The new Southern Gulf Islands (SGI) atlas available through the Community Mapping Network is a web-based mapping tool that brings together a variety of information about the environment, landscape, and cultural aspects of the southern Gulf Islands. It is an on-going partnership project between Parks Canada, CMN, and CPAWS. Its main purpose is to foster public awareness of the ecosystems in and surrounding the the Gulf Islands Nature Park Reserve and to help make informed decisions that promote the maintenance of ecological integrity on park lands while at the same time allowing for public enjoyment and education opportunities.
You can view information related to distribution and types of ecosystems, biological communities, parks and protected areas, topography of the region, and many more aspects. You can now view 18 hours of shoreline video (with audio commentary) and 4000 still images. Using a high speed connection with internet explorer you can watch the video while tracking your position on a map of the shoreline. With time, many more thematic layers will become available. The atlas has an easy, intuitive user interface and provides tools for carrying out basic operations on the data such as, zoom, select, buffer generation, measuring distances, bookmarking, redlining, and printing.
The contents of the atlas can assist researchers in creating a profile of the myriad of ecosystems within the park at many scales. It can be used in the development of communications and interpretive products, provide the building blocks for management planning, and paint a portrait of the human presence on the islands over time.
