ABSTRACT
At the time of researching and writing this book, the province of British Columbia in western Canada could arguably claim the distinction of having more spatial planning efforts going on simultaneously than any other place in the world. The work being done in these initiatives has been top notch and has contributed to a much fuller understanding of the nature of the marine ecosystems in the region, their value and prospects for their management. However, time will tell whether the planning efforts will have been worthwhile, for two reasons: 1) there appears to be little information exchange between the initiatives, resulting in a fair amount of duplication, redundancy and inefficiency, and 2) it is not clear that any of the planning efforts will actually lead to ocean zoning or, in fact, the kinds of changes in human behaviour that are needed to effect better management. As the province of British Columbia faces ever-increasing demands for resources and space, in a climate-changing future, the need for having all this effort translate into comprehensive ocean zoning plans may well increase.
