Program provides hands-on conservation experience

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If you are outgoing, like dealing with the public and would like a job that involves working outdoors, you might want to consider a career in resource management.

That's the career choice Glen Pranteau made.

"I first started off as an emergency firefighter," said Pranteau, who is originally from Cormorant, Man. and is a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation. "That's just the people they hire off the street sort of thing to go fight forest fires. Then I got hired on the provincial fire crew in Manitoba.

I worked there for five summers. I took Environmental Science in Lethbridge, Alta.and I think I started working enforcement in 1988 in Manitoba. I worked in various capacities there ... until 1993 at which time I moved to Saskatchewan."

Pranteau is currently acting manager of Saskatchewan Environment's Aboriginal Compliance Unit, which works to co-ordinate the department's Aboriginal programs and provide an Aboriginal perspective in the field. The unit, which was created last April, is also the first point of contact when dealing with Aboriginal people and compliance issues.

"In enforcement situations, you know that Aboriginal people have rights that other people don't. When there is a situation that might involve Aboriginal rights, we tend to get involved," Pranteau said.

While his job mainly involves enforcement, there are a number of career paths available in the area of resource management, Pranteau said.

"Once you get a resources diploma you can work as a wildlife technician, forestry technician, fisheries technician. You can work in the fire side as a fire technician. There's lots of jobs," he said.

Pranteau had some obstacles he had to overcome before he could pursue a career in conservation.

He was from a small community, so moving into a city to complete his studies was a bit of a culture shock, he said. Coming from a small town also meant coming from a high school with limited resources. Pranteau soon discovered he wasn't adequately prepared for the science courses he was taking.

"It's the same thing happening today," he said. "Aboriginal people, when they graduate from the smaller communities, there's a struggle to take a science- related course."

His advice to people thinking they'd like to pursue a career in conservation?

"They should upgrade themselves in their sciences and maths and biology. Because that's basically all you're taking in school, along with law enforcement, is science, math and biology."

There aren't a lot of Aboriginal people working in resource law enforcement within Saskatchewan Environment, and that situation is similar right across Western Canada. But, Pranteau said, that is something that is beginning to change. This year, Saskatchewan Environment is interviewing six Aboriginal people for seasonal conservation officers for the summer, the first time that many Aboriginal candidates have been up for seasonal positions.

"We'd like to have more Aboriginal people involved in resource management," Pranteau said. "In all aspects. Not just fighting the fires but being the biologists and the managers, that type of thing."

Another one of the ways the department is working to increase the number of Aboriginal people getting involved in careers in conservation is through its Ranger program.

"It's a summer student program for Aboriginal youth in the province that are interested in a career in resource management," said Jamie Chartrand, the other half of the two-person Aboriginal Compliance Unit and the co-ordinator of the Ranger program. Chartrand is from Moose Jaw, a descendent of the Willow Bunch Metis.

"The program is designed for students who are presently studying at a post-secondary institution in the area of environmental enforcement or resource management, or students who are graduating from Grade 12 and planning to enroll in this program area in the fall," Chartrand said. "What it's doing is providing the rangers on-the-job work exerience and paid employment with Saskatchewan Environment."

Taking part in the Ranger program also gives students an advantage when they've completed their studies and want to apply for seasonal conservation officer positions within the department.

This is the fifth year the Ranger program has been run. Last year, 12 students were hired on as rangers, working alongside the department's resource management personnel, observing and learning.

Chartrand also has some advice for young Aboriginal people thinking about a career in management.

"If that's the field they want they should go to school and finish their schooling," said Chartrand, himself a high school drop out who went back and completed his Grade 12 when he was 21, then went to the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology to complete his resource management training.

"If they want to do it they can do it. There's so many doors open for them that they don't realize, when they get the post-secondary education, where they can go within the government, not just being a conservation officer ... there's lots of different areas within Saskatchewan Environment that they can work as well."

For more information about Saskatchewan Environment's Ranger program, call Jamie Chartrand at 953-2891.