AbstractGIS Decision Support Tools for Marine Conservation in New Zealand.Track: Environmental Management Author GIS and decision support tools have the potential to assist with marine conservation planning in New Zealand. One such tool is Marxan which is a free conservation planning software package that provides decision support to a range of conservation planning problems. Marxan works with ArcGIS software to allow users to visualise various decision scenarios. Marxan with Zones is an extension of Marxan that allows users to allocate land and/or sea parcels to multiple zones each with their own targets, planning unit costs and biodiversity benefits. Users can now create zoning plans that meet a variety of conservation and human-use objectives while minimizing total cost of implementation. The new functionality provides the flexibility to address a range of complex spatial planning problems. Current case studies examines problems related to ecosystem based management of the Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand. Barbara Bollard-Breen Auckland University of Technology C-43 Private Bag 92006 Auckland, na 1142 New Zealand Phone: 6499219999 Fax: 64 99219743 E-mail: bbreen@aut.ac.nz Dan Breen Department of Conservation Private Bag 68908 Auckland 1145 New Zealand Phone: +6493074840 E-mail: dbreen@doc.govt.nz |