Oceans worth a lot more than Ottawa's pittance

Canada has a lot of ocean to honour on World Ocean Day -- an impressive six million square kilometers occupying 40 per cent of the country's surface.

But can we protect Canada's oceans for $1.58 per square kilometre a year?

Earlier this year, the Green Budget Coalition recommended that the Canadian government allocate an additional $600 million over five years to complete a national system of marine protected areas and to implement ocean-management plans for our oceans.

Instead, Ottawa dedicated only $19 million of additional money over the next two years to advance the health of our oceans. To put this in perspective, the annual contribution is about the same as the provisional budget for the restoration of Vancouver's Stanley Park after last December's windstorm.

The flood of personal donations and government commitment to restoring Stanley Park are clear examples of how people are willing to protect something when they feel a connection to it.

For most of us, the ocean remains an unfamiliar part of our country. We rarely see the effects of human impacts on the ocean, be it removal of wildlife for seafood, trawling and its damage to the seafloor, or land-based pollution being diluted into the vast quantity of water.

We continue to rely on the ocean to take care of itself, and because our impacts are rarely visible and not easily attributable to a single source, protecting the ocean is not a tangible public concern and is consequently a low priority for governments.

Only a small fraction of Canada's oceans fall into any type of special management, with less than 0.1 per cent receiving zoned protection from the combined threat posed by pollution, shipping, aquaculture, foreshore development, invasive species, fisheries and, of course, increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

As those levels increase, the ocean absorbs more CO2 and becomes more acidic. Even moderate decreases in the oceans' pH are expected to seriously affect species such as crabs, shrimps, sea stars, snails, corals and even phytoplankton, whose calcium-based body structures are prone to dissolving under these conditions.

Thomas Lovejoy, the pre-eminent ecologist credited with coining the term biological diversity, called acidification of the oceans "the most profound environmental change" of his professional career.

An ecosystem weakened by numerous other impacts will be less likely to withstand the severe impacts of global warming. Because highly functioning ecosystems will be more resilient to the anticipated effects of climate change, we must do all we can today to protect our ocean ecosystems.

Individual Canadians can do their part by choosing to eat seafood from sustainable sources and by urging their government representatives to pay more attention to oceans. (See www.seachoice.org.)

The Canadian government must do its part by committing to Canada's Oceans Strategy, its vision for managing our oceans.

Immediate government action must include pollution prevention, the establishment of protected areas, legally protecting marine species at risk, reducing the harm caused by bottom trawling, and ensuring that all fisheries are conducted within ecologically based limits.

Of course, a commitment to protecting our oceans will cost more than $1.58 per square kilometre.

Scott Wallace is a sustainable fisheries analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver.

Illustration:
• Photo: We continue to rely on the ocean to take care of itself.

Vancouver Sun
Friday, June 8, 2007
Page: A13
Section: Editorial
Byline: Scott Wallace
Column: Scott Wallace
Source: Special to the Sun