New BIG Project and a Peer Review

General
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The Stewards of Alberta’s Protected Areas of Alberta (SAPAA) is making the plunge to create project(s) to better tell the province’s natural area stories.

We got this far partly because of the generosity of time and wisdom forum this form. Now some final questions.

  1. If you were creating a project(s) this size, what 3 things would you (NOT) do?
  2. If we run a ‘friendly-peer review’ of our proposed project, would you be willing to join us online for an hour and provide your thoughts? Emphasis on the friendly but this is your chance to say ARRRGGHHHHHHH for Gawds sake don’t do it like that!!!
  3. Working date for the peer-review is April 25 11-12h MST but this may change slightly.
  4. Beyond replying to this post, a bit of pre-work, the hour session, and a bit of post-work; there is nothing else being asked of you.
  5. Confused, pondering, etc.? Leave a note below or email me at president@sapaastewards.com.

Once again, thank you from myself and the project leads (@fielderda77, @tonyblake ) for any help you can provide and past generosity!

Project Overview:

  • Project(s) to cover Alberta’s 248 Natural Areas noting these are distinct from provincial parks.
  • The areas are all of Alberta and range in size from 0.36/0.89 HA/Ac to 44,457/110K HA/Acres.
  • They cross six distinct natural regions such as prairie, montane, or boreal forest.

Project Objective:

  • User observations to provide real-time and periodic reporting on the state of these areas.
  • Encourage public support for their protection.
  • Support other research and public policy initiatives.

Resources:

  • Our website: www.sapaastewards.com.
  • If successful, we may run a how (NOT) to webinar afterwards for other groups.
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Does everyone sponsoring the project realise the observations that come in won’t be comprehensive, so absence of observations doesn’t mean absence of a species? And you might wait years for an identification? I’m not being negative about the idea, but you may need to manage expectations.

You could produce priority lists for each area: these species haven’t been seen for three years so please look out for them.

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Thanks JH. Noted and this is a good caveat to provide when contextualizing the project.

Great point!

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For the very small areas (0.36 ha) you will need to emphasise the importance of observers paying attention to location precision and accuracy, otherwise observations may not be captured in the project.

Presumably you’ll create an umbrella project for all the natural areas?

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How important is it to collect observations of rare/endangered/threatened species in your project(s)? Most will be be obscured outside of the boundaries of your protected areas and will not show up in your project(s) - assuming these places are all community-created places, and collection projects.

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Since most people aren’t on the forum, you might want to repeat this as a journal post and @ the major observers and identifiers in these areas to see if any of them are interested or want to participate in the session. I hope everything goes well!

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Do you really want to do your review during the City Nature Challenge when people might otherwise want to prioritize that?

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Hello Deboas, thanks for the perspective. Interestingly, the 0.36 site is highly restricted as it is a breeding area. Nevertheless, great advice vis precision!

Umbrella project(s) are planned!

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Thanks Kestrel, interestingly enough, it is more important to collect the more common biophysical characteristics. Many of these areas have zero observations to date so establishing a baseline is critical. Of second importance would be invasive species of plants and critters.

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Ahh, good point. The date was more of a shot in the dark and there are a few things going on that week. Thanks Petezani.

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Great suggestion Bugbaer. Functionality I was unaware of! @fielderda77 FYI.

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@orbio Just a heads up that you can respond to multiple users in one post by quoting them (highlighting their words and then selecting quote). This helps keep threads cleaner and easier to read. Thanks!

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This may be relevant to you: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.70005. Sounds like what you’re trying to do?

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This sounds like it may be similar to a project that has been running in BC for several years. I would suggest reaching out to them with your questions: https://inaturalist.ca/projects/bc-parks

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Lol, thanks @cthawley … see the following post - proof old dogs can still learn!

Thanks @ryan_durand , we are familiar with the BC Parks project and are reaching out. One key difference is that project is sponsored by the provincial government whereas we are building this on our own. No animosities or drama but a long story nevertheless.

Thanks @richardlitt for the link. I will reference this quote in our annual report to the Minister on the areas and read it in more detail.

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