Tag Archives: DFO

Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

Canada, First Nations take first steps to protect massive swath of deep ocean on West Coast

 Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The federal government and coastal First Nations took a significant step towards establishing a massive marine protected area off the West Coast of Vancouver Island on Tuesday.

The proposed Tang.ɢwan — ḥačxwiqak — Tsig̱isMarine Protected Area (MPA) covers a 133,000-square-kilometre swath of open ocean 150 kilometres off the island’s west coast. The area harbours a unique concentration of hydrothermal vents, underwater sea mountains and rich deep-sea biodiversity hot spots found nowhere else in the world.

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Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

Milestone agreement to protect vast West Coast marine areas endorsed by First Nations, Ottawa and B.C.

 Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Fifteen First Nations are assuming stewardship of a vast network of marine protected areas in their traditional territories that span two-thirds of Canada’s West Coast. 

The Great Bear Sea MPA Network, an unprecedented initiative co-developed with the B.C. and federal governments, is the result of two decades of work, said Christine Smith-Martin, executive director for Coastal First Nations. 

The Indigenous-led initiative, also known as the  BC Northern Shelf MPA Network, involves 100,000 square kilometres of ocean and stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to the border of Alaska. It was formally endorsed and celebrated on Sunday at IMPAC5, a global marine conservation summit underway in Vancouver. 

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Industry

Canada declares moratorium on deep-sea mining at global ocean conservation summit

 Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada has announced a moratorium on deep-sea mining in both territorial and international waters on the last day of a global ocean conservation summit.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault made statements Thursday confirming Canada’s position on seabed mining at the IMPAC5 leadership forum in Vancouver.

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Environment, Indigenous Nations

‘We should avoid monitoring’: feds quietly backed off while Coastal GasLink pipeline work killed fish

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

On a dreary gray day in late October, passers by gawked at a scene outside a hotel in Smithers, B.C. The charred remnants of several trucks sat in the parking lot in the wake of what police described as a “targeted attack” in the pre-dawn hours of the morning. 

Among the blackened wreckage were four police cruisers — marked and unmarked vehicles with the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group, a special task force assigned to police opposition to industrial projects. The controversial RCMP unit maintains a constant presence on Wet’suwet’en yintah (territory) where Coastal GasLink (CGL) is building a pipeline without the consent of the nation’s Hereditary Chiefs. 

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Forests, Rivers & Oceans

Running on Empty: Déjà vu

In 1949, Newfoundland joined Canada as a new Province. Its fisheries then fell under the authority of the central government in Ottawa — the infamous DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or as some call it, the Dead Fish Organisation).

DFO’s mismanagement of the Newfoundland fishery — the immensely productive shoal banks of the northern Atlantic seaboard — is now a classic cautionary tale. DFO’s bureaucrats ignored repeated warnings — from marine biologists, environmentalists, and fishermen themselves — and allowed brutal overfishing of Canadian waters.

The high-value fish in those waters were the prolific Atlantic cod, the basis for centuries of both subsistence and prosperity for fishing communities. Larger industrialised boats, more entrants each season, and ruthless exploitation of the stocks ensured that prosperity was short-lived. To be fair, other nations hammered even harder on the cod stocks of the North Atlantic; but Canada could have done something to protect the fish in its territorial waters — and did far too little, far too late.

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