Environmental hiring has gotten more competitive. Restoration projects are expanding, biodiversity commitments are increasing, and regulatory requirements are tightening. Employers have more applicants to choose from, and they are increasingly filtering for candidates with verified, recognized technical skills.
Read More… Why Accreditation Matters in Environmental and Ecological Restoration Training
Earth Day (April 22) is a global reminder that protecting land, water, and life isn’t optional — it’s essential. This year’s Earth Day theme, “Our Power, Our Planet,” is a call to show up through real action, led by communities, educators, workers, families, and local leaders who protect the places they live and work.
Ten years ago, NRTG began with a simple but powerful idea: education should do more than inform—it should transform.
What started as a response to a gap in traditional education has grown into something much bigger: a community of passionate instructors, dedicated team members, and thousands of students now protecting the lands, waters, and communities we all depend on.
Read More… 10 Years of NRTG: People, Purpose, and Possibility
Ecological restoration is often misunderstood. To an outside observer, it can look like landscaping: plant some vegetation, stabilize a bank, maybe add structure to a stream, and move on. But anyone who has worked in restoration knows that this surface-level view is exactly how well-intentioned projects fail.
The environmental sector is changing fast and growing even faster. Whether you’re passionate about conservation, curious about fieldwork, or ready for a meaningful career change, this guide will help you understand not just what paths exist, but how real people actually build environmental careers.
Read More… The Ultimate Guide to Environmental Careers: How to Start, Grow, and Thrive
Picture yourself deep in the field — maybe you’re wading through a wetland, hiking a forest trail, or taking water samples in a remote river. Out there, it’s your skills and awareness that guide you, shaped by training and experience. But lately, there’s a buzz: drones, AI, and wearables are changing the game. The world is curious, a little nervous, and honestly, pretty excited about what these tools mean for our work and our future.
Read More… Tech Meets the Field — Empowering Environmental Work with Grounded Expertise
Imagine your classroom is the forest floor, your blackboard is the sky, and your lessons are carried on the wind and the water. At Natural Resources Training Group, we’ve seen firsthand how powerful learning becomes when it’s rooted in the land and delivered within the community. Over the past 20 years, we’ve provided natural resource training to more than 25,000 students across Canada and not through textbooks alone but through real, hands-on experience.
Read More… From the Ground Up: Empowering Communities Through Training
Climate change is no longer a distant threat—it’s a rapidly unfolding crisis already transforming Canada’s ecosystems. From wildflowers blooming out of season to wildlife displaced by violent storms, the impacts are both visible and urgent. In northern Canada, these effects are even more pronounced, threatening fragile ecosystems and communities. At the heart of resilience lies education and action—where natural resource training becomes essential. Programs like those offered by Natural Resources Training Group (NRTG) equip individuals with practical skills to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change, helping protect the future of Canada’s ecosystems and biodiversity.
As we navigate the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental change, the field of environmental science is undergoing a transformative shift. Global conservation efforts, new technologies, and data-driven tools are shaping the way we study and protect the natural world. We are seeing several key environmental trends in 2025. These trends are driving innovation and creating exciting new opportunities in research and environmental careers.
Read More… The Future of Environmental Science: Top Trends and Innovations in 2025
The oil and gas industry operates within a complex framework of environmental regulations. To navigate this landscape effectively, today’s energy professionals need more than just technical expertise—they must also be equipped with the skills to overcome environmental challenges, engage with Indigenous communities, and meet evolving regulations. That’s where Natural Resources Training Group (NRTG) comes in.
Read More… Celebrating NRTG at 9: A Legacy of Learning, Impact, and Purpose
The oil and gas industry operates within a complex framework of environmental regulations. To navigate this landscape effectively, today’s energy professionals need more than just technical expertise—they must also be equipped with the skills to overcome environmental challenges, engage with Indigenous communities, and meet evolving regulations. That’s where Natural Resources Training Group (NRTG) comes in.
Read More… Unlocking a Sustainable Future in Oil and Gas with NRTG’s Specialized Training
Construction sites are inherently hazardous, making safety a top priority for workers, supervisors, and project managers. Implementing best practices and safety protocols can prevent accidents and ensure a secure work environment. Here are ten essential ways to improve construction site safety and promote a culture of awareness and responsibility.
Accessing funding for Indigenous environmental skills training programs can transform your community’s capacity to protect and manage natural resources. With proper funding, programs like NRTG’s Land Guardian Program (LGP) equip participants with essential skills in environmental stewardship, including monitoring and field techniques. Whether you are an individual, a community, or an organization, writing a compelling grant proposal is the key to securing funding for these transformative programs.
Read More… How to Write a Winning Grant Proposal for Indigenous Environmental Skills Training
As we step into 2026, it’s natural to reflect on the successes and lessons of the past year. For many, 2025 was a year of growth, achievement, and progress. But now, it’s time to think even bigger. What goals can you set to make 2025 an even greater success? At NRTG, we’re passionate about helping individuals and communities thrive while building a sustainable future. We believe that with the right focus and support, you can achieve meaningful milestones both personally and professionally.
Read More… Make 2026 Your Best Year Yet: Inspiring Goals for Growth and Sustainability
Discover how to turn your passion for the environment into a successful career as an environmental consultant. Explore the essential career path, the importance of sustainability, and specialized training opportunities that equip you for real-world challenges. Start your journey toward making a positive impact today!
Kickstart your wildlife conservation career with these 5 online training programs. Gain skills in wildlife surveys, avian nest monitoring, and amphibian and reptile salvage methods through NRTG’s specialized courses.
Read More… 5 Online Training Programs to Kickstart Your Wildlife Conservation Career
Discover how to turn your passion for the environment into a successful career as an environmental consultant. Explore the essential career path, the importance of sustainability, and specialized training opportunities that equip you for real-world challenges. Start your journey toward making a positive impact today!
Read More… From Passion to Profession: How to Become a Successful Environmental Consultant
As I embark on my eight-day journey through Alberta and Saskatchewan, I am reminded of the incredible diversity of Canada’s natural landscapes and the importance of ecological regions and watershed management. From the Fraser River Canyon to the boreal forest, each day brings new wonders and opportunities to connect with the natural world, practicing sustainable travel and environmental appreciation.
I am hearing but not listening, I am struggling to keep my focus…my mind doesn’t hesitate to wonder what’s for lunch. I steal a quick glance at my phone…only 15 minutes have passed!
The experience of sitting through an arduous presentation, perhaps feeling disengaged and impatient, is not one that is foreign to me. Growing up, I was the student who couldn’t sit still. I was easily distracted. I was bored. I was eager for the next thing. I was always on the move from one activity to the next. It took me many years to realize that there was nothing inherently wrong with me, that I was simply an unconventional learner; the traditional methods of learning did not suit me well (or in the language of today, it was not vibing).
Read More… Creating Presentations to Draw Focus and Maximize Learning
Much of the work we do as environmental professionals, and efforts in the conservation and protection diciplines, revolve around fish. And as part of that the two most fundamental questions are: (i) what species are present in a waterbody and (ii) how abundant are they? Sounds like it should be straightforward to answer these, right? It is only two questions. To address these, however, requires robust and effective fish sampling programs. Over three decades I have seen a great variety of fish sampling programs, some achieving those metrics of robust and effective; others not meeting that bar. So how do we build a solid fish sampling program? Some suggestions are provided here. These propositions are not derived from academic or theoretical constructs of required sample numbers or optimal sampling theory – these are based on lessons learned participating in both very well-designed programs and others that appeared to have no coherent design to the process.
Read More… Thirty years of chasing fishes: Some considerations on designing a fish sampling program
As environmental practitioners, one of our common tasks is to communicate to an audience a landscape description of the area – the environment – in which we are working. Whether we call it Project Area in an environmental assessment document, Environmental Setting in an engineering report, or Study Area in a scientific paper, this characterization of the land is a fundamental part of communicating to our audience. The account that we develop is important, providing the context for the reader to understand our work and, most importantly, our findings.
Read More… Describing the Scenery and Landscape that Surrounds You
Fieldwork comes with unexpected challenges—so how do you decide whether to stay or go? This blog explores key decision-making strategies for environmental professionals facing tough calls in the field.
Read More… Do we stay or do we go? – Making decisions in the field
Enhance your field skills with the power of drawing and writing! This blog explores how these simple yet effective tools improve observation, memory, and environmental assessments.
Read More… Drawing and writing – training tools for observation
I recently flew up to Williams Lake to represent NRTG at the Williams Lake First Nation Career Fair.
Sean Mitchell, NRTG’s Program Manager, supplied pelts for me from a red fox, rabbit, and a mink to display. Angie Bristol, NRTG’s Communications Manager, supplied all the swag and pamphlets. Both pelts and swag were a big hit with the crowd! The booth looked great, other booths there represented Ambulance and RCMP agencies, mining companies, health and wellness organizations, and universities.
We recently had the pleasure of attending the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists conference in Red Deer, from November 22 to 24. NRTG staff that attended had an opportunity to chat with many of the attendees and, importantly, reconnect with previous students we have not seen in several years. It is with great pride of our students that we could see so many of them doing so well professionally and know that we contributed, in some small way, to their success and their work in professional environmental biology. The reward for instructors and for NRTG is watching former students grow and master the skills we introduce them to.
Read More… NRTG at the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists
“Wow! You guys have been really lucky collecting broodstock this year!”
That’s what a former supervisor said to me after I told him that we had just collected our target number of Atlantic salmon from one of the rivers we were enhancing. I agreed, though I must confess I was a little disappointed in his remark about “luck”.
A couple weeks ago, between October 16th and 19th, Nanaimo BC hosted the Fourth National Indigenous Fisheries and Aquaculture Forum, an event to which NRTG staff attended. Over three days, there were presentations regarding various aspects of fisheries and aquaculture and opportunities for Indigenous nations.
We heard the eerie bugle of the elk before we saw him. The sound seized the attention of the five point bull we were watching; he was nervous and eyeing the building while also trying to sidle up to the cows. Then the huge dominant bull walked around from behind the hotel and, glaring at the younger animal, began to pace toward it.
Read More… Can parks tell us as much about human behaviour as that of wildlife?
The landscape appeared to be on fire that clear, crisp fall day. The Indigenous community had come to engage in the fish tasting event, a communal get-together hosted by the mine’s environment department.
The resume is one of the most important documents you will write in your life: it is your passport to new opportunities. Unfortunately, I find that most people are not served well by their own resume. Someone that I talk to for fifteen minutes on zoom and shows passion, intelligence, and experience sends me their resume and in it they are flat, lifeless, and without colour. This is what I mean by not being served well; it does not reflect who they truly are.
Science – and so its children biology, natural history, and ecology – is based, fundamentally, on unchanging truths. That is, that basic principles are continuous and unvarying over time and in being thus they are predictable.
We live, for better or for worse, in a society with an eye solidly fixed on technology and even I, a traditionalist and modern Luddite, find it remarkable the insights that technology has provided. Drones with infra-red capabilities allow us to see much more than the human eye can. Wildlife cameras provide a window into behaviour we had no inkling of.
Read More… Field work: the importance of boots on the ground
Happy Spring 2023 all readers of these blogs. Field season now really kicks off for another year and in the spring a young biologist’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of… species identification (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson). Accurate and confident identification to species can be very challenging. I personally greatly struggle with tree identification…
The technique of electrofishing is ubiquitous and universal for fish assessment work. When we teach the electrofishing course we focus, most appropriately, a great deal on the safety of passing electricity through water (pop quiz: those of you that electrofish what are the three mandatory safety features on an electrofishing unit?1). However, in priorizing safety…
Read More… Habitat, timing, and stealth: Hunting skills applied to electrofishing
Eighteen months ago I wrote about completing some fundamental field measurements when you find yourself in the field and you don’t have the gear to do so1. In that blog I described various ways to determine (i) direction without a compass, (ii) length and distance without a tape, (iii) height without a clinometer, and (iv)…
Read More… So you lost your equipment (revisited)… Determining heights
Gentle reader, please bear with me as we revisit a passage shown you only a month previous. There are many lessons in this brief text and here I wish to consider a second one. I have heard honest men swear that they have killed and cut open tiburons [sharks] and found so many things in…
Read More… How does modern technical writing stack up against Medieval Spanish?
Gentle reader, I beg your indulgence to begin this blog with a long passage. There is a point to it, I assure you. I have heard honest men swear that they have killed and cut open tiburons [sharks] and found so many things in their bellies that they would have considered it impossible if they had not…
I was recently on a vacation visiting friends in northern British Columbia when my mentor took me out to a spruce tree right beside his driveway and showed me a strangely marked tree (Figure 1). He asked me if I knew what it was and it took me several seconds to recognize as it is…
Several years ago, working in the lowland streams of Nova Scotia, I set a series of minnow traps into the brook and left them for the overnight set. It rained that night. Heavily. Returning to the stream next day I found it overflowing, brown, muddy, and roaring through the channel. Pulling in the lines of…
Preamble: Gentle reader, it has been four months since I have appeared before you. Obligations and opportunities required my absence for a third of the year but now I am back. I am very pleased to be able to appear once again on the page in front of you. Reflecting upon my absence, I thought…
Mid-winter. A time of thinking about summer work, planning, designing, scoping… And also writing those pesky proposals that drive the work we do. Having written a few proposals in my time as well as sitting on the other side of the desk and receiving proposals for work, I would like to distill a few, to…
By Sean Mitchell It is December 2021 and Christmas morning is rising, evening star-like, on the far horizon. This is a time for loved ones to ask us what we would like for Christmas. Here I would like to offer some advice for valuable gifts to be left under the tree for practicing biologists or…
By Sean Mitchell “The myriad jingle-jangle gadgets of some of our modern outdoorsmen would make our ancestral buckskin men turn in their graves. Their packs were light and their equipment meager, for these adventurous and picturesque wilderness men depended upon their skill and ingenuity in woodcraft rather than upon a lot of ‘things’.” (from Jaeger,…
By Sean Mitchell Come with me on select journeys of imagination. Mid-winter, deep snow, and a brilliant blue sky. Fifteen kilometres in the back-country, well above treeline, you are just about to turn back when you hear a strange grinding noise from under the snowmobile’s cowling… then see wisps of smoke coming out. The engine…
Read More… So, you are stuck out overnight: part 1 – The mental game
By Sean Mitchell What are your views on the technical writing that you develop? What about that which you see by others? Are you satisfied and feel enriched upon finishing your own report or reading someone else’s work? You should: the act of writing should be satisfying and enriching, as should be reading others documents…
By Sean Mitchell Found carcasses are fascination. Yes, I am that guy that stops on the roads to check out road kill; behaviour that has really honed my wildlife identification skills. I recommend it to everyone. Being able to identify a species from a carcass or even whole skeleton is not that difficult. But, and…
By Sean Mitchell It happens to us all. We are in the field and we forgot our field tape on the desk in the office; accidentally backed the truck over our field vest holding the clinometer; we dropped the laser rangefinder in the deepest part of the river; our batteries pack it in and we…
By Sean Mitchell There you are, early morning of a beautiful summer day, retrieving the minnow traps and fyke nets you set out the previous afternoon. This is always an exciting moment; you never know what you might find strayed into your traps through the night. Gently transferring the catch into a bucket you begin…
Read More… Fish Identification – Beyond Fish-in-Hand and the ID Guide
By Sean Mitchell Today’s working biologist or environmental technician sits at a nexus of many industries, disciplines, and requirements (Figure 1). Not only must we be knowledgeable and competent in our training (typically biology of some form) but also need to be familiar and conversant with a myriad of other tasks; activities such as reading…
By Sean Mitchell Freshwater fish are challenging to find, to count, and to sample. Whether in lakes or ponds, rivers or brooks, they are adept at avoiding detection and capture. Though this is true throughout the year, during the winter months — a time of cold water, long periods of darkness, usually ice cover —…
Read More… Sampling Fish in the Winter: The Season of Parr Discontent¹
By Sean Mitchell The fox pups leapt through the tall vegetation, their still-brownish coats contrasting with the yellowing grasses as the light declined at the end of day. They gamboled and wrestled with each other. Sitting motionless about three metres away, I watched as they rolled together in my direction until about half that distance.…
Read More… The Block Survey – an under-used wildlife survey method
