Timely biodiversity screening is vital when projects may lead to biodiversity risks. Screening is a crucial step for organisations to understand the risks of their activities and how to effectively manage them as early as possible. This is especially important to implement avoidance mitigation. Screening is also important to define priorities, understand where there may be gaps in baseline data, and determine what actions can be taken to deliver positive outcomes.
Due to numerous reasons, primary data collection often does not occur at an early stage in the project. It may also not be possible to collect primary data across broad ecological scales to inform critical habitat assessment, or, to understand what values may be impacted by a project.
At Bluedot, we use a variety of great datasets to inform our screening of marine biodiversity that are freely or commercially available to either view or download. We supplement these datasets with our in-house knowledge, broader research of published and grey literature, and consultation with a global network of local experts.
In line with one of our core pillars – creating better outcomes – we share links to key marine biodiversity resources that we use most often, improving access for the organisations that need them.
