Marine Use Planning

Canada’s ocean environments are suffering from neglect and harmful human activity. Comprehensive ocean management planning, marine protected areas and sustainable fisheries policies are urgently needed to protect the coastal and marine environments from growing threats that include offshore oil and gas development, aquaculture, shipping and pollution from urban, agricultural and industrial runoffs.

Canada has very clear conservation commitments under the United Nations International Convention on Biodiversity and the subsequent Canadian Biodiversity Strategy. It also has a clear mandate for ecosystem-based management and marine conservation through Canada’s Oceans Act and the accompanying Oceans Strategy. Unfortunately, over the past 10 years, Canada has failed to realize its commitments under both of these.

The David Suzuki Foundation is working to ensure that Canada’s marine and coastal freshwater ecosystems are maintained in healthy, functioning condition and that the use of marine resources is conducted under the principles of ecosystem-based management. We believe the way to do this is through a comprehensive integrated management process that convenes the many users of our marine resources in a comprehensive process of research, dialogue and negotiation.

We are advocating for the establishment of marine-use planning processes that will result in a complete system of representative marine protected areas and a suite of conservation objectives and management practices that establish boundaries and limits regarding where and to what degree industrial activities are permitted in our oceans.

Our interest is to see Canada meet its international obligations and follow its own Oceans Strategy as mandated under Canada’s Oceans Act.

To maximize our effort and to realize efficiencies, we are collaborating with other ENGOs, First Nations and other interested sectors. Some of our marine-conservation partners include World Wildlife Fund Canada, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Living Oceans Society, the Sierra Club of Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.