Evidence of meeting #67 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 mpas.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
That would essentially mean the end of commercial halibut fishing off the coast of British Columbia.
Executive Manager, Pacific Halibut Management Association of British Columbia
In the current form, yes, it would devastate our fishery.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
This goes back to Dr. Devillers' point, again not meaning to pick on him, but I find this constant among people who are not part of the industry but are in the science game. The needs of peoples and communities are woefully underestimated and rarely mentioned. I think there's a strong consensus in this particular committee that crosses party lines that people in communities are very important. Too many people think their clients are the fish. In my strong view, people are the clients for all these things. Conservation should be for the people.
Yes, sir.
Prof. Rodolphe Devillers
I just want to mention that being a conservation scientist doesn't necessarily mean I'm a tree hugger.
One of my main research projects is actually working with small-scale fisheries. It's an international project. We've been working on it for five or six years, trying to see how we can actually support small-scale fisheries in communities. It's also something that we do understand and value.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Along the lines of Chris Sporer, talking about his credentials, I'm a fisheries biologist by training myself and have been a regional fisheries biologist. It was drilled into me that people should be the clients of science and biologists. The fish are important, obviously; without the fish, you can't have a fishery.
I find with the environmental community and the science community—and we've had many of them here testifying over the last few months—the lack of mention of communities and people is a very strong, common thread among that particular group.
Back to Chris Sporer, would you agree with the statement that the creation of MPAs automatically requires the displacement of people?
Executive Manager, Pacific Halibut Management Association of British Columbia
I would say that would depend on the objective of the area, what you're trying to achieve, the goals, and where the area is located.
As I said, and I made it clear, I don't think the industry and our members are opposed to MPAs and protecting things. MPAs are one tool in the tool kit to help you achieve your objectives.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Yes, and the other tool in your tool kit, I gather, is the rigorous record-keeping that you conduct to ensure that the fishery is sustainable.
Given how well the halibut seem to be managed—and when we met in my office, you presented that in even more detail—is that halibut fishery sustainable for the foreseeable future?
Executive Manager, Pacific Halibut Management Association of British Columbia
We've been harvesting halibut off the west coast of Canada since the late 1880s. Right now, every year there is an independent survey done, and it shows that the health of the resource in Canada is quite healthy.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Dr. Devillers, you made the comment that MPAs can provide major benefits, yet you provided no details or specifics. Can you provide some specifics on the major benefits of MPAs to local communities, for example?
Conservative
Prof. Rodolphe Devillers
The main goal of an MPA—and I'll follow the IUCN definition—is conservation, so the benefits I see are mostly conservation, which include fish.
Typically a lot of studies have looked at inside MPAs versus outside MPAs, and before and after, and shown that fish get bigger and the diversity of fish and species is larger when you create an MPA. That has been well documented. I believe Dr. Ban came and gave a number of papers and evidence on these effects.
I am one of the proponents who thinks that MPAs are actually very good for the community—mostly the small-scale fisheries—because they are a very good way to protect the land or the piece of water that is close to your community. In short, if you screw it up in front of your community and you're a small-scale fishery, you don't have any plan B.
MPAs really help you sustain the system locally, unlike the industrial fishing that has more ability to move.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I think you were saying that you want Canada to meet its targets, and you want the number of areas of MPAs maximized. But when we layer the proposed MPAs off the B.C. coast onto the halibut fishing areas, Mr. Sporer, who has a great deal of experience out there, says that the industry would be devastated if all of those MPAs were put in place.
How do you square that circle, Dr. Devillers?
Prof. Rodolphe Devillers
First, I don't think the B.C. plan for MPAs is finalized. I don't think anything is drafted, so I'm not familiar with the zones that have been shown earlier. I am not saying...but I know that the MPA network in B.C. is just in the draft process, so I believe that the industry will be consulted. If there are major issues, one of the processes is actually trying to avoid those conflicts and minimizing them.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Chris Sporer, the map that you showed with the MPAs, is that an official map that you have from government saying that this is what they want to do?
Executive Manager, Pacific Halibut Management Association of British Columbia
No. For the fifth map, we've put on there areas that have been identified for protection in other processes that did not include the federal government or fisheries, but are now on the table as part of the MPA network planning in the northern shelf bioregion. They're from marine plans that were developed in a separate process, but they're now on the table for consideration. That's our understanding.
Conservative
Liberal
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses for being here and providing your testimony.
Dr. Devillers, I'd like to pick up on that and ask a similar question. You stated that MPAs work. I'm wondering if you could provide this committee with evidence that they work, such as studies or things that you could submit to the committee.
Prof. Rodolphe Devillers
We wrote a letter to the ministers, which we sent yesterday morning. We appended a number of references. I can provide them to you.
I can provide the letter, if you're interested, for the record.
Prof. Rodolphe Devillers
It's a public letter. For instance, one important paper is the paper from Lester et al., 2009, in Marine Ecology Progress Series. It really showed the impact of no take. It showed that no-take zones provided more benefits than zones of lower protection.
In terms of science, one paper we refer to a lot is by Graham Edgar and other authors, in 2014, in Nature. Nature is one of the best journals we have in science. They did a larger analysis of a number of MPAs in different regions, in different contexts, and tried to see what criteria explained why some work and some don't work. They showed that the larger the MPA and the higher the level of protection and all that, the better it works. This is all supported by statistics. It's top, peer-reviewed research.
There are actually 20 or 30 papers that prove that MPAs work, but my caveat is that they only work if they are designed properly. They only work if the science is behind this to assess how big they have to be, where they have to be, and at what level of protection. That's one thing that we are concerned about, that sometimes with the trade-offs we make the resulting MPA does not necessarily work.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Would you submit those studies to the committee so that we have those for reference?
