Iain Davidson Hunt

• Ph.D. Natural Resource and Environmental Management, University of Manitoba, 2003
• Master of Natural Resources Management, University of Manitoba, 1995
• B.Sc. (Hons) Agriculture, Crop Science Major, University of Guelph, 1988

• Canadian Institute of Planners (MCIP)
• Registered Professional Planning (RPP)

Iain holds a faculty position (Full Professor) at the Natural Resources Institute in the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Earth, Environment & Resources at the University of Manitoba and is a cross-appointed faculty member with the Department of City Planning, Faculty of Architecture. Prior to this he worked as a consultant in northwestern Ontario for 8 years supporting Indigenous land use planning and enterprise development and for five years in Latin America (Bolivia & Mexico) supporting rural community development. He now works with students interested in ethnobotany and ethnoecology with a particular focus on the practice of harvesting (gathering, hunting, fishing) within forested landscapes and local food systems in agricultural regions. He has worked with graduate students to develop conceptual framing and methodologies to understand the topologies of harvesting networks and the continuity of such practices.  This work builds out of his previous research on cultural landscape documentation and realization that different approaches were required to understand the everyday practice of food provisioning as part of local and regional food systems.

He also draws together his experience as a professional planner and interests in ethnobotany, ethnoecology and community enterprises through the conceptual development and practice of biocultural design. Biocultural design provides an applied platform to work with community enterprises and artisans to consider how the process of design can be utilized to develop products rooted in knowledge of the biological materials guided by the cultural values. While he considers biocultural design to be an integrated process, he breaks it into two phases. The first phase builds on his previous work on cultural landscape documentation and enhancing that methodology by bringing in thinking from cultural asset mapping to create an approach of biocultural asset mapping. The second phase utilizes a team approach that includes community members and other relevant knowledge holders to move from documentation to the design of biocultural products.

• NRI 7222 Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and Environmental Management,
• NRI 7360 Qual. Methods in Community-Based Natural Resources and Environ. Management
• NRI 7380 Project Management
• Thesis, Practicum and Capstone supervision and advising