One of the founding partners in the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre, Prince Edward Island joined in a ceremony celebrating its launch this week.
Officials with the Department of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Environment, took part in the event at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., where the Centre is housed.
A non-profit organization federally incorporated in 1999, the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre (AC CDC) assembles and provides information and expertise on species at risk and natural communities in Atlantic Canada.
It is governed by representatives of a mix of federal, provincial (from the four Atlantic provinces) and non-government organizations. Founding partners are the Canadian Wildlife Service; Canadian Forest Service; Parks Canada; provincial wildlife divisions in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador; The Nature Conservancy (United States); and Nature Conservancy of Canada.
Diane Griffin, assistant deputy minister responsible for environment, was one of the guest speakers at this week's ceremony. Griffin said the data housed at the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre will be useful in many ways.
"It will be an invaluable source of information for wildlife management agencies in determining the status of not only endangered, vulnerable and threatened species, but all other species," she said.
The AC CDC produced a species tracking list for Prince Edward Island in 1999, which included 1,005 plants, 347 birds, 36 mammals, 25 freshwater fish and 13 amphibians and reptiles, ranked from secure to extremely rare.
Griffin said that data will assist the province in implementing the endangered species provisions of the Wildlife Conservation Act; and she sees the Department and consultants accessing the information for environmental assessments of proposed projects.
"This will not only improve the information base, but it will speed up the process as proposals will sometimes come forward in winter when it is difficult to conduct new and meaningful field work," she explained.
Griffin also pointed out the AC CDC will provide a central location for data gathered by both professional researchers and amateur naturalists, and will serve to record data in a consistent manner among jurisdictions so that the information is meaningful to all researchers and decision-makers.
The Atlantic institution is the newest in a network of 86 such conservation data centres in North, South and Central America which fulfill five basic functions: maintain species tracking lists; document the occurrence of elements of biodiversity; interpret data and share information; advance the science supporting biological conservation; and educate decision-makers and the public about biodiversity.
Together, the conservation data centres maintain information on more than 72,000 species, sub-species and natural communities in the Americas.