Identifying community research needs for energy and environmental issues in western Newfoundland

Participants in the St. George's community engagement workshop

A series of community engagement workshops conducted by the Environmental Policy Institute at Grenfell Campus is aiming to identify community research needs related to energy, environmental and sustainability issues.

"By developing a list of community needs and concerns, we will understand going forward how we can best support future engaged research with communities in western Newfoundland," said project lead Dr. Rajib Biswal, a post-doctoral fellow at Grenfell Campus. "Basically, the project will help us to do research that communities want, in partnership with those communities."

The main activity of the project is stakeholder engagement in communities — with community members, municipal staff, town councils, mayors, local non-profit organizations, local industry partners and so on.

So far, workshops have been conducted in Burgeo, St. George's and Ramea; researchers included Dr. Biswal, and his postdoc supervisor Dr. Garrett Richards, assistant professor, Environmental Policy Institute.

In June, researchers visited Burgeo and St. George's.

"The discussion with the Burgeo community largely revolved around various challenges such as ageing population, limited economic opportunity, transport and communication including electric vehicles (EV), poor road conditions, tourism, impact of climate change and electricity, especially home heating in the winter," said Dr. Biswal, adding that waste management, the lobster fishery and other fishery-related challenges including green crabs were also issues faced by the community members.

In St. George's, the discussion started with various social issues involving seniors and youth. The community members shared some infrastructure related challenges and how much they have to rely on Stephenville or Corner Brook for basic needs such as education and healthcare. The lack of basic amenities such as sports facilities or recreational facilities for youth in the community were discussed. Other issues that the community members shared included waste management — litter and bulk items — financial challenges and inflation, lack of tourism infrastructure, electricity, including home heatingrelated challenges, ageing population, the lack of employment opportunities, climate change impacts, declining fish catches and issues that Indigenous communities in Burgeo face.

The discussion in Ramea in July was no different. The discussion focused on common civic social issues such as ageing and declining population, lack of revenue and financial struggles of the town, environmental challenges, including the rise in sea level and sea beach erosion, solid waste management and transportation of waste, the history and current operation of the fish plant and fisheries such as the scallop fishery.

"At each session, we concluded with a discussion about potential partnerships between Grenfell Campus and the communities," said Dr. Biswal. The researchers are currently reviewing their findings and hope to organize more workshops in the future.