Norway is committed to working towards the full and effective implementation of the World Heritage Convention both nationally and internationally. Nationally, the Ministry of Climate and Environment, together with the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage and the Norwegian Environment Agency, organizes annual meetings with World Heritage coordinators, with the aim of creating dialogue and disseminating information necessary for a positive development of the World Heritage properties.
Internationally, Norway is a driver and donor behind the ICCROM/IUCN World Heritage Leadership Programme which is a global capacity building programme on the management of nature and culture at world heritage properties. Norwegian stakeholders are able to participate in the activities under the World Heritage Leadership Programme and several programme activities are held in Norway.
Capacity building in relation to World Heritage is included in the Report to the Storting (white paper) no.35 (2012-2013) Cultural Heritage Policy (Chapter 4.8 World Heritage) and the Report to the Storting (white paper) no.16 (2019-2020). Within the framework of the World Heritage Leadership Programme, the planning and implementation of capacity building activities is done by the Advisory Bodies (ICCROM, IUCN, ICOMOS) in cooperation with the Ministry of Climate and Environment. Other international partners are involved, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Capacity building is a key element for the planning and implementation of the World Heritage Convention and it is also one of its five strategic objectives of the World Heritage Convention. Building capacities is at the heart of effective management and conservation of world heritage properties.
It is important that representatives from Norwegian World Heritage properties participate in international cooperation, thus contributing to raise the local World Heritage property's competence and capacity on its own type of World Heritage.
Capacity building is deeply rooted into experience sharing and learning from each other’s experiences.
Data Layers for Fishers Island Seagrass Management Planning
Will McClintock, 2020
Data Layers for Marine Planning in British Columbia
Will McClintock, 2020
Administrative Interface for Adding Map Services to SeaSketch
Will McClintock, 2020
The foundation of any SeaSketch project is geospatial information (maps) displayed as map services. There are no minimum data requirements. You can begin working with whatever you've got. Maps may be published as Esri REST Services (e.g., with ArcGIS Server or ArcGIS online) and open source mapping services (e.g., WMS, WMTS) and then imported into SeaSketch. Example maps include administrative boundaries (e.g., EEZ, territorial sea, existing MPAs), seafloor habitats, bathymetry, human uses, etc.
The maps you choose to include as Data Layers in SeaSketch depend on the goals of your process. If you are planning for marine protected areas, shipping lanes and aquaculture sites, you may want navigational charts, habitat maps, the distribution of fishing activities and other layers that may be used to guide users in the design of their plans. Protected areas are only meaningful if they effectively protect certain habitats, shipping lanes minimize collision and maximize efficiency, aquaculture sites are located in certain depth zones, etc. On a case-by-case basis, you will need to evaluate what data need to be viewed as maps, and what subset of these data need to be analysed.
In some cases, relevant map data may already be published as map services and discoverable in coastal atlases and other map portals. As long as they are in the correct formats (Esri map services, WMS, WMTS, etc), they may be imported directly into SeaSketch and displayed as map layers.
In many cases, it will be advantageous to publish your own map services for display in SeaSketch. This will give you control over the cartography and performance of the maps.
Successful projects usually have a single GIS technician who is responsible for locating existing map services, acquiring data from providers (government agencies, NGOs, academics) and generating new map services using standard desktop and web-mapping tools.
In most cases, SeaSketch is used to support large-scale planning efforts where governments have mandated the establishment of a marine spatial plan and where broad stakeholder involvement is essential. In these cases, SeaSketch must be licensed by a lead agency or partner. SeaSketch may be used to visualize geospatial data as map services, collect to information via surveys, sketch and discuss plans. If plans are to be evaluated using analytics, geoprocessing services and reports must be developed in our lab. Note that a free license is available for educational institutions to use SeaSketch for strictly educational purposes.
In January 2022, we will release the next version of SeaSketch which will be entirely free and open source. Just as with the current version, many of the features within SeaSketch may be configured with minimal knowledge of or experience with GIS. The analytics and reports will be run on lambda and encoded using programming languages such as Javascript. Owners of projects may, therefore, set up their own SeaSketch project – from beginning to end – without intervention from our lab. It should be noted, however, that the geoprocessing and reporting framework, though free and open source, will require significant programming experience.
Currently the implementing agency (such as a government body, foundation or NGO) must purchase the license and contract for developing analytics. The current version requires an Internet connection, but the next version will include some offline capabilities. Successful implementation of SeaSketch will require some assistance from a GIS technician, for example publishing and importing map services.
SeaSketch is extremely valuable in creating a transparent and collaborative atmosphere, maximizing stakeholder participation, and grounding decisions in science-based information. We see the best results when SeaSketch is used in combination with other tools such as desktop GIS applications, trade-off analyses, prioritization tools (e.g., Marxan, Prioritizr), and cumulative impact analyses.
