I wish I could answer that. We have a commitment to 10% by 2012, and we know what the date is now. We have a few postage stamps of protected areas in our oceans—about half a percent.
The interesting thing—and it's the result of the work we've done and of taking on the best knowledge of protected areas around the world—is that we've developed this planning framework for protected areas and have just completed a very comprehensive science document, which I don't have with me because it's just at the printers, on actually how to put protected areas in place.
There are a couple of things you have to know about protected areas. The approach we're advocating is not to talk—arbitrarily, in a sort of top-down approach—about putting lines on a map and saying, “fishermen out”. We're talking about, for example, the model that's being undertaken in the eastern Scotian Shelf. That was a DFO-led process, and it came out of the Gully MPA, as you know.
The recognition of the Gully—our first protected area in Atlantic Canada—came about through a rather messy process. It's an important, significant area to protect—the North American east coast's largest canyon, with northern bottlenose whales, and then, as they started to learn more about it, deep sea corals, and all sorts of important values to protect.
The problem was—and I spoke to a lot of industry at that time—that it appeared to be ad hoc. It came out of the blue, and they didn't know how to react to it.
How do we incorporate all the users into a plan for protected areas? We took that challenge on. One way was to participate in and help to advance the goals for integrated management. That's in one particular area, and the ESSIM area is a pilot for Canada.
That's been my point. We really need to see the minister sign off on that plan in the new year—which, all indications are, will happen. It's a good plan.
Now, about the protected areas. We're not talking about ad hoc protected areas popping up everywhere. What we're talking about is systematic planning, representative networks, but the neat thing about the approach we're advocating and the tools we've used—and it's based on the best models around the world—is that it's a flexible approach. You recognize what your goals are, the values you're trying to conserve, and then you involve other stakeholders in it.
There's actually a fair amount of flexibility around where you can put those boundaries. As well, many MPAs are zoned for different types of use.
So we're talking about a zoning approach within which we have 10% of our oceans, protecting the most valuable places and representative habitat throughout, that's engaging industry and other decision-makers in the process, as opposed to creating a one-off map of the protected areas.
Part of the problem, and the initial resistance from industry, which I think is driving some of the resistance in the department, is that they saw one MPA as a slippery slope to more MPAs and more rules against the industry in places they couldn't fish in.
It's just the opposite. Yes, it's about managing ecosystems, and it's the kind of thing that's going to help us get to where we need to go in terms of recovery and long-term sustainability. That's the approach we're advocating.