Bottom trawling in Canada

Very few Canadians get the chance to experience high seas marine ecosystems first hand, but yet our sense of national pride and stewardship towards fisheries conservation is quite strong and unified. In fact nine out of ten Canadians supported former federal fisheries minister Brian Tobin’s actions in protecting Canada’s fish resources during the famed “turbot wars” in March 1995. This level of patriotism is usually reserved for hockey. A recent survey [http://www.savethehighseas.org/display.cfm?ID=90] conducted by Greenpeace and the Ecology Action Centre found more than 78 per cent of Canadians believe that Canada should reverse its current position on high seas bottom trawling and support a moratorium on the fishing practice in international waters.

During this critical period leading up to the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September, Canadians need to voice their concern to their Members of Parliament, Minister of Fisheries, and the Prime Minister.

Canada’s Current Position

At present, the official Canadian position is that the issue of high seas bottom trawling is best resolved through Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs). RFMOs are multinational organizations responsible for managing a defined area of the world’s oceans. While in theory, this is the direction the world community needs to follow, in reality, RFMOs have generally failed to prevent over-exploitation of shared fish stocks, to rebuild overexploited stocks and to prevent degradation of the marine ecosystems in which fishing occurs (link to new WWF report).

The proposed UN resolution is calling for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling until which time RFMOs have sufficient capacity to properly manage the ecosystems and fish stocks being affected.

Canada has no high seas bottom trawling fleet, but yet the Canadian government opposes the moratorium. Why is this? The simple explanation is that our Government fears that if Canada condemns this fishing practice on the high seas, then we will need to take a closer look at our own domestic fishing activity that, not surprisingly, involves deep sea bottom trawling in sensitive habitats (link to bottom trawling in Canada).

Canada has been identified through international press as a country that should be taking on more international responsibility, setting examples, and pressuring other states to establish effective RFMOs (link to Washington Post article, May 18, 2006 “WWF Concerned About Overfishing”). Instead Canada appears more concerned with protecting unsustainable domestic interests.

From June 12-16 the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (UNICOPOLOS) will be assembling in New York. At this meeting the Canadian Government delegation will present actions taken by Canada to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems pursuant to the 2004 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution on Sustainable Fisheries. The David Suzuki Foundation along with other Canadian members of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition will be in attendance at this meeting.