Ministry of Environment
Environmental Stewardship Division
A New Tool for Land Use Planning
Developing a Methodology for Site Conservation Evaluation |
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| Conservation-based land use planning decisions must be
supported by sound ecological and biological information,
gathered from on-site assessments. The Sensitive Ecosystems
Inventory (SEI) project stresses that all SEI sites require
detailed on-site assessments before planning decisions can
be made. Even the SEI sites that have been field checked
as part of the SEI project (approximately 30% of the total
sites) require additional site-specific data in order to
allow a comprehensive assessment of the site’s conservation
value.
The problem? There currently exists no formal ethodology for this type of comprehensive conservation evaluation and site assessment. With this in mind, the BC Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks’ Conservation Data Centre (CDC) has undertaken a two-year project to develop formal criteria for ecological evaluation to ensure consistency in site assessment. This includes a module for ecosystem inventory, and a field form that includes ecological information regarding landscape condition, environmental characteristics, disturbance history (both natural |
and man-made), adjacent land uses
and other fields lacking on standard inventory forms. The
data gathered is then used to evaluate the site; variables
such as quality, condition, viability, representativeness,
defensibility, size, threats, biodiversity significance and
other values are discussed and ranked. The evaluation results
are then summarized in written form.
The first year of the project saw the development of evaluation criteria, field forms and database standards. We are now beginning to implement the evaluation module, and a series of workshops to field test the methodology are planned. Please contact the CDC if your group would like to participate in this phase of the project. For more information please contact Jan Kirkby, BC Conservation Data Centre, at (250 387-0732) or email at jkirkby@fwhdept.env.gov.bc.ca This project was funded by the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund. The HCTF was created by an act of the legislature to preserve, restore and enhance key areas of habitat for fish and wildlife throughout B.C. |
Direct to your desk
If you would like to be added to the mailing list to receive the SEI Update, or would like your name removed from the list, please contact Judith Cullington: phone (250) 391-8772, fax (250) 478-6055, e-mail: jcullington@shaw.ca
May we present…
The SEI project team is willing to provide orientation sessions on the Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory to councils and other organizations that would like to learn more. For information please contact Judith Cullington at (250) 391-8772, e-mail: jcullington@shaw.ca
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