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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 6
February 2007
CLF report calls for 30 new marine protected areas
BOSTON, MA – The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and World Wildlife Federation Canada have released a report calling for the establishment of a network of “ocean conservation areas” off the coasts of New England and the Canadian Maritimes “to restore and protect marine habitat and biodiversity, and to support marine ecosystems.”
The report focuses on the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, the Bay of Fundy, and the Scotian Shelf and includes specific marine protected area suggestions.
To identify where these “priority areas” should be located, the report’s authors spent six years analyzing scientific information from the US and Canadian governments.
They made their selections based on where concentrations of phytoplankton, bottom-dwelling fishes, six species of toothed whales, and five species of baleen whales were often observed. They also looked at physical characteristics of the ocean and seafloor.
The net result was the identification of 30 individual priority areas. The smallest covers about 100 square miles and the largest covers almost 5,000 square miles. Combined, the 30 proposed areas would cover one-fifth of the total region, including many highly productive fishing grounds.
A number of the areas also overlap, encompass, and/or are adjacent to US closed areas or restricted fishing areas.
CLF called this area-identification approach “pragmatic” and “science-based.”
The Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership would disagree. The partnership, made up of 18 of the commonwealth’s commercial fishing organizations, hammered out a marine protected areas (MPA) policy statement in February 2006.
According to the statement, MPAs “must be designed according to a stakeholder-driven process involving the full participation of fishermen that is based on science developed through collaborative research.”
CLF and World Wildlife Fund Canada are expected to launch a campaign to build public support for the protected area network idea and to push for legislation to make it happen. /cfn/
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