Meagan Morey, an ecologist with Blazing Star Environmental, presented on Ontario’s Habitat and Biodiversity Assessment Tool (HBAT) at the CFGA’s 15th Annual Conference, Roots to Success: The Foundation of Resilient Agriculture, in Guelph, Ontario in December. 
 
The HBAT is an online tool for agriculture landowners interested in stewardship. It is designed to assist users to explore and implement practices that are beneficial to local species, while improving ecosystem goods and services and overall resiliency of the land. 
 
The tool was originally created in Alberta for the Environmental Farm Plan (EFP). The CFGA has been leading a six-year project to adapt the tool for other provinces with financial support from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) as part of the Canada Nature Fund. 
 
Tool overview 
The HBAT takes general land information given by the landowner (location and types of habitats in a property) and compares this information with an internal database to identify types of plants and animals that may use these habitats and may occur nearby. The output of the tool is a collection of voluntary stewardship opportunities based on that land parcel and the needs of the potential species there. 
 
Overall, 221 Ontario species at risk (endangered, threatened, special concern) are included. The tool includes all agricultural land in Ontario, using Lot, concession and township, so each property uses a legal land description. This is the same location fabric method used for various agriculture programs like AgMaps and the EFP. 
  
Ecological Land Classification (ELC) are used to categorize and delineate ecologically distinct areas at various scales, using the regional scale (geology and climate). Ecoregions are used to connect stewardship opportunities with species and habitat. 
 
The stewardship opportunities are compared to ensure they don’t counteract one another and are ordered and ranked by how beneficial to a species they are, number of species involved, and feasibility (cost, time, implementation, farm economics). 
 
The tool also includes a collection of programs and funding available to support and implement stewardship opportunities. 
 
Tool launches 
The formal launch of the Ontario HBAT will take place on March 21 from 1 to 3 p.m. ET. This two-hour webinar will involve background on the tool and HBAT project, a demonstration of the tool, how to read the output report(s) and finally the potential for its use across Ontario. There will be time for questions from the audience and the webinar will be recorded and made available for viewing by registrants. Register here. 
 
Formal launches of the tools in other provinces are scheduled as follows: 

• New Brunswick: March 26, 12 - 2 p.m. ET 
• PEI, March 27, 12 - 2 p.m. ET 
• Quebec, March 28, Time TBA 
• British Columbia, March 31, 10 a.m. PT 

All provincial tools will be accessible on the CFGA website where anyone interested can create a secure account to use them. 
 
2024 conference recordings   
To hear all of this presentation, you can purchase access to it, and all of the recordings from the 2024 conference proceedings. Note, the recordings are available for free to those who registered for the 2024 conference. For more information, email [email protected].