Biodiversity considerations for marine protected area network planning in the Scotia-Fundy region of Atlantic Canada

A terrestrial conservation-planning framework proposed by Noss et al. (1999a) was applied to the Scotia-Fundy marine region for the purpose of identifying areas of high conservation value as an initial step in the marine protected area (MPA) network planning process.;The first step involved the collection and mapping of available physical and biological data that could be used to describe regional patterns in biodiversity. The second step was to set conservation goals and targets for each data layer under the three tracks of the framework. This was followed by a preliminary overlay analysis to identify areas of spatial overlap between data layers (or conservation features). A protected area gap analysis was then carried out to assess the extent to which existing protected areas in the Scotia-Fundy region capture the various conservation features under the three tracks of the framework.;The last step in applying the framework was to complete a synthetic overlay analysis, which took into consideration the results of the gap analysis and identified 12 areas of high conservation value for the Scotia-Fundy region. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).