Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for inviting me here today. I am a scientist and I work for the World Commission on Protected Areas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, where I'm the vice-chair for science. Over the last four years I've been chairing an

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much for the chance to be here today and the invitation. I work with the International Union for Conservation of Nature on one of the commissions, the World Commission on Protected Areas. I think you all know about the IUCN, so I'll spare you a long introduction

Fisheries committee  Thank you. My understanding is this bill provides for interim rapid protection of areas, which will lead to longer-term protection.

Fisheries committee  Yes, it may lead to longer-term protection, but an interim order will never be issued without any information. We understand that the area's value is to be protected for some reason. There may be high levels of uncertainty, and there are always high levels of uncertainty when it

Fisheries committee  Yes. I think there's a considerable amount of published information to show that bottom trawling is a damaging activity.

Fisheries committee  Protected areas can do lots of things. They can protect many different aspects of nature, including stocks that we harvest now or maybe stocks that we may harvest in the future, but the important thing is that we're protecting ecosystems. The suggestion to use ecological integrit

Fisheries committee  You're quite correct in that the impact varies depending on the benthic community in question. Most benthic communities have old-growth species on the bottom. These are things that don't pick up after five or 10 years. They take a long time to grow. They're nursery areas. They're

Fisheries committee  However, not all. There are some gravel beds that are scoured and have a limited amount of benthic communities on them, where scallops are harvested, where arguably dragging the bottom certainly has some but less than other ecosystems for sure.

Fisheries committee  First of all, on the question of the pine beetle, you'd be hard-pressed to make the argument that the pine beetle erupted because it erupted in a protected area and spread outward. It was a massive eruption because of even-aged class distribution and, likely, climate change. Thos

Fisheries committee  I am not aware of specific examples of that in marine systems. I know a couple from terrestrial systems. The key question is that we want all of the ocean to be sustainable. Sustainability is our goal. There is no question that when we interact with these systems, we change them.

Fisheries committee  That's a big question with many parts. If you went back to the history of the haddock box, when it was first established as a no-take area, it wasn't a very popular measure. Now I think you would be hard-pressed to stop it from being a no-take area, because it's so popular. The

Fisheries committee  Yes, I have.

Fisheries committee  There are some industry associations associated with the IUCN, but the members are only NGOs and governments. At the last World Conservation Congress, there was a third house opened, and that's for indigenous communities.

Fisheries committee  No, and we don't have to, I don't think, because categories of protected areas—and these are all established, written down, and agreed to—do allow for indigenous take, both on land and sea. I don't see that as an issue.

Fisheries committee  Environmentally damaging industrial activities, yes.