User Groups Review Human Use Data

The BCMCA has begun inviting user groups to review the data assembled by the BCMCA which represents their use of the marine environment. The purpose of the reviews is to (1) inform users about the information that the BCMCA has assembled, where it came from, and how it was generated, (2) solicit their feedback about the accuracy, completeness, gaps, and recommended improvements to the information, and (3) invite them to identify any additional data that they would like the BCMCA to incorporate into its work. This will help ensure that their feedback is included with the final maps created by the BCMCA and that maps of human use are as accurate and complete as possible, given available information.

The BCMCA will summarise all reviewers’ comments in written reports which will be publicly accessible from the BCMCA online atlas. To date, the BCMCA has conducted reviews with representatives of finfish aquaculture, shellfish aquaculture, wave and tidal energy, offshore oil and gas, recreational fisheries, and recreational diving. Reviews with other user groups are taking place over the coming months.

The Census of Marine Life

The Census of Marine Life is a scientific initiative undertaken by a collection of international researchers and scientists from more than 80 nations. The project is an ambitious 10 year initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life in all of the earth’s oceans.

This census is a massive undertaking that will contribute a greater understanding of the marine environment for the global scientific community. This census will not only document life in the oceans but will advance technology used in these discoveries. The initiative commenced in the year 2000 and will complete field work in later 2009. Then begins the enormous task of synthesizing the data collected from all the projects from the last eight years. The first completed census will be released in 2010.

Seventeen projects have been designed to investigate six ocean realms that will be reported in the 2010 report. Some examples of the projects include: Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project, Census of Coral Reefs, Gulf of Maine Program, Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life, Tagging of Pacific Predators, Global Census of Marine Life on Seamounts and International Census of Marine Microbes.
Deep sea biologist Paul Snelgrove (Canada), leader of the team integrating findings from all 17 Census projects:

“We expect to have much-improved tools for predicting the presence or absence of various species based on what we know about a particular environment,” he says. “In fact, the Census may offer a new map, a new biogeography, of all ocean life.”

The Census of Marine Life is coordinated by a Secretariat based at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington, D.C. and governed by an international Scientific Steering Committee. According to Ian Poiner, chair of the Steering Committee and Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Institute of Marine Science:

“The release of the first Census in 2010 will be a milestone in science. After 10 years of new global research and information assembly by thousands of experts the world over, it will synthesize what humankind knows about the oceans, what we don’t know, and what we may never know – a scientific achievement of historic proportions.”

In November of 2009 the fourth highlight report was released and Census scientists say their work is:

• Compiling an unprecedented number of “firsts” for ocean biodiversity;
• Advancing technology for discovery;
• Organizing knowledge about marine life and making it accessible;
• Measuring effects of human activities on ocean life;
• Providing the foundation for scientifically-based policies.

Although the BCMCA is not part of the Census of Marine life, it is following the spirit of the census and other global initiatives in its efforts to compile knowledge about marine life and ocean resources and make it publicly accessible

Census of Marine Life. Scientists Report Major Steps Towards 1st Census of Marine Life. November 2008. (http://www.coml.org/pressreleases/highlights08/CoML_ProgressReport4_PublicRelease_11.9.08.pdf)