Thank you.
I'm here with Philippe Morel, who is the assistant deputy minister of aquatic ecosystems. My name is Adam Burns. I'm the director general of fisheries resources management at DFO. I'm here representing Sylvie Lapointe, who is not available. She's the assistant deputy minister of fisheries and harbour management.
First and foremost, I'd like to thank the commissioner for the report and recommendations and to thank the committee today. We welcome the CESD report on marine mammals and its conclusions on how to adequately protect marine mammals from the threats posed by marine traffic and commercial fishing. We take these findings very seriously and are taking appropriate actions to ensure they are addressed.
We agree with the recommendations set out in the report, and are continuing our work towards mitigating threats to marine mammals and responding to those in distress. While recent actions demonstrate that progress has been made, we recognize that there's more work to do. The audit recommendations will inform our future actions to further protect Canada's marine mammals.
Marine mammals are important to Canada not only culturally, but also to the health of our aquatic ecosystems. Fisheries and Oceans Canada is dedicated to protecting these species.
As the report noted, the Government of Canada is making progress in protecting marine mammals. Since 2016 the government has invested $1.5 billion in Canada's oceans protection plan and $167.4 million in the newly launched whales initiative. With these investments, the government has taken concrete steps to help protect marine mammals from threats related to commercial fishing and marine traffic.
Several measures have already been put in place to protect the southern resident killer whale, such as the reduction of chinook fisheries to increase prey availability and a new mandatory requirement that vessels maintain a safe 200-metre distance at all times. In addition, we are pleased that other new measures, including speed restrictions for vessels and fisheries management measures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, have been successful in reducing the risk for the endangered north Atlantic right whale population. In fact, thanks to the tremendous collaboration from the fishing and transport industries in implementing these measures, there have been no north Atlantic right whale deaths in Canadian waters this year.
Looking forward, we will work with all involved as we review the 2018 measures and improve them for 2019 based on stakeholder input and important new science advice that we're expecting late this year.
I would also like to note that the government has made important investments in our Marine Mammal Response Program providing $1 million annually to the world-leading third-party responder groups which are the backbone of this program. With this investment, the government is making sure that we have the capacity to respond to marine mammal incidents including whale entanglements.
We will continue to work with these groups to respond to the findings of the audit including holding another national meeting with them this fall to review the protocols in place for 2018 and make improvements where appropriate.
Many of the new measures now in place directly address recommendations found in the report. In 2015, the government promised to protect 5% of Canada's oceans by 2017, and this has been achieved. We now recognize 7.9% of our marine and coastal areas as protected, up from around 1% three years ago, and the government will continue towards conserving 10% of our marine environment by 2020.
Marine protected areas such as those under the Oceans Act, national marine conservation areas and marine national wildlife areas, are among the many tools the government has to protect ecologically significant and sensitive species and their habitats.
We will continue to work closely with our partners and stakeholders including Transport Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada to review, assess and recommend the implementation of measures to address the threats to marine mammals.
We are committed to continuing to implement measures that address the recommendations in the report and we feel this will go a long way toward ensuring that marine mammals are protected from threats posed by marine vessels and commercial fishing activities.
Thank you.