West Coast of Vancouver Island - Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Canada has several national legislative Acts governing management of marine resources including: the Oceans Act, Fisheries Act, Species At Risk Act, Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act, and the Canada Environmental Protection Act. In addition, several regulations are made under each Act, such as the Marine Protected Areas and Fishing Zones of Canada regulations under the Oceans Act. DFO is committed to developing an ecosystem approach to managing human activities in Canada’s marine systems (DFO 2007a).

The foundation of an ecosystem-based and precautionary approach to DFO’s fisheries management is the Sustainable Fisheries Framework (SFF). This framework includes fisheries management polices and tools to monitor and assess initiatives, ensuring environmentally sustainable fisheries, and supports economic prosperity in the industry and fishing communities. Other policies and initiatives under the SFF include a Forage Species policy and a Sensitive Benthic Areas policy that factor in ecosystem considerations and precaution, providing a more rigorous and comprehensive approach to managing Canada’s fisheries. Another policy that supports the SFF is the Pacific Wild Salmon Policy. The application of the SFF is being implemented into fisheries management through various tools, such as the Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMP). IFMPs are utilized by DFO in the Pacific region, including off the WCVI.

DFO conducts a wide range of scientific studies at the national and regional levels to support an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management. DFO has several tools that enable the protection of habitat. For example, national efforts were taken to identify ecologically and biologically significant areas (EBSA) and to provide a risk assessment framework facilitating risk-averse and informed management of human activities. DFO is building capacity to utilize predictive habitat suitability models for species of concern (Finney 2010, http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2011/mpo-dfo/Fs70-5-2010-067.pdf). Regional science that has supported ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management includes a multi-disciplinary study conducted on the WCVI in the 1980s and 1990s, the goal of which was to examine the relative importance of climate variability and trophodynamic drivers on productivity (McFarlane et al. 1997). This project has led to an increased understanding of physical and biological interactions in the WCVI ecosystem. The project also contributed to multispecies models that were constructed or are under construction for different areas of BC, such as the WCVI (Robinson 1994, Robinson and Ware 1994, Robinson and Ware 1999). Synoptic groundfish surveys, the multispecies trawl survey, and continued ecosystem-based studies contribute biological time series to support ecosystem-based research. Physical and biological time series for the WCVI and north Pacific are collected and synthesized annually to provide an assessment of the state of the ecosystem and to understand the natural variability of the ecosystem and responses to both natural and anthropogenic stresses. DFO’s development of an ecosystem science framework and tools will improve integration of existing knowledge about ecosystem dynamics and the effects of human activities on them.