Local Marine Planning Process Use of Products

West Coast Aquatic (WCA) and the BCMCA are collaborating on the use of Marxan for marine spatial planning in Barkley and Clayoquot Sound. The Marxan tool will be used to identify potential candidate Ecologically Significant Areas (ESAs) in the Barkley and Clayoquot Sound areas.

There are several steps involved including the following:

• conduct a status quo inventory of the areas currently under a protected area or conservation designation in each Sound;
• review the BCMCA features and additional data held by WCA to identify all features to be represented in ESAs;
• overlay of human use data and intensity of current recreational, commercial, industrial and cultural activities in the region and consider these in relation to ranges of protection for ecological features;
• run several scenarios using Marxan as a decision support tool; and
• consider Marxan results in the process of identifying potential candidate ESAs.