Evidence of meeting #57 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was area.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Marine Vice-Chair, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature
I think the issue is that we're taking too much out of the ocean and not protecting enough of the ocean.
I think the reality is about getting a better balance on that and ensuring that we do protect a core element of ecosystems along the way, to enable us to maintain those values in the future.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Would that require better management of the fisheries that are in place or the exploitation rates?
Marine Vice-Chair, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature
It's multiple things.
I sit here looking at my own community of marine-protected-area specialists and governments committed to it, saying that we actually need to do better. We need to do better in the level and scale of management.
We know that if we put management in place for protected areas, we can triple the benefits that people are currently getting. It's a good investment point, but at the same time we need to improve the management of fisheries.
The reality is that it's not one or the other; it's all. We need to be improving the wholesale management of the marine environment and see a better structure around the management overall.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
I guess it becomes a fine line between managing all of the fisheries and exploitation, so that the entire marine system becomes a protected area in some sense, without necessarily setting aside specific areas or exclusion zones for many operations.
Where do we find that balance?
Marine Vice-Chair, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature
They represent slightly different approaches in my book.
Protected areas that fully protect ecosystems are what we call in situ conservation, which enables you not necessarily to understand all of the linkages in the chain, in the food webs, but that it produces greater resilience, greater protection.
Fisheries management tends to focus on individual species, perhaps, outside the context of the wider impacts on the environment or other fishing happening in an area.
Principal Investigator, Sea Around Us, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
An analogy is perhaps the big forest that we have in B.C.—these enormous trees. We could not have them if we did a little bit of agriculture in the forest. We have them because there are certain areas where we say we have no logging, no agriculture, nothing. Therefore, we have those trees.
If we had a little bit of agriculture and we permitted the use of chain saws only every second day or every second Sunday, they would all be gone. Regulating the exploitation of certain animals is not possible—
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
If I can, I would like to move on and clarify one other statement, that Canada is ranked 33rd in protected areas.
Could you put this into context? Is that comparing total area per country, percentage of marine area to land mass, or per capita? How does this correlate to biodiversity protection, and so on?
That may be complicated.
Marine Vice-Chair, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature
It's a simple statistic.
It's more complicated under the surface, but this is based on the statistics of the protected areas that Canada has officially supplied to the world database on protected areas. It is an area-based measurement of how much you have currently protected within your area of jurisdiction of sea, compared to statistics from other countries, so it's [Inaudible—Editor].
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Percentage-wise, or did you say it was based on effectiveness?
Marine Vice-Chair, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature
No.
Basically, one of the statistics that is gathered for the Convention on Biological Diversity is the area of ocean that countries are committing to marine protected areas, and it is that statistic alone.
There are, obviously, as we've been talking about in these questions, a lot of issues about making sure that not only do you have areas, but you have effective management in place as well.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Robert Sopuck
I'll have to stop it there. Thank you very much.
Mr. Donnelly, you have seven minutes.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for providing testimony on this important subject.
I want to start by mentioning the purpose of what we're doing here. We're examining the criteria and process being used to identify and establish marine protected areas, or MPAs, with the objective of ensuring that the criteria and processes are aligned to achieve, for example, the intended benefits of MPAs.
Dr. Laffoley, perhaps I could start with you. You defined what an MPA is. You also talked about key proven tools for the conservation of nature. I'm wondering if you could send us evidence or studies of that. Maybe you could send your top five or ten studies to provide this committee with key evidence that these MPAs are key proven tools. You also mentioned that there's a good body of evidence on how we can protect MPAs. You referenced hundreds of studies. Perhaps you could send us your key proven tools for the conservation of nature and maybe your top ten studies on how to best protect MPAs. I think the committee would appreciate that input.
As well, you talked about MPAs reversing declines of fisheries populations. You also talked about protecting the abundances of key species that these tools or MPAs are useful for. Could you elaborate a little bit more on those two things—how they reverse declines and how they protect abundance?
Marine Vice-Chair, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature
First, I'd be very happy to provide that information. An entire initiative, called the science of marine reserves, has analyzed hundreds of peer-reviewed papers. That is one of the bodies of evidence. There was also a paper published very recently in Nature, and that was the one I was referencing with regard to effective management increasing the benefits. I'll provide you with those pieces of information.
Marine Vice-Chair, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature
Basically, on the issue of what marine protected areas do when we strictly protect an area of ocean, we find in virtually all cases that we are taking the pressure off and are allowing the ecosystems to recover to a more natural state. The statistics show that on average, we get a 446% increase in the biomass, the amount of organisms in the area, because we're no longer depleting them. We get a greater diversity.
We actually do something fundamental that is important to the interrelationship between marine protected areas and fisheries: we allow the fish to grow old. Older female fish produce more eggs that are of a higher quality. They tend to be more resilient to what I've been talking about in terms of the silent storm of climate change that we're going to face. They enable these areas to act as replenishment barriers. There is massive evidence and information on this. We can provide you with some key references.
That is effectively what you get. Any country who wants to sustainably manage its marine environment should actually know what the baseline is, which is another value of these areas. It's rather like saying, “I'm going to do my chemistry at A level, but I'm not going to use a control to demonstrate the reaction I'm doing.” We're all taught that we need controls, and they provide this valuable role as well.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Great. Thank you very much.
Dr. Pauly, you provided the committee with a graphic image of the global reported catch and how that's declining. Thank you for providing us with that information.
I have a rhetorical question before I get to my actual question. How is it that countries can fish outside their country limits but none can protect areas outside their marine limits? I just find that an interesting dynamic. I've often struggled with that, certainly on the standing committee or with the oceans caucus, which I co-chair. As countries, we can only work within our limits, but all the action or destruction is happening outside. We have no say, as countries, on how we can protect it, yet we can still fish out there.
Principal Investigator, Sea Around Us, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Actually, the fisheries, tonnage-wise, that are conducted outside of exclusive economic zones are less than 10% of the world catch. They are essentially tuna fisheries.
The bulk of the fisheries of the world are inside the exclusive economic zones—
Principal Investigator, Sea Around Us, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
—and they are, therefore, the responsibility of the countries.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
That's good to know.
You presented some visual aids here for us. Do you have a map of suggested areas in Canada's oceans that you or your organization would recommend for protection?
Principal Investigator, Sea Around Us, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
On my way here yesterday, I thought, “Oh my gosh, I should have included that.”
My group at UBC is not involved in policy-making. It's just providing background.
I am fairly sure, though, that Canada will meet its requirement of 10% by 2020 by putting a large marine protected area in the middle of nowhere, in the Arctic. This is what most countries are doing now. France is doing that by putting it in the middle of the Pacific, among the islands where nobody is. The U.K. has done that. The U.S. has done that.
Principal Investigator, Sea Around Us, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
The Sahara.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Well...and we do rock and ice in British Columbia.
Can you recommend where the key biologically productive areas are in our oceans?
Principal Investigator, Sea Around Us, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
They should have been—