Marie-Eve Marchand

Marie-Eve Marchand is a system entrepreneur who dedicates her life to bring culture, conservation sciences, communications, and policy together for better relationships between Peoples and Nature. Over the last decade, she has successfully coordinated the Bison Belong Initiative to bring back Bison in Banff National Park and is actively supporting The Buffalo: A Treaty of Cooperation, Renewal and Restoration as the Executive Director of the Indigenous-led International Buffalo Relations Institute. She is also a member of IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and of the Species Commission, Bison Specialist Group and was the Business and Strategies Manager for the IUCN WCPA Post-2020 Task Force to support an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework.

Marie-Eve is the Chair of the IUCN Green List Expert Assessment Group in Quebec, the first in Canada to improve effective management and governance for different relations to conservation in protected and conserved areas. She previously received the national Golden Leaf Award for her work on protecting the last undammed river in Southern Quebec, Dumoine River, and played a key role in the Quebec government’s commitment to protect at least half of Northern Quebec. She is from Lac-St-Jean, Quebec and she lives with her husband Harvey Locke in Banff National Park.