CLRA National Announces the 2022 IN-TECH Reclamation Award Recipient: Clinton Smyth
Dr. Clinton Smyth (Clint) has spent a long and accomplished career working in the land reclamation field. He first worked in the ecological sciences doing forestry-related research with the British Columbia Ministry of Forests in the late 1970s. He began to work in land reclamation in mining as a student in the early 1980s, receiving a scholarship from the B.C. Ministry of Mines as a graduate student (at the University of Victoria) in 1984, and has worked steadily and tirelessly on land-reclamation-related issues ever since.
Clint has contributed actively and with dedication to the field of land reclamation in Canada for over 40 years and is a rare professional and a very valuable source of reclamation knowledge, not only due to the depth of his experience but also to the breadth of roles he has had within the field of land reclamation. He worked for government agencies during his early career and as a reclamation specialist on the staff of an operating coal mine in northeast BC for six years. Clint completed his MSc (1987) and Ph.D. (1996) in high-altitude coal-mine reclamation and has made frequent contributions as a sessional and laboratory instructor since then. He has spent the last 27 years of his career as an ecological consultant, working primarily in land reclamation and mining.
As a reclamation specialist at an operating coal mine, Clint worked in challenging conditions, primarily the need to reclaim high-elevation mine-rock dumps with very little soil cover. In this work, he pioneered techniques for the establishment of islands of high-elevation native plants, including protocols for seed collection, plant propagation, and establishment of research trials to systematically evaluate success and refine approaches. He was an early proponent and practitioner of native-plant-based reclamation, and his work influenced approaches to high-elevation revegetation in montane mines.
As an ecological consultant, Clint has worked in a broad range of land-reclamation settings in Canada, including at gold mines in boreal eastern Ontario, mountain coal mines in BC and Alberta, mine-closure projects in Yukon, and diamond mines in Canada’s north. He has based his work on a firm conviction of the importance of the application of robust data and good science to land reclamation.
In his academic endeavours, Clint has both taught and contributed to the published scientific record. Clint has 24 years of sessional teaching experience at the University of Victoria, the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge, and Mount Royal University, teaching a broad range of topics, from first-year physical geography and controversies in science to fourth-year plant ecology. He co-authored three reports in the late 1980s on high-elevation reclamation, his above-mentioned theses, and six peer-reviewed journal articles. Clint has been an early and regular contributor to Canadian conferences on land reclamation, presenting six times at CLRA conferences from 1996 to 2019 (and publishing once in Canadian Reclamation), a further 10 times (and authoring corresponding papers) at B.C.’s annual Mine Reclamation Symposium, and contributing to various related conferences such as the Northern Latitudes Mine Reclamation Workshop and Society for Ecological Restoration conferences.
It’s in teaching – both formal and informal – that Clint truly excels. He has guided younger associates, given them confidence in their growing competence, and acted as a calming presence during challenging work conditions. Clint’s colleagues truly value time with him in the field, learning directly about land reclamation. To Clint, every piece of fieldwork is to be done well, but also presents a “teaching moment”, whether it’s in plant identification, soil description, wildlife habitat, or landscape ecology. He has been described as a “phenomenal” teacher, and he teaches two of the best-loved courses in UVic’s Restoration of Natural Systems program and is truly dedicated to his students as an instructor, committee member, and mentor. Clint has made a direct impact on the work done at Integral Ecology Group, but his largest impact is how he has both inspired his colleagues’ interest in land reclamation and supported them in growing their skill sets in fieldwork and ecosystem mapping. In this way, Clint’s largest influences on land reclamation in Canada have been on the development of students and skilled personnel across a range of fields and disciplines.
Clint is a pioneer in his field and has been a keen learner and a participant in many scientific, professional, and reclamation-related organizations, including the CLRA. He has done all this with humility and integrity, which is as notable as his accomplishments, and he is justly and richly deserving of the IN-TECH Reclamation Award for individual achievement.