Education about Marxan, how it works, what it does, and what it is used for, was necessary with most participants—e.g., ecological experts, data providers, government employees, non-profit groups and marine users. Much effort was put into educating participants about this tool and its potential uses and limitations. An ancillary benefit to the marine based community in British Columbia learn more is a better understanding of Marxan, both its strengths and limitations. This may prove useful for marine planning processes in the future. Finally, while the BCMCA project was made possible in part because of the commitment and dedication of many people

who volunteered their time, having adequate funding ultimately made the project possible. Some groups needed funding to participate, workshops find more cost money, GIS contractors were needed for preparation of the many datasets, and

so on. Thus, while volunteer efforts can go a long way to instigating a data collation and analysis project, to realise its full potential, the BCMCA required financial resources to be completed. Ultimately, one of the most important benefits of a project such as the BCMCA is the development and maintenance of working relationships among stakeholder groups. As shown by the exploratory overlap analyses, marine areas of conservation value in the Canadian Pacific are also important to a variety of stakeholders. The process that the BCMCA project developed – including development of a Project Team, human use working group, user group outreach, presentations to planners – served to get parties to work together, strengthen relationships, raise awareness about the need for data collation and analysis, and educate marine users and others on the value of quality data and Marxan analyses. Communication with collaborators was a part of the project throughout. Such benefits are difficult to substantiate, yet anecdotal feedback from

participants indicates that communication and collaboration among stakeholders has improved because of the project, and that the BCMCA’s data products SDHB are in high demand. This project affirmed the importance of several issues discussed in the marine spatial planning and conservation planning literatures. Involving stakeholders early in the process is important for their support for the project [23] and [24], but it is also difficult to conceive a project with all stakeholders involved—a conundrum that most planning processes are faced with [7], [9], [15] and [30]. Having good data is important for achieving quality analyses, but much more emphasis exists in the literature on how to incorporate ecological than social data [2], [3] and [23]. Ultimately, the acceptance of any project’s analyses – and the BCMCA’s in particular because the project itself does not have an implementation mandate – depends upon acceptance by stakeholders, which is partly influenced by the process followed and the quality of the data and analyses.