From one to ten: Canada's approach to achieving marine conservation targets

Abstract

The Government of Canada has committed to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, which includes the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Aichi Target 11 indicates that countries are to conserve at least 10% of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, by 2020. In 2015 Canada affirmed its commitment to the 10% target, and also committed to an interim target to protect 5% of coastal and marine areas by the end of 2017. The interim target was met in October 2017 through a combination of federal and provincial marine protected areas (MPAs) and fisheries area closures that qualify as other effective area‐based conservation measures (OECMs), which are referred to domestically as marine refuges. In 2016 the Government of Canada set out a five‐point plan for achieving its marine conservation targets, which includes finishing what was started, protecting large offshore areas, protecting areas under pressure, advancing OECMs and establishing MPAs faster. Key challenges that the Government of Canada faces in meeting its 2020 marine conservation target include balancing socio‐economic impacts with the need to conserve biodiversity and sustain ecosystem health and ensuring meaningful engagement with partners and stakeholders in a short period of time. Once Canada has met its 2020 marine conservation target it will continue to advance ongoing marine conservation initiatives, most notably the development of a national conservation network, and seek to ensure effective long‐term conservation through the management, monitoring and enforcement of established MPAs and OECMs.

Fish community surveys in eelgrass beds using both eDNA metabarcoding and seining: implications for biodiversity monitoring in the coastal zone

“…The Government of Canada has implemented an ambitious plan to protect marine biodiversity first by the renewed commitment to Aichi Target 11 (Schram et al 2019) and later with a commitment to protect 25% of its ocean estate by 2025 and 30% by 2030. With these commitments comes the need to develop and implement biodiversity monitoring programs to inform management.…”

A climate-resilient marine conservation network for Canada

“…1; Table 1). Provinces and territories can establish additional protected ocean areas using regulatory tools that provide biodiversity conservation benefits (Schram et al 2019). For example, the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park was jointly set up as a national marine park by the province of Quebec and Parks Canada to preserve the unique ecosystem of the Saguenay Fjord.…”

“…The rapid growth of MPAs globally (∼7.66% of global ocean area in 2021; UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2021) over the past decade has occurred at the same time as the scientific community started to emphasize current and future challenges of climate change for marine ecosystem protection (Hoegh-Guldberg 2010; Tittensor et al 2019;Wilson et al 2020). However, such perspectives have not yet been well integrated into protected area design and management despite climate change being recognized as a key threat to the ability of protected areas to achieve their biodiversity objectives (Limieux and Scott, 2005;Bruno et al 2018;Schram et al 2019;Tittensor et al 2019;O'Regan et al 2021). Given the primarily static nature of protected areas and the dynamic responses of marine ecosystems to climate change, calls have been growing to consider climate change as a key component in marine conservation planning (D'Aloia et al 2019;Tittensor et al 2019) and more broadly into Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) initiatives seeking to find a balance between ocean use and conservation (e.g., Santos et al 2018;Gissi et al, 2019).…”

A feasibility study for the application of climate change vulnerability assessments on species in the Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area

“…This study focused on the Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area (TINMCA), an increasingly used study area for Arctic marine conservation research (Halliday et al, 2022;Kochanowicz et al, 2021;Schram et al, 2019) (Figure 1). Located in Northern Nunavut within the Arctic Archipelago, the TINMCA encompasses the nutrient rich waters of Lancaster Sound along with multiple other protected areas supervised by the Canadian government and Inuit settlements (Jones & Coote, 1980;Parks Canada, 2019a;Tremblay et al, 2018).…”