PacMARA – Building a Marine Community of Practice

1. PacMARA – Building a Marine Community of Practice Evert Kenk Program Director, PacMARA

2. Agenda for Today • Definitions • PacMARA Vision, Mission and Goals • PacMARA Background • Marine Community of Practice • Accomplishment to Date • Future Strategies and Actions • Summary

3. Definitions • Community of Practice (Marine): All of the individuals and organizations, in all sectors that are involved in the study, management and/or intensive use of BC’s marine resources • Ecosystem Based Management (EBM): is an integrated approach to management that considers the entire ecosystem, including humans with a goal to maintaining a healthy, productive and resilient ecosystem able of providing the services humans want and need. • PacMARA: Pacific Marine Analysis and Research Association is a not-for-profit society recognizing the key role of collaborative science and research in supporting a non-advocacy and impartial approach to marine policy development and decision making.

4. PacMARA Vision and Mission • Vision: A healthy, vibrant and sustainable marine environment, economy and community on Canada’s west coast • Mission: To be a catalyst and champion in BC’s marine community of practice for a collaborative approach to ecosystem-based research and analysis informing decision making, policy development and effective regulation and enforcement in BC’s coastal and marine environment.

5. PacMARA Goals • Established and accepted as an impartial and recognized entity, encouraging greater collaboration regarding the development of science-based marine knowledge supporting decision making in BC. • Facilitating active communication among stakeholders, sharing of knowledge and assisting outreach (including training) regarding the use of EBM tools and methods amongst the members of the BC marine community of practice.

6. PacMARA Goals (cont.) • Creating a forum for the discussion, acceptance and use of rigorous marine research and knowledge to support good decision making. • Enabling widespread collaboration (for projects, program planning, seeking funding and team building) among the members of the BC marine community of practice both internally, and with outside jurisdictions, within the framework of a marine ecosystem approach

7. PacMARA Background • PacMARA arose from a series of workshops in 2003-2004 hosted by WWF-Canada that brought together the scientists, researchers, government reps, First Nations and NGO's who had interest in the Northwest marine region (later formally named PNCIMA area). • In early 2006 PacMARA became a BC registered not-for-profit society and approached the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation to co-sponsor an international workshop to create a Marxan Good Practices Handbook.

8. PacMARA Background (cont.) • Recognizing the valuable and unfilled role PacMARA could address in BC, GBMF responded by providing a substantial grant for institutional development to bring together the COP and facilitate collaboration in the area of marine science/information and evidence-based planning and informed decisions • Funded by GBMF PacMARA undertook an organizational review and strategic planning exercise to solidify its vision to catalyze the development of BC's marine EBM framework and MPA Network.

9. Framework information Stakeholder Information Bathymetric base GPS & navigation Seismic Surveys Disposition (leases, tenures, licenses, etc.) Administrative areas Satellite imagery Tide and Current Magnetic and gravity data sub bottom profiles Endangered species Hydrographic Charts Facilities information Marine habitat Geological mapping, (aggregates, gas hydrate etc) Climatology Seabed classification Marine Archaeology Foundation information Spatial, Temporal, and Administration Reference e.g., Geodetic control, Tidal Model, Seamless Hydrographic Datum Marine Community of Practice – The What: To address gaps in the knowledge network

10. Marine Community of Practice – The Who: Promoting and Facilitating Collaboration Government & First Nations ENGO’s & NG0’s Public & Communities Policy & Legislation Core Integration with DSS Demonstrations and Test beds Research and Development Requirements Information Information Information & Info Design Services Management and Acquisition Dissemination Industries & Business Universities & Colleges

11. Value Chain Marine Community of Practice – The How: Framework for coordination the value chain Each step in the value chain has specific inputs, core processes, and specific outputs. If there is an input that has value at the beginning of the process it should propagate through the chain increasing in value. Information collection Information Analysis & Integration Information Refinement Information Management & Distribution 3 5 1 2 4 GOALS: Evidence based policy development, Informed Decisions & Effective Management of Marine and Coastal Resources Decision Support Marine Science, Research and Development Understanding the EBM Knowledge Framework requires populating the marine information value chain model with what we know…. so we can address shortcomings in information as well as tools and methods for collection thru to decision support, regulation & policy

12. Value Chain Marine Community of Practice – The How: Framework for coordination the value chain GOALS: Evidence based policy development, Informed Decisions & Effective Management of Marine and Coastal Resources The EBM Knowledge Framework Information collection Information Refinement Information Analysis & Integration Information Management & Distribution Decision Support 5 1 2 3 4 Fusion of internal and external information MPA - Analysis MPA - Designation Monitoring & status reports Perform MPA network integrity analysis Dynamic metadata registry of data and services Receive Bulletins Review environmental information Evaluate proposals for development Enterprise database w/ spatial extensions and services for management of real time input to analysis Receive environmental reports Ecosystem service valuation - Marxan Ecosystem service Tradeoffs- InVEST Ingest real time sensors feed Stock Assessments Policy development Semantic geocoding of all submissions Climate models Integration and linking of diverse data sets Accept plans, drawings and maps Regulation enforcement Ecosystem models Information services (e.g. custom ETL) Fishery management Access reference geography, and, hydrography, geology & oceanography Ontology crosswalk, linking of related materials Report on program Design & maintenance of tools & methods Brief Minister Infrastructure tools for data management, registry, distributed delivery & publishing

13. Universities BC Ministries Research Agencies Federal Depts., Science, & Mgmt Communities First Nations National Programs International (e.g. NOAA) Ocean Based Industry Ocean Tech Industry International markets Provincial Ministries NGO’s etc Marine Community of Practice – The Why: Science based policy, decisions and issue resolution A science, social and political based network to empower a sustainable marine community of practice. ISSUES • Marine Management • Evidence based policies • Informed decisions • Collaborative issue resolution • Tools and Data • Marine Science • Research • Knowledge • Data • Technology • Methods • Tools • Training • Mentoring SOLUTIONS

14. PacMARA – Recent Accomplishments • Hosted an international 4-day workshop to discuss and address challenges that inhibit the successful use of marine planning tools • Published the “Marxan Good Practices Handbook” – the most commonly used marine spatial planning tool • Developed an inventory of knowledge gaps and remedial actions required to develop EBM plans for BC’s Coast • Facilitated the development of a monitoring and research program for the Bowie Seamount Marine Protected Area • Supported a Marxan best practices workshop, case study and Marxan training. • Facilitated discussions regarding development and field-testing of the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) tool for application in area-based planning with diverse stakeholders

15. PacMARA – Some Key Next Steps • Pursue agreements with the major players in the BC marine community of practice to clarify the value PacMARA can offer them • Coordinate the effort to better define the BC marine community of practice • Maintain a high level of communication and information sharing among members of the BC marine community • Enable marine data/information access and delivery • Provide an on-going forum for discussion of innovation and collaboration in the BC marine community of practice • Continue current efforts with: Marxan best practices and training, InVEST development and site-testing, addressing EBM knowledge gaps, and facilitating collaborative issue resolution.

16. PacMARA - Summary • PacMARA has been operating successfully in BC since 2003, quietly providing service to BC's and the international marine science community; • PacMARAis uniting people through non-advocacy activity around the common issue "good information and science for effective decision-making” • Similar organizations exist in other places but PacMARA addresses an unfilled niche for BC • PacMARA is established and ready for a larger, more public role going forward • PacMARA has ENGO roots thru WWF, but the mission is to be "as representative as possible”. • PacMARA can facilitate organization of programs and projects • As a society with charitable status PacMARA can attract money from multiple sources in Canada and the US to fund key ecosystem base management projects

17. PacMARA Contacts Henry Kucera, MSc PGeo Executive Director email: Hkucera@pacmara.org voice: 250-382-8460 cell: 250-704-8755 Evert Kenk Program Director email: Ekenk@pacmara.org voice: 250-382-8460 Cell: 250-886-1815 Pacific Marine Analysis and Research Association Sussex Place Suite G7, 1001 Douglas Street Victoria BC V8W 2C5 http://www.pacmara.org