The national conservation plan is certainly broader than DFO, but DFO does have an important role. For DFO it's really about marine conservation. It's really about continuing the work that we've been undertaking over the last years since 2007, I believe it is. We've invested over $77 million on the health of the oceans initiative, which has been moving forward on marine protected areas in particular, working on identifying areas of interest, moving forward regulatory proposals, working with stakeholders identifying vulnerable marine ecosystems, and establishing marine protected areas.
The second piece, which is becoming a larger piece as we go forward with the next phase, is around marine protected area networks. Whereas our department has done marine protected areas, Environment Canada has done wildlife areas for migratory birds in marine areas, and Parks Canada has done national conservation parks including marine parks. Provinces have set aside areas in ocean spaces and in aquatic areas, and there are well over 800 overall.
The idea now, as opposed to all of us sort of going along identifying what we want to protect, is really getting all the players and the stakeholders around one table and having marine protected area networks looking at whether we have all the representative areas, whether we have all of the areas that need protection, and whether we have sufficient replication, those types of principles. That really is the next phase of the plan.