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Overview

Our oceans are home to a dazzling variety of organisms of all imaginable sizes, shapes, colors, and behaviors. This beautiful variety is referred to as ‘marine biodiversity’ - the number and abundance of living species in the oceans including bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals. 

The Northeast Pacific Region, including the Northeast Pacific Ocean sub-basin and the adjacent continuous coastlines of British Columbia and Washington, is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. Cold, extremely productive waters support open ocean environments, benthic habitats, rocky reefs, kelp forests, and tide pools that are collectively home to tens of thousands of marine life species. Many more species remain to be discovered. This diversity of flora and fauna is increasingly at risk due to human activities, including climate change.

Co-designing and co-developing the collection of marine biodiversity information, and synthesizing information across taxa (‘the tree of life’) at local to regional scales will help ensure that effective conservation, management, and policy responses are developed alongside concerted stewardship efforts. 

The Northeast Pacific Biodiversity Action Network (BioActNet) is bringing people together to work towards shared regional biodiversity knowledge and action.