaunee now known as Guelph, Ontario. She is a starter and a catalyst who has worked in not-for-profit, private sector and academic settings. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Guelph using a participatory action approach to investigate: the aspirations, barriers and enabling conditions by which Indigenous-led nature-based climate solutions might occur in Canada. Through this work she helped to plant the seeds of what has now emerged as the Restore, Assert, Defend (RAD) Network. She is a managing partner of Anwaatin Inc, a company that works with Indigenous stewards on the front lines of climate change action, energy projects and waste management solutions. She holds an MSc in Biology (University of Windsor) and a BSc in Environmental Science (University of Plymouth, UK). She is the co-founder of an urban intentional community called the Junction Village Guelph which has incubated a community land trust to acquire, responsibly develop and steward residential properties.

Chelsea is of mixed ancestry on her mothers side, Ojibway on her fathers side and is a proud member of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, living in Treaty 6 Territory in Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Beaver Hills House - now known as Edmonton). She is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous-led stewardship and believes it is her responsibility to advocate for a future where Indigenous rights and conservation efforts are inseparable. With a background spanning government, non-profits, and academia, she works to ensure Indigenous leadership and voices are at the forefront of environmental stewardship.

She is a community builder at heart and her work focuses on connecting with Nations, partners and all people across the Network. As the Indigenous Engagement Lead for the RAD team, she is keen to listen to the stories, understand needs of communities and work towards breaking down barriers; whether that means reshaping policies, securing funding for community-driven initiatives, or challenging outdated approaches that reinforce colonial systems. She is passionate about meaningful change and believes in shifting power dynamics to ensure Indigenous leadership is at the center of this work, not an afterthought.

Boohzoo gakina, my name is Jasmine Pauze (they/them) and I am the Network Weaver with RAD Network. I am of mixed ancestry (Ojibwe of Garden River First Nation and settler descent) and was raised in T’karonto on the Treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit and the traditional territories of the Attawandaron, Anishinnabe and Haudenosaunee before moving to Epekwitk (currently known as Prince Edward Island) in 2022. 

As a 2 Spirit individual rooted in Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe teachings, my approach is informed by lived experience, cultural grounding, and a commitment to justice. I have worked extensively in community-based roles supporting Indigenous students, incarcerated individuals, and BIPOC non profit organizations. Through all of my work, I remain committed to transformative change, recognizing that anti-racism and decolonization require ongoing accountability, collaboration, and a willingness to confront discomfort in pursuit of liberation.

I am excited to bring all my expertise to RAD and support the necessary, generative work being done.

Dr. Justine Townsend (she/her) is a second-generation Canadian of Croatian, English, French and Scottish ancestry, gratefully residing in K'ómoks territory on Vancouver Island. Justine is delighted to be leading a project with the RAD Network that supports First Nations in overcoming obstacles to Indigenous-led nature-based solutions and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). We are conducting this project in collaboration with Simon Fraser University’s Action on Climate Team (ACT), where Justine holds a postdoctoral fellowship.

Justine has had the privilege of supporting Indigenous leadership in conservation and environmental governance for nearly a decade as a program lead, researcher, and facilitator. Recent roles include IPCA Planning and Research Lead and Instructor in the IPCA Planning Advanced Certificate, both at Vancouver Island University, and Director of IPCA Partnerships at the Indigenous-led IISAAK OLAM Foundation. Earlier in her career, Justine worked on environmental assessments, focusing on Indigenous and public consultation, socio-economic impacts, and land-use studies. In 2022, she earned a PhD in Geography, through which she conducted community-engaged research to support the advancement of IPCAs and reconciliation in Canada.