British Columbia Marine Conservation Analysis (BCMCA)

frequently asked questions

The list of Frequently Asked Questions is based on questions received during the BCMCA meetings and public engagement functions during the BCMCA project.

The questions and answers below relate to the Project Team, First Nations, the process, the products and Marxan analysis.

Project Team

Why are Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Parks Canada, Integrated Land and Management Bureau and BC Ocean and Marine Fisheries Branch (observers) are on the Project Team, but other government agencies like Transport Canada, BC Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources, Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada, or Natural Resources Canada aren t?

• Project Team participants represent federal and provincial Government agencies with either the authority to implement marine planning initiatives in BC or a keen interest and experience in protected areas planning. Project Team participants also have planning and technical expertise to lend to this project, and have committed the time and resources required to implement the project;
• Project Team participants also have planning and technical expertise to lend to this project, and have committed the time required to implement the project;
• Many of the other government agencies will be involved as data providers to the project and will be kept informed of the project s progress.

How did the user group representatives on the Project Team get selected?

• User group representatives on the Project Team come from the Human Use Data Working Group. The Working Group is an advisory committee of user group representatives from a broad range of user groups that provide advice and direction to the Project Team about the human use component of the BCMCA project;
• The Project Team sent out an invitation for expressions of interest in participation on the Working Group to all coast-wide marine user group associations or advisory boards that it could identify. The Project Team accepted all expressions of interest that it received from user groups;
• The Project Team then convened the Working Group and invited the Working Group to identify 2 of its members that would also participate on the Project Team.

First Nations

How is First Nations information being incorporated or addressed in this project?

• The Project Team recognizes First Nations as important marine users with interests and uses that are distinct from the sectors targeted by this project;
• However, the team supports the recommendations of its First Nations participants who have advised that First Nations knowledge and spatial marine use is more appropriately mapped and analyzed in a separate process that is designed and lead by First Nations;
• Such a process will likely occur at a more regional or local scale capable of capturing individual First Nations use and interests in greater detail than that permitted by the BCMCA s coast wide focus;
• That said, project outputs may be of use to First Nations, and the Project Team supports this;
• First Nations involvement with the BCMCA will be channeled through their representation on the Project Team and through feedback gathered from commercial sectoral committees in which First Nations participate.

The Process

Why do we need another process that s just going to lead to more conservation and closed areas? Marine use is already tightly regulated and we ve already made sacrifices in the interest of conservation before.

• The BCMCA is not itself a planning process the project does not have the legislative authority to establish marine protected areas or new closed areas. Rather, the BCMCA is an information assembly and analysis process that is intended to inform and support existing and future marine planning initiatives (e.g. PNCIMA, Parks Canada s NMCA program, etc.);
• It is intended to provide information to existing and future planning and decision making processes. Some of these will likely address conservation measures, but the project outputs will also be useful for a wide range of other applications;
• Issues related to overlapping uses of marine resources and space are increasing. Developing the best solutions to these issues will require broad participation and for all interests to work from commonly held, best-available data.

Why would I participate, what benefit is there to my sector?

• It will help ensure that your use is well represented in project outputs and that your interests can be easily communicated to others in marine planning processes;
• It is an opportunity for sectors to have use incorporated into integrated, systematic analyses that will likely be important decision support tools in future processes. It is an opportunity to take advantage of the resources of the BCMCA to do this instead of potentially expending your own resources to have your interests incorporated at a later date;
• A decision not to participate in this initiative does not mean that your interests cannot be included in future planning processes, but having them integrated into these analyses may be easier or preferable to trying to add them afterward;
• It is an opportunity to better understand the information and data provided by other sectors and how that data interacts with your own.

How are you addressing change over time?

• Where datasets exist for long periods of time, BCMCA may be able to generate maps for different time periods to allow comparison, although this is not the case for most datasets;
• The project will identify known limitations of the data that is assembled (e.g., if seasonality of use is missing, or if data is somewhat out of date);
• Our aim is to assemble best available info, and identify gaps so that they can be addressed;
• A long term repository will make it possible to update information through time if this is deemed a priority;
• The Project Team will also ask users if seasonality is important, or if there have been significant events causing change in their use patterns, then incorporate this information into the metadata for our atlases;
• For groups whose use is highly variable, we would try to identify that so that it could be taken into account when planning.

The information that exists for my sector is dated/poor quality etc. How will you address this?

• We are interested in hearing the details of the data s shortcomings from you this is part of the reason we are inviting you to review and contribute data;
• We may be able to assist your sector with some funding and technical support for assembling additional or better quality data you may have about your sector if existing information is poor, although the BCMCA is not focused on helping you to collect and synthesize new data.

Why are American foundations with an inherent bias for conservation funding this project? What makes them interested in BC marine use?

• Conservation is the focus of the BCMCA;
• No one organization or funder directs the work of the BCMCA. The project team directs the project through consensual decisions and includes both conservation advocates and marine users. Our funders have not modified the project scope, except to facilitate greater emphasis on engaging with the marine user community.

The foundations supporting the BCMCA:

• Have a global interest in promoting sustainability and conserving critical marine ecosystem goods and services on which people depend;
• Choose places to work because of significant ecosystem goods and services, momentum to pursue innovative solutions, and potential to serve as replicable models for sustainable ocean management;
• Support marine conservation around the world, including the United States, Belize, Panama, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere;
• Promote projects that enable more integrated, ecosystem-based spatial management of marine ecosystems and include people as part of the solution to sustainability;
• Believe a collaborative approach that incorporates socioeconomic and ecological aspects of marine use is critical to success; and
• Identified the BCMCA as a project that demonstrates a commitment to all of these qualities.

What are the consequences of individuals, organizations or interest groups, who are not familiar with our industry, who use the outcomes of the BCMCA to influence the future development of our industry?

• The BCMCA has no power to make decisions about future development;
• The BCMCA is attempting to provide useful information to decision-making authorities, by working diligently on engaging all human use interests in our project and by maintaining a transparent process. Participation by user groups in the BCMCA will give them access to the same knowledge and tools as the government agencies that do have the mandate to make planning decisions.

BCMCA Products

What are the outputs of BCMCA Project and what effect will it have on the future of human development along our coast?

• Outputs from the BCMCA are intended to provide information (data and example applications of a decision support tool) to current and future planning processes. The BCMCA project is developing two products:
  • Product 1: An Atlas that illustrates the known ecological values and human uses of BC s marine environment. The atlas shows all the data used in the analysis and will include: maps of all known and available ecological data layers, such as species distributions and habitats, a richness map of ecological features (combined ecological data), maps of all known and available human use data layers[1], a richness map of human use components (combined human data), and a map showing both ecological and human use components.
  • Product 2: Marxan and Marxan with Zones analyses. These analyses will use the data from Product 1 to identify areas of high conservation value (using ecological data only) and to identify areas of high conservation value that minimize overlap with areas important to human use (using ecological and human use data).

[1] There are human uses for which there are no known spatial data layers.

How will you ensure that the production of the Atlas is current and contains accurate information?

• The data being compiled are the best available and, in many cases, improve upon what any one government agency or organization has access to for marine planning . To maintain transparency, we are recording all identified data deficiencies in the metadata and in our atlas pages so that users can evaluate the data for themselves;
• Through the BCMCA data assembly and review process, we provide opportunities for groups to fill data gaps, some of which the BCMCA has been able to do;
• Where datasets are updated on a regular basis over time (e.g. yearly), the BCMCA is using cumulative or summary data. It is agreed that some of the information will become less suitable over time and as a result, the data providers are being asked to recommend an expiry date for each feature that will be recorded in the metadata and in the atlas;
• It is important for users to recognize that some of the data illustrated in the Atlas has an expiration date and therefore, to use it cautiously.

Marxan Analysis

What is Marxan and who gets to decide on the inputs and targets that will dictate what the outputs say?

• Marxan is a computer software program that acts as a decision support tool for decision-making about marine planning;
• Based on simple mathematics, Marxan uses computer power to search millions of potential solutions to find the best balance of costs and benefits;
• Marxan was developed by the University of Queensland and over the last decade has gained global recognition as a useful tool for area-based planning;
• At every step of the BCMCA, the Project Team is relying on expert opinion and peer-reviewed science to decide on inputs and targets to be used in analyses. Because using Marxan is an iterative process, inputs, targets and outputs for each run (or scenario) will be reported and available for all to view.

Why was Marxan chosen as the only analysis program used? What are the implications of not considering other mapping/marine use analysis programs?

• Marxan, was recommended by DFO for conservation planning and is currently being used by Parks Canada as part of their National Marine Conservation Areas Program;
• Marxan was chosen as the most suitable to meet the objectives of the BCMCA as it supports the collection and assimilation of a wide variety of ecological and human use data, is flexible with respect to inputs and outputs , supports a systematic planning process, is an excellent accounting tool, and provides defensible outcomes;
• Marxan is currently the most widely used conservation planning tool in the world and there is a significant community of local users who can provide Marxan expertise; it is free; a number of real-world applications are well documented in peer review literature; the new version, Marxan with Zones, will allow greater flexibility to integrate data on human use of the marine environment;
• The BCMCA recognizes that Marxan has limitations, including the inability to adequately address seasonality, species variability and persistence, and to incorporate ecological and evolutionary processes. These limitations should be addressed in future planning processes;
• Marxan has the ability to produce solutions that balance conservation and human use objectives.

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