Ministry of Environment Conservation Data Centre

What's New

May 2008

1) An enhanced version of BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer is now available. Improvements include:

• The capability to expand or collapse search criteria groups, to suit individual users.
• The capability to search for species by RISC code and synonyms.
• The capability to select more than one Forest District within a single search.
• The addition of Ministry of Environment Region and Regional District as search criteria for red, blue and legally designated species, and all ecological communities.
• The addition of Ecosystem Group as a search criterion for ecological community elements.
• Links to Google Maps to view known locations of species/ecological communities at risk.
• Bibiographic links to new documents including status reports, recovery plans and best management practices.
• Links to the new Cross-Linked Information Repository (CLIR) and Habitat Wizard.
• Additions and revisions to the Explorer help tabs and pop-up help windows on the search and results pages.

2) Revisions and additions to data:

Species Data

• Marine fish and tiger beetles were added.
• In February, the 2008 CDC rank and taxonomic changes for species were published through BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer. Changes are summarized in documents on the Endangered Species and Ecosystems 2007/08 Changes page. Note that as of 2005 BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer is the provincial authority and considered the RISC standard for scientific names, English names and RISC codes for Freshwater Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals.

Ecological Community Data

Details of changes to ecological community data are listed in a spreadsheet available on the Endangered Species and Ecosystems 2007/08 Changes page. Changes include:

• Addition of a few new wetland and dune ecological communities.
• About 200 BC ecological communities now have global conservation status ranks.
• Some ecological community provincial conservation status ranks have been adjusted to be consistent with global conservation status ranks.
• Endemic status has been assessed for many ecological communities.
• Forest District and Ecosection distribution has been refined for some ecological communities.

July 2007

1) New Conservation Evaluation Form for assessing the conservation value of ecological community element occurrences. See the Data Contributions page for details and to download the form. See also information about data forms and requirements for verification of ecological community element occurrences.

2) New ecological community FAQs: see numbers 16-20 on the Endangered Species and Ecosystems FAQ page.

March 2007

• New RISC mapping standard:

Ministry of Environment. 2006. Standard for Mapping Ecosystems at Risk in British Columbia: An approach to mapping ecosystems at risk and other sensitive ecosystems. Version 1. B.C. Minist. Environ., Victoria, BC. 98pp. (PDF 728 KB)

The report describes British Columbia standards for mapping ecosystems at risk including sensitive Ecosystems unit characterization, field sampling, mapping procedures, legends, map symbols and reporting. It also outlines procedures for modelling Sensitive Ecosystems from TEM, PEM and BEI. Core data attributes collected for all Sensitive Ecosystems mapping projects in British Columbia are described, in addition to other attributes that are recommended to support conservation planning. Methods for mapping and evaluating ecological integrity of CDC element occurrences from Sensitive Ecosystems are described.