/Notes_from_breakout_discussion_March_8_2011

1. What results did we achieve with these 2 products?

Products haven’t replaced field work, but allow us to target field work, be more efficient with our field work The partnerships developed for both products brought together data that we might not have been able to bring together without these products.

Good exercise to compile data across the area, e.g., soils, gap analysis of what we don’t have Data integration to make use of data to make predictions Both products provide usable data for users to explore; flexible products, user friendly University researchers can make immediate use of the products Users can customize it Can be used at an academic level, to allow for comparisons, validation, accuracy Allows everyone to work from the same play book, mapping is consistent across organizations Confidence level boost, happy to see its being used, wants to make you keep working Snap shot of what is on the land across the region, consistent and comprehensive Visual representation of all of the data you have Connection and trust that you build with landowners, SAR after and could go back and visit landowners because already had that trust Practical results, providing basis for habitat models, practical uses Make people more aware of what data is available and help you focus in certain areas for the future Allows managers to manage at the ecosystem level, allows us to see gaps and species corridors, the fragment landscape Allows manager to target actions on the ground, can apply precautionary principle with associated accuracy information Potential application for flood management

Conservation Authorities have a better idea of what is out there to develop goals and objectives for management Sub-watershed planning System based, updatable, living system based approach Gap analysis, site regions find rare or common vegetation communities Allows us to take stock of what we do have and what we don’t have, gives us the push for what we don’t have Good base to start with, pilot project to be rolled out for other places Basis for predicting future, help develop policies and regulations, understand how today differs from the past Allowed us to tap into different organizations, networks, partners to find out what we do have and work together instead of focusing on what we don’t have Standardized sampling is great because allows for comparison between different organizations and sites, encouraging people to adopt standardized methods Enables comparison of properties and surrounding landscape Great product to fill in those gaps or areas where we can’t get onto because they are private land Without people this couldn’t be done The more people are aware of it, the more people find uses for it; the more you are aware the more you want to contribute to it Allowed Kemptville to run stats on what is on their landscape--surprising amount of diversity of ecosites are present in the District Supports species at risk recovery planning 2. Who benefits/ benefited?

1. OMNR 2. SLINP: benefit everyday from this mapping, for modeling SAR habitat, managing at a ecosystem level 3. Consultants: gives them direction as to what to target in Environmental Assessments 4. Municipalities--don’t believe that it’s filtered down to them to use it, they know it’s out there but have they applied it?

Derived products from these maps like the NHS, significant woodlands mapping, are being made available to municipalities 5. NCC benefits at a NHS level, but not so much for on the ground work, find mapping too coarse 6. Ontario Nature 7. Academics 3. What did this allow for/ enable?

Remains to be seen yet, don’t comprehend yet what can be developed, way more still to come with these products. Still to be realized!

4. What might we want to achieve together towards continuing to build these inventories this year?

Upload updated woodlands (DRAPE 2008) to enable integration with both the ELC and PVM mapping products Put ELC data into LIO (Kemptville District) Ontario Parks is doing ELC in 3 parks, might be interested in adopting VSP protocol NCC: invasive spp surveys and elc class on owned properties, would be willing to do 1015 rapid VSP plots this summer Southern Science has a rapid VSP data collection form Completing rapid VSP plots (with accurate georeferencing) would provide data to independently validate both mapping products SLINP seems interested, spoke with greg earlier often they have students for the summer that go out with our maps and find that what we modelled isn’t there, maybe they could do something like this for validation purposes, except they don’t have any funding Dorothy Hamilton (Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry properties): can probably do some rapid VSP plots Joy Sterritt: Stewardship Ranger team could perhaps do some rapid VSP plots Roughly 7 people/organizations were interested in participating in an eastern Ontario VSP training course to learn this plot-based vegetation sampling protocol.