Biodiversity is defined by the Biodiversity Inventory Group (BIG) as the full variety of life including genes, species and ecosystems plus ecological; and evolution-ary processes. Recently, the planners and managers of British Columbia have been asked to consider all of the biodiversity of the province in their planning documents. In other words, in addition to managing for big game, furbearer and fisheries species, and recognized endangered species, they have been asked to manage for thousands of species, subspecies and populations, both visible and invisible and to keep ecosystem processes intact.
One of the tools that is commonly used by managers is inventories. Inventories can be maps, lists, point source information, or numbers describing or monitoring some aspect of animals, plants or ecosystems through space or time. An enormous array of inventories over components of biodiversity is possible. Limited resources make it imperative that inventories are carefully designed to support biodiversity needs. Biodiversity inventory is a new concept, and so broadly based, that ideas and debate about what to measure, map and use in land use planning decisions are evolving. To design a workable system of inventories, BIG consulted people with a broad range of experience in biodiversity management.
A proposal outlining a system of inventories to cover all the needs of those entrusted with the maintenance of biodiversity was sent to 74 people across the province who represent different geographic areas and different planning levels (Appendix A). This was designed to stimulate discussion about an appropriate system of inventories that can assist managers and planners in the task of maintaining biodiversity. The biodiversity inventories were meant to address information needs at four levels. The planning levels were set by the Resources Inventory Committee (RIC). They are local (municipal, stand), subregional (watershed, ISA), regional (MOF and MOE regions) and provincial.
The recipients of the proposal were asked to rank the proposed inventories and to suggest further information that would be beneficial to decision making. Telephone interviews were conducted over a two week period to speed up the response time. Close to 200 phone calls resulted in 47 interviews. In addition, 2 people sent written responses and 2 spoke from 2 different perspectives (i.e. mayor of a municipality and ecologist with provincial experience). This represents a 66% response rate from the mailing and 51 total responses (Appendix B). Table 1 shows the correlation of the geographic distribution and the planning level for those individuals who were interviewed. The sample bias to local-regional planning indicates that most plan-ning is carried out at this level. A few individuals who were in a research capacity declined to state a planning level.
Table 1. The correlation between the geographic distribution and the planning levels of the respondents.
