BCMCA persists to get it right!

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.

Marxan Workshop Report

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: Marxan Workshop Workshop Proceedings Report, June 2010 (0.5 MB PDF). 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.

Wanted: Organized Spatial Datasets

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).

Impact of Marine Protected Areas on Fishing Communities

Due to the fact that Canada has the longest coastline in the world, over 7 million square kilometres of ocean area and a vast diversity of species, it is not surprising that marine protected areas are an area of interest for some researchers.

Conservation Biology recently published an online article (May 3, 2010) by Mascia et al, which examined the effects of marine protected areas (MPA) on fishing communities. The research concluded that MPAs cannot be definitively labeled as good or bad and the effects of MPAs on fishing communities vary within and among groups, when comparing different indicators of social well being. For example, the research did indicate that MPAs can enhance food security, but at the same time current MPA practices can negatively affect a minority of fishers.

Further, the authors suggest that more research is required to better explain inconsistent effects on the social well being in fishing communities and to establish a scientific foundation to inform policy decisions.

Perhaps the goal of the BCMCA, to identify areas of high conservation utility and human use in Canada’s Pacific waters, will contribute to ongoing research that is required to better understand the complexities of popular conservation strategies such as MPAs.

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.

Marxan 101

Marxan is a free decision-support tool, developed at the Ecology Center at the University of Queensland, which is widely used for marine planning purposes. Marxan is designed to facilitate smart decision-making that takes into account a broad range of ecological and socio-economic considerations, targets and tradeoffs.

If you or anyone you know is interested in learning how to use the software, you can spread the word as there is a course being offered in Victoria, BC from July 5-6^th, 2010 and in Edmonton, Alberta on July 8-9^th, 2010. This is a valuable opportunity, as a leading Marxan trainer from the University of Queensland will be teaching the courses. In addition, there is a course entitled, “Train the trainers”, which is a one-day course designed for those with previous Marxan experience. At the end of this course, which is also offered in July 2010, instructors will be recognized by the University of Queensland Ecology Center and the Pacific Marine Analysis and Research Association (PacMARA.org) as trained to teach entry-level Marxan courses.

This is a great opportunity for anyone working, or considering work in integrated ocean management. For more registration and more information, please visit this website.

What does Economics have to do with the Great Barrier Reef?

There is a misconception that economics is only concerned with financial impacts and  values. However environmental economics, a growing field of economics, is the application of theoretical or empirical studies of the economic effects of national or local environmental policies around the world.

In February 2010, an article by McCook et al was published online in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Sates of America), discussing both the environmental and economic benefits of a network of marine reserves in the Great Barrier Reef.  In general, the article summarizes the evidence, which indicates that the large-scale network of marine zones in the Great Barrier Reef are proving to be an excellent investment in both socio-economic and environmental terms. Marxan was used as a tool in the rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef in 2003 and 2004.

The BCMCA is using Marxan, and planning to put its new sister software, Marxan with Zones, to the test. Both are decision support tools that use spatial information about natural resources and human uses to generate possible solutions to complex planning problems, which are inherent in both seascape and landscape environments. The BCMCA is using the best available data in British Columbia to run exploratory analyses that will provide examples of what these tools can produce here at home. This month, the BCMCA initiated the analysis work using only ecological data to start. Marxan projects involve several steps and processes, starting with calibration, to ensure that the output is both robust and consistent.

To read the full article about the Great Barrier Reef, click here.

The Final Stages of Data Review

To date, there are approximately 100 ecological datasets that have been collected and reviewed by expert groups, which have been assembled into approximately 150 ecological features. The ecological data sets will be the first to be used for Marxan analyses, a process that will begin in the near future.

There have been approximately 100 datasets collected for Human Use data, which are currently in the final stages of review, by each appropriate sector. The data review process is required to verify that the data is accurate and complete, before it can be compiled to create features, which will be used to create one of the final products, the Atlas and used for Marxan analyses.

Stay tuned for updates as the data moves through some of the final, critical and exciting stages of the Project!

The BCMCA in Bamfield, B.C

Carrie Robb, BCMCA data manager and GIS specialist recently presented on behalf of the BCMCA at the First Knowledge Barkley Sound Symposium in Bamfield, B.C from February 9-11^th. The BCMCA project tied in with the theme of the symposium, “spatial and temporal distributions of natural resources, human uses, and related values” and the Project Team was grateful that Carrie was able to participate in the symposium. As the project nears completion, this was a great opportunity to be able to communicate the unique collaboration of the BCMCA.

The presentation reflected the process of the BCMCA, which was titled, Generating Information to Support Integrated Marine Planning. Carrie presented results of some of the biophysical data and human use data, specific to Barkley Sound, which has been collected as a result of the BCMCA.

The Symposium was a unique 3-day gathering for the integration, summary, and synthesis of scientific, indigenous, and other local knowledge of the Barkley Sound ecosystem in British Columbia, Canada. Knowledge gathered will support sustainability planning initiatives in Barkley Sound and the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

The symposium’s goals were to develop

1) An open Wiki-site where submitted symposium abstracts and authored articles can be published. This site is known as the Barkelypedia. As the name implies, this is similar to Wikipedia, a peer reviewed online encyclopedia where anyone can share knowledge about the Barkley Sound ecosystem. Check out the site and learn how to post your own Wiki here.

2) An online Barkley Sound Knowledge Network community.

The Countdown…

If you have visited the BCMCA website recently, you may have noticed that the Project Timeline has been altered. The full release of reports and final products has been extended to June 2010, from its original timeline of November 2009.

This extension will ensure that data collection is as thorough and extensive as possible. The BCMCA promotes transparency and collaboration and therefore the data review process is critical and it requires time… and patience.