Symposium Vision: 
 
To assemble and share existing knowledge about Barkley Sound ecosystems, human uses, and values in a living and open knowledge-base for the support of sustainability planning initiatives.
 
Symposium Goal:

Assemble ecological knowledge of Barkley Sound from scientific, indigenous, and other local realms into formats that may be used to support marine planning initiatives, and to inform the general public.
This includes the development of two elements: 

• An open Wiki-site where submitted symposium abstracts and authored articles can be published.
• An online Barkley Sound Knowledge Network community. 

All contributions to this effort are made in the spirit of partnership and collaboration, with all appropriate credits and acknowledgements given. 
 
Fitting into a Broader Initiative:
 
These outcomes will compliment ongoing coastal and marine planning initiatives on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.  These include the development of Ocean Zoning plans for Barkley and Clayoquot Sounds and a broader Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management Plan for the West Coast of Vancouver Island coordinated by West Coast Aquatic (the West Coast Vancouver Island Aquatic Management Board).  West Coast Aquatic is constructing a larger ecological knowledge base to support these efforts, including other elements such as:
 

• An Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) report for the Barkley Sound area, including knowledge and experience originating outside of Barkley Sound.
• A spatial analysis and atlas of natural resources and associated human uses and values.
• Decision support tools, for example:

Marzone - A zoning site selection optimization tool
Ecopath with Ecosim - An ecosystem model for estimating effects of zoning scenarios 
INVEST - A tool for estimating ecosystem services related to different scenarios 
GIS analyses - Geospatial analyses to underpin the process and other analyses
Spatial query tool - For quick syntheses of spatial information