The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) was presented with Esri Canada's first Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual meeting of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Forest Ministers of Canada, held at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, Toronto. The Lifetime Achievement Award is a special award created to recognize an outstanding organization that has a long history of innovation in GIS.

Jack Dangermond, president of Esri, recognized the MNR for its leadership role and innovative use of GIS. In a special presentation ceremony, the Natural Resources Minister, the Honorable John Snobelen, received the award on behalf of the Ministry.

"To say that the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources is a world leader in GIS is an understatement," said Dangermond. "The Lifetime Achievement Award is going to a very deserving organization that has been making tremendous contributions to GIS throughout Canada for more than 20 years. It is our pleasure to recognize them for their remarkable achievements and their commitment to using GIS for a wide range of activities."

The MNR's most recent achievement was the development of the Land Information Ontario (LIO) program, which offers leadership within the province for all geospatial data providers and users to make geospatial data affordable, accessible, and integratable. The LIO program was established on the notion of collecting data once and using it many times.

"The LIO program will move the government, the key data providers, Business sectors, and Ontario's strong geomatics industry into leadership roles in managing geospatial information and developing decision support tools," said Snobelen. "LIO is making the provincial land information accessible to the public, and it will soon be linked to Esri's Geography Network (www.geographynetwork.com)."

Snobelen also announced that the MNR has developed a program with Esri Canada to distribute mapping data to every school in Ontario. The MNR is supplying the geospatial information, and Esri Canada is responsible for distributing and providing support for the information. Esri Canada is also working with representatives from the education community to develop lesson plans to supplement the data.

In 1977, the MNR developed the Ontario Base Map (OBM)--a series of hard-copy topographic basemaps that provided a Province-wide standard for mapping. In 1983, the MNR selected Esri's ArcInfo software to produce the digital version of the OBM series. Lands for Life, introduced in 1997, was the most ambitious public consultation initiative ever launched. The Partnership for Public Lands (represented by the World Wildlife Fund, the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, and the Wildlands League) and the MNR partnered for this initiative. The Lands for Life planning process was designed to address the future direction for land use and resource management of 45 million hectares of land and water, an area covering 40 percent of the Province. This was the first Province-wide planning process based on a GIS approach and could not have been accomplished without the use of the technology.

The MNR had the hardware, software, and standard data sets to meet its own needs and also had the capability to make it available to others. Having one set of high-quality data that everyone could share and build on eliminated all disputes over content and allowed the participants to focus on the policies they wanted.

For more information, contact Brett Kelly, Minister's Office (tel.: 416-314-1100) or Heather Adams, Esri Canada (tel.: 416-441-6035, ext. 363; e-mail: hadams@esricanada.com).