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Renewed GeoConnections
The 2010 Federal Budget announced renewed funding for the GeoConnections program. The Budget provides $11 million in funding over the next two years to continue development of the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) and to provide consolidated geographic-related information to Canadians via the Internet.
Resources & Tools
How Sharing Information Can Preserve Our Oceans
If the oceans represent our final frontier, they may also represent our final opportunity to protect and manage what many believe is the Earth's most diverse environment. To take advantage of that opportunity, we need information -- information about the state of our oceans, information about what's being done in terms of resource development and environmental protection, and information about ongoing individual studies and organizational research.
The good news is that there's a sea of information out there about our ocean environment. The bad news, says Evert Kenk of the British Columbia Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management (BC.MSRM), is that the information is often difficult to access. "People and organizations tend to work in isolation," he says. "That means they don't always have the opportunity to share the information they acquire in their work."
GeoConnections is helping to change that through its support of the Cooperative Ocean Information Network Pacific, or COINPacific. A joint initiative of BC.MSRM, GeoConnections, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and the Canadian Centre for Marine Communications (CCMC), COINPacific is committed to creating the "cooperative action" required to make information about the ocean environment widely available.
COINPacific brings people in the ocean community together, says Henry Kucera of CCMC, who is acting Director of the COINPacific Hub -- the office that coordinates project development. "And in B.C., as in other parts of Canada, that community possesses a lot of expertise, a lot of information and a lot of science about the ocean environment. That pent-up expertise exists in universities, in government, in private industry, in the Aboriginal community and even outside of Canada."
"Cooperation and sharing will provide a greater amount of quality, accessible information," says Mr. Kucera, "and it will do so at a lower cost." This, COINPacific officials believe, will stimulate sustainable economic development in the province, provide a more active local market for this country's ocean technology industry, and stimulate international sales.
Although in its infancy, COINPacific has already succeeded, says Mr. Kenk, who is Chair of the COINPacific Steering Committee. "It's brought virtually all of the people involved in preserving and developing the ocean environment into one place," he says. "That's something that hasn't been accomplished until now." COINPacific has become a catalyst for member individuals and organizations to share their information and to work together in the future."
COINPacific has been embraced by those people who believe that cooperative action is the best -- if not the only -- way to ensure the future of B.C.'s oceans and the success of the province's ocean economy. "People in British Columbia expect their government to safeguard an ocean environment that enriches people's daily lives and will do so for generations to come," says Mr. Kenk. "COINPacific, by increasing access to information about the Pacific Ocean -- and promoting the intelligent use of that information -- is helping to make sure those expectations are met."
In fact, COINPacific may do even more in the future. It is already being viewed as a template for similar solutions in other parts of Canada.