Fisheries Committee on Nov. 30th, 2017

[Prof. Rodolphe Devillers]

That's an excellent question. It's a question that is actively researched currently in Canada and internationally. Obviously some species cover a range that is far greater than the size of the protected areas, but that does not mean that you cannot identify specific sites that are important for the life cycle of those species—nursing, spawning, and all that. That's currently the strategy, trying to aim for places that are specifically important for the life cycle of some species, acknowledging that you cannot necessarily cover the entire range of the species.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Going back to you, Dr. Ban, what about protection of the benthic environment? I gather there's an MPA dealing with the sponge reefs off the coast of B.C. I strongly support directed conservation that has very clear goals. This benthic community is obviously worthy of protection, but why wouldn't, for example, commercial shipping be allowed in that area? I don't know what the depth of the water is, but it's probably fairly obvious that commercial shipping is very important to the economy of B.C. and indeed the economy of Canada. My own province ships all kinds of wheat and canola from ports off B.C., and the shipping is absolutely critical.

So why couldn't you have both in a marine protected area, have the benthic community be protected and at the same time commercial shipping be allowed to continue in order to support the economy?

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

As far as I understand, that's exactly what is happening with those sponge reef MPAs. I don't think shipping is restricted there because it does just, as you say, pass over the surface of the area.

It would really depend on the purpose of the MPA and whether noise from shipping could be an issue for some species. It isn't for sponges, so in that case, I don't think that's actually an issue.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you very much, and I very much agree with your answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Sopuck.

Mr. Stetski, you have seven minutes, please.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for being with us today.

A lot of your testimony actually reflects what we heard on the environment committee when we put together the report on achieving the 10% marine and 17% terrestrial.

I was the regional manager with the B.C. Ministry of the Environment for the Kootenays, and we had rivers where there were no-take zones, protected areas, and so on, to the point where we had conservation officers from Alberta who refused to come fishing because they were sure they were going to break the law.

From a regulatory and an ecological perspective, what's the advantage of having large marine conservation areas, rather than a whole series of small ones?

I'll ask that to Ms. Ban, please, to start with.

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

Sure.

One of the advantages of large areas is that they do encompass more species, just by virtue of the area being larger, so you're going to be protecting more spaces, more species, and more types of habitats. You're also going to be protecting more of the continuity and the connectivity within that particular area because it is large.

I should add, though, that in many countries, even very small, fully protected areas have been shown to be quite effective. For some particular habitats, actually, those small areas, even though they might be more of a challenge to enforce if you had many of them, can also be effective ecologically.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Devillers, Canada's fisheries minister has implemented no-take zones in only five marine protected areas to date. Those areas that are no-take zones are tiny in comparison to the overall size of the marine protected area.

You mentioned earlier that healthy oceans are the objective. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the benefits to the economy of having no-take zones in marine protected areas.

[Prof. Rodolphe Devillers]

Yes, no-take zones have been the focus of a lot of attention in the scientific literature in the last 15 or 20 years. There have been a number of papers showing multiple benefits, including, for instance, a significant increase in biomass, so the weight of the fish inside the no-take area is significantly larger than for an area that has partial protection. At some point, those fish can leave the area and then fuel the surrounding waters. That is something called spillover, which has been studied and is taking place in many environments. If you establish stronger protection using no-take, you have more probability, more chances, that your population is going to grow and create a higher biomass. Hence, it is going to be contributing to a healthy ecosystem that will benefit the surrounding waters.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Do you think that could have helped prevent the cod collapse?

[Prof. Rodolphe Devillers]

It's a difficult question. Again, we can hypothesize. I certainly think a number of well-placed protected areas with higher-level protection would have done some good, yes, because there was knowledge from fishery scientists of the important places for cod. Would it have prevented the collapse? That's a more complex question, which I can't answer.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Worm, perhaps you could address the same question, and then I have a follow-up question in a global sense.

[Dr. Boris Worm]

I definitely think, to stay with the insurance policy, it's not a foolproof insurance policy. It depends on the placement of those areas. If they're placed in areas where no cod occurs, of course they have no effect on cod. If they're placed in some of the habitats that cod uses and maybe where some of the spawning happens, the critical habitats where the species aggregates and where all of the life stages occur, it will definitely have a positive effect.

To my knowledge, in Atlantic Canada, the protected area networks that are currently planned do protect some of the important spawning and breeding habitats for cod for that very reason—to avoid another collapse, should it happen. This is definitely a tool that would insure that valuable asset.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I was interested in your global map of marine protected areas. From a terrestrial perspective, one of the ecological concepts is to try to get corridors linking protected areas on the land.

Is that a concept that would work in a marine environment, and is there something Canada should be doing to work with other nations from that perspective?

[Dr. Boris Worm]

That is a fantastic question. I absolutely agree that this is the cutting edge of protected area planning right now.

I just returned from the Galapagos Islands where that very idea is entertained. They had smaller protected areas that are now linked together, and they are talking to Colombia and Costa Rica to link corridors towards the Cocos and Malpelo islands' protected areas, which are used by a lot of the same species, many of them very much depleted and highly vulnerable to extinction, like whale sharks, for example.

This is an idea from terrestrial conservation that is now being applied in the marine conservation areas as well, in other countries—not yet in Canada.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I would like to go back to minimum protection standards. As you know, that's something the minister is looking at. There's a group that has been put together that's looking at that as well.

Prohibitions have been suggested, and I'll just run down the list because I'm curious as to whether there's anything you think should be added to the list. This is around minimum protection standards for MPAs.

The current suggestions are prohibitions around oil and gas and mineral exploration, seabed mining, wind farms and tidal power development, open-net pen aquaculture, bottom trawling, and ocean waste dumping.

Is there anything from any of you, in terms of what you think should potentially be added to that list and considered under minimum protection standards, or is that pretty thorough?

We can start with Natalie, if you want.

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

Yes, I think that's a pretty thorough list. I would go by the idea that those things that should be prohibited are the ones that damage the structural integrity of those ecosystems. The list you provided is what that is. You might need to look at other types of fishing gear to see if there's enough evidence of potential damage. For example, an area with sponges and corals, even traps when they are put down on the bottom, can break those corals and sponges.

Some other gears may also need to be looked at carefully to see if they needed to be included in minimum protection standards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Stetski. I'm sorry we have to stop right there.

Ms. Jordan, you have seven minutes, please.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today. I know it's awfully early on the west coast. Dr. Ban, thank you particularly for getting up early to talk to us today.

I have questions for all three of you. I'm going to start with Dr. Ban.

When you talked about your five recommendations, number two was fully protected zones with no fishing. My understanding with marine protected areas is that it depends on what you're protecting. If you're protecting a sensitive benthic area, why couldn't you long-line, or fish tuna? Other fish can be caught in an area that is not going to touch the bottom.

I'm a bit concerned about that number two. I would like you to expand on it a bit, please.

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

There are a lot of linkages between the different depths in the ocean. Even if you're only protecting the benthic system, only the sea floor from fishing, some of the activities that happen in the water column, in the top part of the water, have the potential to affect the integrity of the whole ecosystem. If you're taking out a lot of biomass, some of those might be predators or the bigger fish that eat fish in the benthic area. A lot of these interconnections might be interrupted by allowing fishing in parts of the water column, even if you're protecting the benthos.

That's what the scientific evidence points to. The areas that have no fishing at all, no extractive activities in addition to fishing, have been shown scientifically to be more effective at increasing biomass, protecting biodiversity, and so on.

It doesn't mean that all MPAs have to be fully no-take, it just means that we need to have a portion of our MPA system fully protected.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay. Thank you.

We've heard a lot about rockfish conservation areas over the course of the MPA study and now on Bill C-55. My understanding is that they aren't included in the targets that the government has set, the 5% by the end of this year, the 10% by 2020, yet it seems to be a very effective means of conservation.

Do you know why they haven't been included in those targets?

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

I don't know the details

I know they are currently protected under fisheries closures, which are much easier to undo than marine protected areas. That might be one of the reasons. They do allow different activities within them. I don't know the specific rationale of Fisheries and Oceans Canada for not including them.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay.

Dr. Devillers, I'm going to you next.

You stated that you'd like to see a clearer definition of MPAs and using IUCN's definition.

Do you think in Canada with our indigenous populations that we could adopt that definition? I'm not sure how you can justify the two. Could you expand on that a little, please?

[Prof. Rodolphe Devillers]

I'm no lawyer, but I believe that the IUCN captures a lot of indigenous rights. The different categories of MPAs that are recognized by the IUCN do recognize the rights of indigenous people to fish in some contexts. I don't think the two are in opposition.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I believe the IUCN definition that's currently on the books would disallow fishing by indigenous people as well. Has that changed?

I see all three of you shaking your heads, so thank you for that. I was under the impression that the IUCN did not allow for any kind of fishing. That is why I was worried about it.

Dr. Worm, this might be something that a few people can weigh in on: climate change.

My concern with MPAs is that species are moving because of climate change. We see that on the east coast with lobsters going to colder waters. If we designate an MPA with climate change we may be losing a very lucrative fishing area that's moving in to or out of an MPA, how do we adjust for that in the future?