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About CIT

Coast Information Team

The Coast Information Team (CIT) was an independent, multidisciplinary group established and supported by the Provincial Government of British Columbia, First Nations governments, the forest industry, environmental groups, communities and later the federal government, as part of the implementation of the 2001 CCLCRMP (Central Coast Land and Coastal Resource Management Planning) Phase I Framework Agreement ( 130 Kb).

The CIT operated under a joint Memorandum of Understanding between these parties. The purpose of the CIT was to provide independent information and analyses for the development and implementation of ecosystem-based management in the north and central coastal region of British Columbia, including Haida Gwaii/Queen Charlotte Islands. This information was intended to assist the subregional Land and Resource Management Planning (LRMP) Central Coast and North Coast and Haida Gwaii/QCI land use planning tables and the several First Nations Land Use Planning (LUP) tables in developing practical recommendations to resolve land use and natural resource management issues.

The CIT worked with government technical planning teams on data acquisition and analysis in all three coastal areas to create regional-scale analyses and EBM guidebooks that could help inform land use decision making and achieve a consistent approach to planning, management, and conservation at the subregional, landscape, watershed, and site levels.

The CIT became operational in January 2002, and completed its work in March 2004. Its $3.3 million budget was funded by the provincial government (58%), environmental non-government organizations (18%), forest products companies (18%), and the federal government (6%).

Benefits

The CIT brought independent science, informed by local and traditional knowledge, to British Columbia’s standard strategic land use planning model. It improved land use planning and development processes by providing:

• Regional context
  The CIT analyses and assessments provided a regional context for evaluating the ecological, cultural, or economic importance of particular areas, and helped inform subregional, landscape, and site-level decision making.
• Ecosystem-based management
  The CIT developed an approach to EBM based on ecosystem and human wellbeing. The CIT provided clear principles, goals and objectives; ecological management targets; implementation tools (including an EBM planning handbook and hydroriparian planning guide); and procedural steps to guide the implementation of EBM in coastal British Columbia.
• Comprehensive, multidisciplinary analyses
  Cultural and economic spatial analyses were undertaken together with an ecosystem spatial analysis to identify priority areas for all of these value sets (cultural, economic development, and biodiversity conservation).
• Wellbeing assessment
  A wellbeing assessment measured environmental and socio-economic conditions and trends in the region to provide context for land use decisions and a baseline for monitoring implementation.
• Independence and international credibility
  Particular care was taken to undertake independent and internationally credible analyses and assessments.

CIT provided independent information and analyses to support ecosystem-based management.

http://www.citbc.org.