The BCMCA Concludes its Final Data Review Workshop
After meeting with several different fishery sectors in 2008 and 2009, the BCMCA collected and helped to develop spatial datasets that represent 22 different commercial fisheries. In December 2009 maps of the datasets and metadata were made available for review and during a project team meeting in January 2010, the idea of a workshop to complete the review process was proposed.
The Commercial Fisheries Data Review Workshop was held in Tsawwassen on March 2nd 2010 as part of a process of reviewing data gathered to represent human use of the BC marine environment. Other human use data have been subjected to review through similar workshops, and also using other methods including participation in meetings with other human use sectors, comments solicited through e-mail, telephone, and individual review by sector experts.
The objectives of the Commercial Fisheries Data Review Workshop were to:
- finalize the data review process for the commercial fisheries sector;
- make recommendations on how the data from the commercial fisheries sector will be portrayed in the atlas;
- identify any gaps in the data;
- make recommendations on a richness map using human use data; and
- discuss and make recommendations on use of the data in Marxan analyses.
Feedback from participants indicated that the workshop served as a valuable opportunity for them to view and provide input on the maps created from datasets for each fishery. The Commercial Fisheries Data Review Workshop report is available for download at the BCMCA website.