Ed Wiken (left), Wildlife Habitat Canada's (WHC) Director of Habitat Policy and Science, recently received a Gold Leaf Award from the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas (CCEA) from Tony Turner, for his outstanding achievements towards improving our understanding of ecosystems and protected areas. The award ceremony took place at the CCEA's Annual General Meeting, recently held in Yellowknife.

Most recently known for his landmark work on WHC's Habitat Status Report series, Ed has had a long and colourful history developing scientific and ecosystem-based approaches used to assess the status of Canadian and North American land and seascapes. His career has spanned a 32 year period, working with various resource management agencies in government, and non-government groups.

He spent many years contributing to and improving the Northern Land Use Information Series, personally developing hundreds of map sheets while in the Arctic, and assisting in the overall coordination of the series. Ed has been a leading scientist on the Canada Land Classification Committee, whose work is now the foundation for many land and water use planning initiatives, as well as many biodiversity conservation functions across North America.

He was a founding member of the Canadian Society for Landscape Ecology and Management. Ed was also instrumental, while with the State of the Environment group at Environment Canada, in ensuring that marine and terrestrial ecosystem framework and analysis were used as the primary reporting units for Canada, and employed in other countries, such as Zimbabwe and Mexico.

Since the late 1980s, he has been an active member of the CCEA, as well as its Chairman for the past seven years. Ed has typically led by example, grounding the Council in conservation science and ecology, and linking its goals of a comprehensive network of Canadian protected areas with industry interests and stewardship.

Finally, his terrestrial and marine ecosystem work with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation has been particularly successful and of great assistance in fostering a North American perspective for a network of protected areas, and a means to produce state of ecosystem reporting and indicators.