British Columbia Marine Conservation Analysis (BCMCA)

The BCMCA is on the hunt for a new Project Manager! Our new phase of work focuses on delivery and support for the products we have produced, including our marine atlas and data library. We’ll miss Dave Nicolson’s careful oversight and we thank him for his dedication to the project, which is ongoing through this transition. Please circulate this job description widely to those seeking challenging and rewarding project management and outreach work in B.C.’s marine sector.

Best wishes for a summer-like August?!

The BCMCA Project Team

The BCMCA Project Team would like to invite you to a lunch-time workshop at the upcoming International Marine Conservation Congress conference here in Victoria. The workshop will be held on Sunday May 15, from 12:15-2:15 pm downtown at the Victoria Conference Centre in the Esquimalt room on the first floor. We will have the first copies of our printed atlas, Marine Atlas of Pacific Canada, hot off the press.

This workshop is an opportunity for users to share their perspectives on the BCMCA Data Library and Marine Atlas. Several speakers from different agencies and organizations will kick off the workshop with short talks about how they have used BCMCA maps or data products or how they plan to incorporate them into upcoming projects. Then we will break into smaller groups to discuss improvements in design and delivery of products, additional data needs, and ideas for long term efficient access. We’ll be there to listen to you!

To help us improve our products and delivery of them, please take this short survey. We will report on results at the workshop and in this journal, so you don’t need to attend the workshop to take the survey.

Although an RSVP is not absolutely necessary, if you plan to attend please email Tanya (tbryan@email.com) so we can ensure enough space for the breakout groups. Please feel free to bring your own lunch, as lunch is not provided as part of the workshop. There will be a cash & carry lunch option available daily at the exhibit hall (Crystal Gardens) just across the street.

Looking forward to seeing you there and hearing your comments on the BCMCA products!

All the best

The BCMCA Project Team

The BCMCA is excited to announce the launch of the BCMCA Marine Atlas and Data Library.

The BCMCA Marine Atlas and Data Library is an online, open access resource where you can browse, view, or download ecological and human use maps, data and metadata for the Canadian Pacific. The Data Library and Marine Atlas is designed to inform coast-wide integrated marine planning and management initiatives.

A key feature of the Data Library and Marine Atlas is that it is a comprehensive, digital collection that holds over 260 maps in more than 20 different categories, illustrating both ecological and human use marine features of the Canadian Pacific. Currently, all the ecological content is available, while some human use pages are still under review and will be available shortly.

The human uses that are mapped fall into these categories: commercial fisheries, recreational fisheries, shipping and marine transportation, energy, recreation and tourism, and marine or foreshore tenures such as aquaculture or log booms. The ecological features fall into these categories: physical representation, plants, birds, fish, invertebrates and mammals.

The content of the Data Library and Marine Atlas is the result of several years of assembling, collating and reviewing data. This assembly and review process relied upon experts from a variety of backgrounds including governments, First Nations, user groups, stakeholders, academia, non-governmental organizations, and consultants and we thank all those who generously gave their time.

We will be adding more content on a regular basis during the next months and will continue to post project updates on BCMCA project journal.

If you need assistance, find an error or have a request please email us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The BCMCA Project Team

The BC Marine Conservation Analysis has always been an ambitious project, and one that continues to bring new challenges and surprises.  Over the past few months the BCMCA has been experimenting with Marxan in a novel way – using two differently sized planning units (2×2 km and 4×4 km squares) in one analysis. Marxan experts didn’t really recommend this approach, but couldn’t provide evidence to convince us it wouldn’t work. We tried it, discovered a bias in the results, experimented with several potential ‘fixes’, and noted that the fixes introduced their own biases. As we plan to run a range of “what-if?” scenarios, we needed to be sure Marxan calibration is simple, accurate and repeatable. The long and short is:

• The project team agreed on a planning unit re-design.
• We had to redo a lot of the GIS work put into preparing input files for Marxan.
• Marxan calibration will start afresh in the later half of June.
• Our products are delayed!

Project Team members are sticking with the project and now anticipate wrap up in October, 2010. Watch for the release of products including:

• On-line and printed atlas with descriptive facing pages
• Data repository with maps, metadata, and data links or data sources
• Results from a series of Marxan analyses…

Over the summer, BCMCA Project Team, staff and contractors will be nose-to-the-grindstone finalising these products. Then in the fall, we’ll be looking for opportunities to communicate and present all the fruits of our labours.

Please contact one of the BCMCA Staff or Project Team members for more information or to request a presentation this fall about the BCMCA products.

It was always part of the plan for the BCMCA to host a Marxan expert workshop to gather advice from those who have experience with the tool. It was a natural fit for the BCMCA and PacMARA to jointly host the Marxan workshop, as the BCMCA will be publishing lessons learned as a case study for a future edition of the Marxan Good Practices Handbook. Thus, the workshop was jointly planned with common objectives in mind and it was a great success!

A report of the workshop recommendations has been compiled and has now been posted on the BCMCA and PacMARA Websites. The report can be downloaded directly though this link. The workshop report highlights the discussions and recommendations made by participants that advise both the BCMCA Marxan Analysis and improvements that can be made to the Marxan Good Practices Handbook.

The workshop was held May 26-27, 2009 at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. A total of 29 experts and observers attended from places including Australia, Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Washington DC, and British Columbia. Invited participants included government staff, university researchers, graduate students, NGO staff, Marxan consultants, professional economists and climate change scientists. Five BCMCA Project Team members attended the workshop.

The primary objectives of the workshop were to:

• Obtain expert guidance on proper and robust use of Marxan specific to the BCMCA; and
• Provide advice to PacMARA on sections of the Marxan Good Practices Handbook that currently do not provide sufficient or clear guidance;

The workshop attendees broke into three sub-groups (robust analysis, human use, climate change) to facilitate active participation and discussion. These smaller groups periodically reported to the larger group in lively plenary sessions.

Subsequent to the workshop, PacMARA hosted an “Introduction to Marxan” course which was delivered by the Australian workshop guests (Eddie Game, co-author of the revised Marxan Manual, and Dan Segan of the University of Queensland). Sixteen attendees included students from Parks Canada, DFO, Environment Canada, First Nations and academia, and four of these were members of the BCMCA Project Team.

You may be interested to know that on a global scale, there is a lack of consolidated, organized spatial datasets available to marine planners. Yes, the search for globally consolidated baseline data of marine and coastal ecosystems is on! Comprehensive, organized coastal datasets are currently limited in availability and are necessary to evaluate the multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems.

In response to the dispersion of global data, there is a network of agencies known as the Global Data Partnership for Critical Marine and Coastal Ecosystems, which are working together to develop and collate comprehensive datasets. The partnership promotes an inclusive and transparent process and is convened by the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC).

If you have comments or feedback, or would like to contribute or participate, please contact Louisa Wood (louisa.wood@unep-wcmc.org) by June 15^th 2010. An initial teleconference will be planned for later in the year.