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B.C. Government relies on information sharing to protect resources
Waste not, want not. As this saying implies, if you conserve what you need, you'll have it when you need it.
That thinking underscores the mandate of the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management (MSRM) in British Columbia... to support the sustainable economic development of Crown land, water, and resources. Considering that agriculture, fishing, forestry, and mining employ 1 in 11 B.C. workers and that these industries generate half of the province's goods production, wisely managing natural resources is crucial.
That responsibility becomes much easier when people have current, useful information–information that until recently was spread throughout the province–in government departments, universities, and private companies. With the help of GeoConnections, a group within MSRM is encouraging users to share information and improve decision making in a host of resource-management sectors.
"We're making a lot of corporate information resources within the province available over the Internet," says Mr. Evert Kenk, Executive Director, Industry Solutions, MSRM. "People can now see what information is available and how best to use it."
Bolstering B.C.'s marine industry
For instance, the more that Canadians know about the ocean, the more they'll be able to safeguard the fishing industry and its jobs. In 2002, the landed value of the salmon, groundfish, shellfish, and herring fisheries in B.C. was more than $360 million–income vital to many B.C. coastal communities.
Sustaining B.C.'s fisheries is one goal of the Cooperative Ocean Information Network Pacific (COINPacific). A joint initiative of MSRM, GeoConnections, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), and the Canadian Centre for Marine Communications (CCMC), COINPacific makes ocean information available over the Internet. People will be able to use this information to better balance ocean industries with environmental responsibilities, develop Canadian ocean technology, and promote the Canadian marine industry locally and internationally.
"By using COINPacific to establish a robust marine industry and develop ocean-management capabilities within the province," says Mr. Kenk, "we'll be well positioned to export this expertise internationally. We are not only protecting our resources, but also developing marketable technology to help other countries protect their resources."
Information sharing helps national reporting and reduces costs
GeoConnections and MSRM are also both involved in developing the National Forest Information System (NFIS). This system lets Canada's provinces and territories work together easily to present a national, unified view of the country's forests, a requirement for meeting international reporting obligations.
Mr. Kenk says that through projects such as COINPacific and NFIS, GeoConnections has played an important role in helping MSRM to capitalize on geospatial information sharing. "Without GeoConnections, we would have had to focus more on provincial clients and less on national clients," he says. "And we would have taken more time to deliver."
With the help of GeoConnections, B.C. information is much more accessible over the Internet, data is more current and accurate, and inter-governmental collaboration is easier than ever. GeoConnections has not only provided funding to support these improvements but also endorsed the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards and supported technology development that simplify information sharing.
Dwight McCullough is the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Coordinator for the Habitat and Enhancement Branch of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Pacific Region. He sees that making data widely available over the Internet will simplify his job and cut costs. In the past, Mr. McCullough and his GIS colleagues had to get data from a provider, format it to a DFO standard, and put it in a spatial data warehouse. The data provider had to package the data and send it–another time-consuming step. Making the information available over the Internet streamlines the process and saves everyone time.
"There's a huge efficiency gain to doing business that way," says Mr. McCullough. "We don't have to manage gigabytes of data here because we can access it through an OGC connection to the province. We save money by no longer having to manage the data, and we don't have to spend nearly as much time getting the data in the first place. It's going to take a tremendous load off our GIS staff if more organizations adopt this approach."
Inviting further collaboration
As is said, success breeds success, and Mr. Kenk sees great potential for future collaboration. "By working on NFIS and COINPacific, we've established good relations with other provinces," he says. "Consequently, we're all now open to working together on other mutually beneficial information-management and technology projects."
That kind of attitude will ultimately help Canada better manage not only its oceans and forests but also its freshwater, air, minerals, and endangered species.
| GeoConnections is a national partnership initiative, led by Natural Resources Canada, to build the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) and make Canada's geospatial databases, tools, and services readily accessible on-line. |