Canada’s International Obligations

Canada agreed to apply the "Precautionary Principle" and to protect biodiversity when it signed the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Article 8 of this convention states that the mandate for parties (countries) to the convention is to:

(a) Establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity;

(b) Regulate or manage biological resources important for the conservation of biological diversity whether within or outside protected areas, with a view to ensuring their conservation and sustainable use;

(c) Promote the protection of ecosystems, natural habitats and the maintenance of viable populations of species in natural surroundings.

Canada’s performance on this issue is poor. We have not stopped the decline in abundance and diversity of species and we have not taken the necessary action to protect marine environments so that marine life has the opportunity to survive in abundance.

About 97 per cent of the living space on the planet is in the oceans. Yet less than 0.1 per cent of Canada’s vast marine realm has legal protection status.

Increasing population and escalating demand for natural resources challenge Canada’s ability to protect the marine environment. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), a UN-coordinated global scientific review of the state of the planet, more than 60 per cent of the world's resources are seriously degraded and are being used at unsustainable exploitation rates. Global freshwater supplies and fisheries are in serious states of decline. In Canada, many fisheries and marine-bird populations are in decline or are being managed at dangerously unsustainable levels, while others, such as our East Coast cod and wild Atlantic salmon, have collapsed.

If Canada hopes to maintain its international reputation and realize its obligations under the UN Convention on Biodiversity, then the federal government must take a much more serious approach and improve how we manage commercial activity in our oceans. More effort and commitment to marine conservation in all of Canada’s marine areas must be pursued.