Chrétien Steadily Building a Marine Legacy

“The Earth Summit was a turning point in two respects for our marine heritage,” said Josh Laughren, Director of Marine Conservation for WWF-Canada. “First, earlier last week, Canada signed on to an international fisheries and oceans agreement which commits us to establishing a ‘representative system of marine protected areas’ by 2012. WWF estimates this would mean about 100 marine protected areas for Canada, and so far we only have about 10 which would count towards this goal.”

“Second, of course, was the Prime Minister’s commitment to establish five new National Marine Conservation Areas in the next three to five years. So, all of this takes us from talking policy commitments, to actually protecting sites out in the water. Great news!”

The new National Marine Conservation Areas would be established by Parks Canada, and could include sites such as Western Lake Superior in Ontario – a huge, 10,000 km² expanse of sparkling, clear fresh water with beautiful green islands and important coastal features such as cliffs, caves and underwater drop-offs.

Another example is Gwaii Haanas – a magnificent proposed marine protected area, including waving underwater kelp forests, advocated by the Haida Nation in connection with the existing terrestrial park reserve, South Moresby, on Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands).

“We would like to see a number of federal departments and agencies, in addition to Parks Canada, get in on the marine legacy action,” said Mr. Laughren. “For example, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans actually has a lead role and responsibility through the Oceans Act to establish marine protected areas. They have already identified a number of outstanding sites as candidates, such as the Gully off Nova Scotia – an underwater trench that is deeper than the Grand Canyon, only the Gully harbours its own vulnerable population of bottlenose whales. And the Department of Environment, through the Canadian Wildlife Service, has been asked by the Inuit on North Baffin Island to protect an area called ‘Igaliqtuuq,’ for endangered eastern Arctic bowhead whales. We hope the PM’s announcements will now encourage everyone to act.”

Monte Hummel, President of WWF Canada, noted that Canada has the longest coast of any country in the world, and that the Chrétien government has now fully set the table for conservation action, ” They passed a new Oceans Act in 1997 and a National Marine Conservation Areas Act in 2002, they committed last week in Johannesburg to the long-term goal of completing a representative system by 2012, and the PM announced action to actually protect the first few sites. Let’s go!”