The Marine Plan Partnership for the North Pacific Coast (MaPP) is a collaborative initiative between the Province of BC and 17 First Nations to develop and implement marine plans for the coastal and marine areas of four sub-regions of B.C.’s North Pacific Coast: Haida Gwaii, the North Coast, the Central Coast, and North Vancouver Island. The MaPP partners include the Province of British Columbia, the Coastal First Nations-Great Bear Initiative, the North Coast-Skeena First Nations Stewardship Society, Central Coast Indigenous Resource Alliance, Council of Haida Nation, and the Nanwakolas Council. MaPP required a consultant with expertise in data and information management and data manipulation and analysis to oversee the implementation and stewardship of a Data Management System (DMS) unique to their RAF, and to help advance their Integrated EBM Indicator Monitoring and Reporting Program. Working alongside key members of the research team to facilitate the development of a Data and Information Management Strategy, CRM presented options for implementation of scenarios and components that clearly identified important key considerations such as such as short-term and long-term costs, software/hardware recommendations, advantages and disadvantages, resource allocation, and timelines for each scenario.
With all considerations in mind, the MaPP chose to deploy an interactive web-based metadata catalogue that (a) provides collaborators with easy access to information relevant to spatial planning, and (b) supports ongoing access of information for marine management. Upon loading the home page for the Metadata Catalogue, users are presented with a brief description of the catalogue accompanied by opportunities to view metadata content, search by keywords, view statistics, and search by graphic utilizing the interactive map.