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Protecting Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems
The importance
and significance of cold water corals and other diverse deep sea
ecosystems to restoring and maintaining Canada's oceans was not
officially or internationally recognized until the government of
Canada through then Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Hon. Loyola
Hearn, signed the United Nations General Assembly sustainable fisheries
resolution in November 2006.
In this resolution, the Government of Canada
agreed to identify and protect cold water corals and Vulnerable Marine
Ecosystems (VMEs). The UN declaration came as a result of several
years of advocacy by various coalitions of environmental non-governmental
organizations (ENGOs) around the planet supported by over 1000
international ocean scientists. Further to this, Canada has signed other
international agreements with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) to identify
and protect these cold water corals and Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems.
 In 2006 and 2007, the Atlantic
Canada Chapter of the Sierra Club, working with its scientific advisors
and their graduate students in St. John's, Newfoundland, has identified several large areas on the
continental shelf and slope east of Labrador and Newfoundland containing
cold water corals and having abundant diverse ecosystems. Data used to
identify these areas includes information from the federal Department of
Fisheries and Oceans and fisheries observers reports.
These areas
are identified on the Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem on the maps listed
below. Ongoing research is being conducted to identify other
vulnerable marine ecosystem sites either along the continental shelf and
slope or in other areas of the Northwest Atlantic.
Efforts are
underway to have these areas closed so the process of ocean and
commercial fisheries recovery may begin. If you wish to participate and
support our initiatives we ask that you sign our petition and write your Member of
Parliament, the Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and the Prime
Minister expressing you support for such closures.
Proposed closures to protect
Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems:
1. Proposed closures to protect
Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems:
Deep-sea Corals
in the Newfoundland and Labrador Region
2. Proposed closures to protect Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems:
Deep-sea Corals in the Newfoundland and
Labrador Region: North View
3.
Percentage of sets containing
coral - NAFO 3O protection zone
4.
Gorgonian coral protection
areas, SE Labrador, Funk Island Spur, and Tobin's Point.
Note: All of the photographs we taken in DesBarres
Canyon on the South-west Slope of the Grand Bank in
depths of approximately 300-400 metres. The broken Keratosis
coral photograph (right) is example of the aftermath of using
bottom trawl fishing gear.
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Summary of Issue
