For millennia, humans have relied upon Canada’s marine waters to provide sustenance and cultural, social, and economic benefits. Canada and its people have been shaped by the legendary cod fisheries of the Maritimes and Newfoundland, and the great Pacific salmon runs. But today, humans' ancient relationship with the ocean is threatened by unsustainable industrial fishing practices. The Ecosystem Approach: Towards a Sustainable Future for Canada’s Fisheries
Living Oceans Society is committed to achieving sustainable fisheries by advancing an ecosystem approach to fisheries management.For decades, fisheries managers and scientists have tried to manage each commercial species independently of all other species - as if each species was a crop planted in a different field and decisions made in one field did not affect other fields. However, we know that this is not how ocean ecosystems work - commercial species interact with each other, with non-commercial species, and with habitat, ocean conditions, and marine food webs.
Commercial fisheries, then, have impacts that extend far beyond the obvious and immediate impacts on their targeted species. Depending on the fishing gear and practice, some fisheries can disturb or destroy habitat, change biodiversity, alter food webs, and even put evolutionary pressure on species to mature at a smaller size. To have truly sustainable fisheries, we need to understand these kinds of impacts, and manage to avoid or prevent them.
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| Our analysis of bycatch in the Pacific groundfish bottom trawl fishery shows the potential ecological implications of this practice. |
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| How We Fish Matters reviews the ecological impacts of Canada's fishing gears. |
Living Oceans Society is encouraging the adoption of ecosystem-based fisheries thinking by calling attention to fisheries' impacts on habitat and bycatch. Most recently, Living Oceans Society organized and led the Finding Coral Expedition, which used submarines to explore the waters of the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area (PNCIMA) to find and document ecologically critical deep sea corals, which are important sources of habitat and refuge for many marine species.
Canada’s Fisheries
Each region of Canada that borders an ocean has its unique commercial fisheries. There is a diversity of fishing gears and methods in use by Canadian fishermen. In British Columbia, fishermen catch a variety of commercial fish and invertebrate species.Concerns
In B.C., one of the most important and pressing issues in commercial groundfish fisheries is the damage caused by fishing gear to fragile ecosystems, especially to deep-sea corals and sponges.Deep-sea corals and sponges, which are not closely related, can be so fragile that they can be significantly damaged by just one contact with fishing gear. Although there are three areas in B.C.’s waters that are closed to certain kinds of fishing to protect globally unique glass sponge reefs, B.C.’s deep-sea corals still lack protection from destructive fishing methods.
Another concern for B.C.’s fisheries is bycatch which is the unintentional catching and discarding of species that have no market value or are prohibited from being kept by fishermen. While B.C.’s groundfish fleet has made strides in recent years to reduce their commercial bycatch, the impact of bycatch of non-commercial species on Canada’s Pacific ecosystems is still poorly researched and understood.
