Well, we're doing a lot, as you hopefully have heard. As for where we can do more, there's an unlimited amount of work we could do in habitat, and we really do have to scale that over time because there are certain capacities.
One of the big areas that I think we're finding in terms of restoration of production is in the estuaries. On the west coast, we have one real model of success here with the Campbell River, which used to be a highly industrialized estuary. But if you were to see it now—and I think there are videos of it—you would see that it really is a natural-looking estuary that still has development around it but is greatly improved. Unfortunately, we have many examples of these.
We're also finding that in terms of big changes in production you need to really identify the stocks that are contributing significantly. What are the big producers? A lot of these tend to be in the Fraser River. The lower Fraser is certainly an area of great concern on the west coast because of future development there. A lot of people are very concerned about what we are going to be able to do to maintain capacity in the lower Fraser River.
I think we also have to keep in mind that one of the things we are losing is the stock assessment base, and we really do need to understand what populations are doing well or what are not, so you can tease out why. I have a great example of that. On Saturday, I was working with an angling group called the Avid Anglers, in the Strait of Georgia. They gave us the results of DNA analyses from catch in the Strait of Georgia.
It turns out that the majority of the fish they sampled last summer came from an area where we do almost nothing. It's natural habitat. It's the whole mainland coast around Powell River, Sechelt, and up into Johnstone Strait. It was so different from anything I'd seen that I really questioned them on how they could get that, but I think what it's telling us about is the power of natural habitat. We have to maintain and get the diversity of fish into the habitat. So that that means, really, that we have to know the abundance, and we have to regulate the fisheries, which the department has done for years. These animals have the capacity to come back, but the common factor in all of these is that they have to change from fresh water to salt water through estuaries.