Conservation groups are calling for the immediate closure of the herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia following the release of new federal government data showing a four-year population biomass decline of almost 60 per cent.

“We’ve been systematically overfishing these stocks and the Gulf of Georgia fishery is the last one left,” Pacific Wild co-founder Ian McAllister told The Narwhal.

“Now we’re finding out that it’s already in a state of collapse.”

Herring once spawned en masse in bays and inlets along the B.C. coast, turning waters chalky with eggs and milt in one of nature’s spectacular events.

Today, largely due to overfishing, the only remaining area of spawn is between Qualicum Beach and Comox. 

B.C.’s last great herring fishery

“The entire B.C. fishing fleet is now directing all of its efforts on this one population in the Strait of Georgia,” said McAllister, whose organization has been sounding the alarm bell about herring decline for years.

Herring are a primary food source for endangered Chinook salmon, which in turn comprise 80 per cent of the diet of highly endangered southern resident killer whales. 

“What we can’t understand is why they [the federal government] are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery efforts for both salmon and whales while they’re liquidating their main food supply,” McAllister said.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) data revealed the herring population biomass in the Strait of Georgia dwindled from about 130,000 metric tonnes in 2016 to about 86,000 metric tonnes in 2019. DFO predicts the population biomass will drop to just 54,200 tonnes in 2020. 

The new data also discloses that the returning herring population will consist of smaller and younger fish with lower reproductive capacity.

Herring fishing boats in the Strait of Georgia. Photo: Pacific Wild

Last year’s herring quota was about 21,000 tonnes, noted McAllister.

“People don’t really understand how much fish is taken out,” he said. “That’s the equivalent in weight of the largest class of B.C. ferry, full of fuel, oil and cars. That’s how much fish is taken out of the Strait of Georgia in just a one-week period.” 

The seine and gill net fishery, which begins at the end of February or early March, usually lasts one week to 10 days. 

Herring, a silvery fish that typically grow to just over 30 centimetres in length, spawn repeatedly  — unlike salmon, which spawn only once.

“That’s one of the reasons why the fishery is so unsustainable,” McAllister noted. 

“They’re killing the fish and extracting the roe [for sushi] and the rest of it is going to feed farmed salmon, feed lots and garden fertilizer. But the fish never gets to spawn again. It’s hugely unsustainable in that regard.” 

Herring during the 2018 spawning season in British Columbia. Photo: Pacific Wild

McAllister said the new data contrasts sharply with federal Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s assurance earlier this year in the House of Commons that decisions about the commercial herring fishery are based on the “abundance of the stock that exists there” and grounded in science. 

“And then we find out months later that they’ve had to reassess their estimates dramatically and we find out that, even when they didn’t reach their entire quota, they still over-fished the stock.” 

Pacific Wild, along with Conservancy Hornby Island, the Association for Denman Island Marine Stewards and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is also asking the federal government to create a Pacific herring recovery program for the Strait of Georgia. 

“If we allow them to rebuild, it would have a profound impact on the recovery efforts of wild salmon groundfish, bottom fish, whales, dolphins, so many species that are literally starving right now,” McAllister said.

Grant Scott, chair of Conservancy Hornby Island, said if the herring fishery isn’t closed it “could be a disaster for other species,” whose numbers are already greatly reduced from historic populations.

“This is the time to shut this thing down,” Scott told The Narwhal. “Let it recover.” 

“All the other creatures that live around the whole Gulf of Georgia, the seabirds, the salmon, the cod, the halibut, the humpback whales, everybody out there in the whole ecosystem relies one way or another on herring.” 

Wolves on the B.C. coast feed on herring roe. Photo: Pacific Wild

Female herring can lay up to 10,000 eggs, each the size of a grain of sand. Photo: Pacific Wild

According to the four conservation groups, the herring population in the Strait of Georgia has suffered from years of excessive quotas based on biomass calculated using a post-industrial fishing baseline. 

The 2019 quota was set based on a predicted return of 122,000 tonnes, but the groups say they were told by DFO that fewer than 86,000 tonnes returned.

“Fisheries ended up catching 25 per cent of the population — exceeding the 20 per cent harvest quota once again,” the groups said in a joint press release. 

According to McAllister, B.C. business magnate Jimmy Pattison owns the majority of the herring fishing fleet and the majority of processing facilities.

“So Pattison might lose a few million dollars but I don’t know how much sympathy there would really be for that considering how endangered these whale and salmon populations are.” 

The Pattison-owned Canadian Fishing Company did not return a call by press time.

A herring fishing boat in the Strait of Georgia. Photo: Pacific Wild

McAllister said the groups are meeting with DFO and “imploring them” to pursue a precautionary approach to herring management. They are hopeful DFO will initiate a closure for next year to allow stocks to rebuild, he said.

“There is money that could go to fishers for mitigation and transition out of this industry. It’s simply not sustainable to be harvesting so many tonnes of a foundation fish, of a critically important forage fish.” 

The federal government is expected to release its plan for the herring roe fishery in early December, following consultation with herring industry representatives and some First Nations. 

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It is completely dark, just above freezing cold and the pressure is crushing: this is the deep-sea floor. Food is very scarce in this huge region, yet a great diversity of animals have adapted to exploit and recycle resources and thrive within it.

As technology enabled us to penetrate deeper into the ocean in the past 50 years, we discovered extraordinary ecosystems: hydrothermal vents support lush communities of unique animals, seamounts foster coral and sponge forests and abyssal plains continue to yield biodiversity novelties.

Metal-rich ores were also discovered in these same environments — and in quantities that sparked commercial interest. These deposits are now the targets for exploitation by mining companies both within and beyond national waters.

A tongue fish hovering over a sulfur-encrusted area with white crabs seen below. Photo: NOAA Vents Program / Flickr

Canada is a member of the International Seabed Authority, which is developing mineral exploitation regulations for the deep sea. It shares responsibility in the potential environmental impacts of the deep-sea mining industry.

Our research teams study deep-sea ecosystems in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. We also engage in marine conservation efforts and are strong advocates for scientific input for informed decision making. To this end, we work with an international team of scientists, the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative, to provide advice to those involved in developing the environmental regulations for the deep-sea mining code.

The mineral resources

Deep-sea mining is targeting three types of deposits all of which are formed over thousands to millions of years. Polymetallic nodules — potato-sized structures rich in manganese, nickel, copper and cobalt, and containing platinum and tellurium — form at depths of 4,000-6,000 metres, as metals precipitate from seawater. At hydrothermal vents, black smokers discharge hot (350 C), metal-rich fluids that can accumulate to form deposits containing copper and often gold, silver, zinc and lead. Crusts form on the slopes of some seamounts that are rich in cobalt, manganese, iron, copper, nickel and platinum.

We need such metals for everything from cell phones to aircraft engines. Indeed, any move to alternative energy sources must consider metal supply and the security of the supply chain. A current challenge for many countries is the negotiation of those supplies from terrestrial sources.

Several deep-water sea fans (Plumarella pellucida) photographed with a basket star at 150 metres. Photo: NOAA’s National Ocean Service / Flickr

Deep-sea mining has not begun yet on a commercial scale, but companies are developing the required technologies. The machines will collect the nodules or grind the hot vent and seamount deposits, and lift the slurry to vessel at the ocean surface.

The impact goes beyond the physical removal of the sea floor. Ships would release large plumes of particles or dump waste material into the ocean, which could have toxic effects on animals, and produce light and noise pollution.

What’s at stake

Scientists have explored less than one per cent of the deep sea. We know neither the extent of the habitats targeted by mining nor how the ecosystems will respond to it. Most of the species that live on the seafloor remain unknown to science, as do their lifestyles, interactions and ecological roles. Developing strategies to protect them is a major challenge.

We do know that many deep-sea species are particularly vulnerable to the destruction of habitat by deep-sea mining. They grow slowly, live for decades or even centuries and reproduce late in life. If ecosystems are destroyed, they take a long time to recover; recent studies found that ecosystems on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean had not recovered from experimental nodule mining after nearly 30 years.

The deep ocean provides us with many services, including storing carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere. It also contains a large repository of genetic material of potential value. Benefits reaped from this material belong to humankind rather to a particular company or nation. However, the regulation, management and benefit sharing of the genetic resources are still under debate.

Deep-sea mining will impact these remote, poorly known, resource-rich ecosystems in ways that we cannot yet predict. This lack of knowledge is a major impediment for developing strategies for sustainable use and conservation of deep-sea habitats.

Environmental leadership

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is an organization of member states that have signed the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The ISA is writing the mining code to regulate mineral exploitation in the international seabed area. ISA has signed 29 contracts with mining companies (each with state backing) to explore vast areas of the seabed, covering a total of 1.3 million square kilometres (an area greater than Ontario).

White crabs, tube worms and a few tonguefish. Photo: NOAA Vents Program / Flickr

As a UNCLOS signatory, Canada has an opportunity and indeed responsibility to provide meaningful feedback on the mining code. Scientists, managers, lawyers and others at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Natural Resources Canada have the expertise to participate in the national delegation to the ISA meetings.

These Canadian government agencies have long considered topics such as ecosystem-based management, environmental impact assessments, marine protected areas and the “polluter pays” approach that are being hotly debated at the ISA. Canada’s experience in legislating and implementing some of these topics can inform the process and provide background and context in the decision-making.

Canada’s aspiring goals of global environmental leadership beyond our own continental shelf should provide the incentive to ensure that if deep-sea mining proceeds, it is in an environmentally sustainable manner.

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The federal government has taken action recently to reduce the amount of plastic waste found on land and in oceans, rivers and lakes.

In June, for example, it said it would ban single-use plastics by 2021. “It is tough to explain to your children why dead whales are washing up on our beaches with their stomachs jammed packed with plastic bags,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented at the time.

Despite this progress, one of the main plastic polluters — shellfish aquaculture — continues to threaten marine ecosystems.

Coastal British Columbia is rugged and jagged. Its drowned fjords are home to wild salmon and the ecosystems that depend on them. Tucked away between Vancouver and Denman islands is Baynes Sound, a serene inland sea, home to sea mammals, globally important duck and bird populations, and a biological diversity unmatched along our coast.

So unique is this ecosystem that, 20 years ago, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) recommended regions within this area be set aside as protected areas.

Threats to the sound include increased tourism, urbanization and an-as-yet-unregulated seaweed harvest. The greatest threat, however, is an expanding shellfish industry that provides a continual source of plastics to the sound.

Shellfish aquaculture

For the past 14 years, community beach cleanups have measured the plastic in Baynes Sound. An astonishing four to six tonnes of plastic debris, including anti-predator netting, plastics trays, ropes and styrofoam, is collected from the beaches annually. Now polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping, used for the farming of geoducks is also being washed ashore.

Geoducks are native to the coastal waters of western Canada and the northwest United States. They are the largest burrowing clam in the world and are a delicacy in China, Korea, Japan and the Pacific Northwest. Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr

In 2017, the DFO gave the West Coast shellfish industry a green light to expand its farming practices to include the lucrative geoduck, a luxury protein used in sashimi, to meet the demand from Hong Kong and the rest of China.

Geoducks (pronounced “gooey ducks”) are large salt-water clams, found naturally along the Pacific coast. Sales of farmed geoduck to this select market netted close to $56 million in 2017.

Geoduck Romesco at Taylor’s Shellfish in Seattle, Washington. Photo: T.Tseng / Flickr

Farming them involves placing juvenile geoducks into rows and rows of 18-inch long segments of PVC piping, planted vertically into the intertidal sediments, at a density of one pipe per square foot. Nets are secured with elastic bands over the pipe to protect the immature geoduck.

But the pipes become loose within days, especially after storm events, and the beach becomes littered with the plastic netting, elastics and pipes. Wave action and ultraviolet light from the sun degrade the pipes, creating fragments and then microplastics (items smaller than five millimetres in diametre) that further pollute the marine environment.

Ecosystem and health impacts

PVC is one of the most common plastic polymers in use, and its breakdown can damage ecosystem and human health.

The particles may harm invertebrates, fish, seabirds and other organisms that consume them. The chemicals in the plastic debris, including plasticizers, phthalates, flame retardants and stabilizers, can leach out of particles and have the potential to harm marine organisms. Finally, the pipe fragments can also act as a substrate, providing pathogenic marine organisms and parasites in near-shore environments with a place to grow and multiply.

“Canadians know first-hand the impacts of plastic pollution, and are tired of seeing their beaches, parks, streets and shorelines littered with plastic waste,” Trudeau said in a statement after he announced the single-use plastics ban.“We have a responsibility to work with our partners to reduce plastic pollution, protect the environment and create jobs and grow our economy. We owe it to our kids to keep the environment clean and safe for generations to come.”

So, why the paradox?

The government says it’s intent on protecting at least 10 per cent of our coastal ecosystems and reducing the threat of plastics to our marine environments. Yet the industry, which is managed by our federal government, has been given permission to introduce hazardous plastics into one of B.C.‘s most sensitive ecosystems.

Geoduck planting at the Deep Bay Marine Field Station biological research facility, operated by Vancouver Island University’s Centre for Shellfish Research in Bayes Sound, B.C. Photo: VIUDeepBay / Flickr

The ban on plastic holds consumers accountable. It targets their behaviour and will force change. But this is only part of the problem.

The other part of the problem is the industry practice of discharging dangerous plastics into sensitive ecosystems. Government is regulating a change in consumer behaviour. Why not do the same for industry?

If the government’s goal is to protect these sensitive marine ecosystems, it needs to stop the flow of plastics from industrial sources including the unregulated shellfish industry. The economic gain of farming sashimi for a select market is not worth the environmental cost.

Shelley McKeachie, a founding member, past chair and director of the Association for Denman Island Marine Stewards, co-authored this article.

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One morning in 1984, a pair of ships bobbed together in the swell 250 kilometres off the coast of Vancouver Island. The scientists aboard American research vessels Wacoma and Atlantis were about to make history.

Slowly and deliberately, two scientists and a pilot were lowered into the water in a submersible about the size of a shipping container. 

The sub, Alvin, was there to confirm what a 1982 bottom-dredging expedition had accidentally stumbled across: deep down, chimneys were spewing volcanic heat and gases into the ocean. Scientists had discovered the first deepsea vents in the world seven years prior, along the Galápagos Rift, inspiring a flurry of research and public interest into what became one of the greatest biological discoveries of the 20th century. Alvin had been there, too. 

Alvin had recovered hydrogen bombs and would later dive on the wreck of the Titanic, but many of its most valuable contributions have been to science. This day would be one of the latter.

Alvin is prepared for launch off the deck of Atlantis. Photo: Taollan82 via Wikipedia

It took Alvin two hours to descend the 2,200 metres to the sea floor. 

“It’s just a long way down,” says chemical oceanographer Marvin Lilley, who was aboard the Wacoma that day. The discovery was startling: six-storey towers looming over the ridge, two kilometres down, one after another after another.

“In my experience, it’s the most active 15 kilometres anywhere,” Lilley says. 

That activity fuels an alien ecosystem. The gas emanating from the sea floor is rich in sulphides, which can only be converted to food by extremely specialized organisms. Creatures that host these microbes in their gut dart in and out of the superheated water in a dance with death, gathering enough of the life-giving gas to feed their microbes without being cooked alive. A dozen species would eventually be discovered there that exist nowhere else on the planet, even at other vent sites — including the record-holder for the upper temperature limit for life, 121 degrees C.

On a normal patch of sea floor you could find a handful of worms or brittle stars in a square metre. A plot of the same size at what became known as the “Endeavour vent field” could hold up to half a million animals. The sheer volume of creatures is comparable to what would be found in a tropical rainforest. 

This explosion of life exists far below where any light can reach. Hydrothermal vents are the only known ecosystems on the planet that exist completely independent of the sunlight that directly or indirectly feeds every other living thing.

Endeavour hydrothermal vent summit. Photo: CSSF/ Ocean Networks Canada

The alien landscape, with its huge spires crawling with life, was “mind-blowing,” says Kim Juniper, one of the pioneers of hot vent science. “Nothing had ever been seen like that anywhere in the world.” 

Juniper is now chief scientist for Ocean Networks Canada, which has established an extensive network of underwater observatories around the vent fields.

But it wasn’t long after that first discovery that the destruction began. By 1997, when Canada passed the Oceans Act, the Endeavour field was besieged by high-tech plundering in the name of science.

“We were at the point there where people were going down with chainsaws on the front ends of submersibles to slice off large pieces of these chimneys,” Juniper says. “It was a bit like the Wild West.” 

That damage was only a shadow of a much more destructive force that threatens the ocean floor. Still unproven and with shaky financial justifications, deepsea mining has the potential to lay waste to entire vent systems in search of the valuable metals that can concentrate there.

Juniper and his colleagues pleaded the case for setting strict rules for what could and couldn’t be done at Endeavour.

In 2001, the federal government announced it would protect this “Underwater Yellowstone,” as the Globe and Mail described it, and two years later, the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents became Canada’s first Marine Protected Area. It protects 97 square kilometres of sea floor and the water column above it. 

Now, there’s a good chance the government will increase that 97 square kilometres by a factor of nearly 1500 times. The 139,700 square kilometre area would make up 2.43 per cent of Canada’s ocean territory, adding significant progress to meeting Canada’s Aichi commitments to protect 10 per cent of the ocean by 2020. 

It would protect the vents as well as an enormous swath of ocean on all sides of it from bottom-contact fishing, deepsea mining, dumping and more growing threats, far from the public eye — and would in the process create an oasis for the weird, the unique and the imperilled creatures of the sea floor. 

Black smoker activity in Endeavour vent field. Photo: Ocean Networks Canada

Octopus at Davidson seamount. Photo: Ocean Exploration Trust / Northeast Pacific Seamount Partners

An ‘oasis’ in the deep

The “Offshore Pacific Area of Interest” is four and a half times the size of Vancouver Island, the nearest point of land, and extends all the way to the outer edge of Canadian jurisdiction. It would be the biggest protected area of any kind in Canada, and nearly triple the total size of all current marine protected areas.

It would protect against just about anything that affects the ocean floor, including mining, bottom-contact fishing, oil and gas exploration and dumping. It would not protect against fishing higher up in the water column.

The proposal has been in the works since 2017, and could be officially designated by late 2020. It will likely be co-governed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and coastal First Nations, though those groups are still negotiating the exact nature of that relationship.

The Offshore Pacific includes the Endeavour vent field, but it also holds many more undersea treasures — in particular, seamounts.

“If you think about a seamount as an offshore volcanic island that just happens to be slightly underwater, you’ve wrapped your head around what a seamount is,” says Cherisse Du Preez, a marine biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The location of the proposed “Offshore Pacific Area of Interest” marine protected area off the coast of Vancouver Island. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Eighty-seven per cent of Canada’s seamounts fall within the area of interest. 

“Although we have a lot of them, it is incredibly rare in this world to have stewardship over this amount of ecologically and biologically significant ecosystems,” says Du Preez, who studied under Juniper, and now finds herself at the same table as her mentor as the regulations for the protected area are worked out.

Du Preez speaks about the seamounts and vent systems with barely contained excitement. It’s clear that, for her, these are not remote, cold physical features on a map; they’re living miracles that Canada has a chance to protect.

“We’re out there and we’re looking, and we’re making discoveries that have global significance,” she says. The designation of a marine protected area would require that Fisheries and Oceans Canada invest in monitoring and research programs, which would lead to a better understanding of the environment there.

“There are probably many species we’ve never discovered out there,” says Jay Ritchlin, director of the western region for the David Suzuki Foundation. That organization, along with several other conservation groups, has branded the area the “Deepsea Oasis” in recognition of its rarity among the abyssal plain.

Coral and rockfish at SGaan Kinglas Bowie seamount. Photo: Ocean Exploration Trust / Northeast Pacific Seamount Partners

The mysterious plain of the deep sea is covered in thick mud, the result of eons of slow deposition of dead things and silt. It doesn’t encourage much known life. But seamounts’ steep-sided, rocky slopes ascend for thousands of metres from the muddy bottom, providing rare anchor points for bottom-dwelling animals like corals and sea anemones that need something hard to hang onto. Those in turn provide habitat for mobile creatures like crabs and octopus — and, “it’s a huge snowball from there,” Du Preez says.

Sharks and other oceangoing fish are able to find prey there. Jellies, turtles and whales join the party. What would otherwise be a desolate muddy landscape becomes an oasis of life, far offshore. 

The shape of the seamounts is important as well. It works as a ramp, guiding the currents upward. That cold, nutrient-rich water swirls up to meet the sunlight and powers another bloom of life — from microscopic algae all the way up to whales and birds — in a giant whirlpool around the seamount. 

Wherever there aren’t seamounts or deepsea vents, the muddy plain stretches on, featureless and dark. But here and there, with no rhyme nor reason, there’s a crush of activity. A dead whale has dropped to the sea floor, and a bizarre assortment of creatures take advantage of the feast from above. These bonanzas attract crabs, hagfish, ancient sharks and many other scavengers that will slowly break the carcass down to a skeleton. Then they’ll eat the skeleton. 

“You can’t plan for them, and you can’t necessarily draw a marine protected area around them,” says Du Preez. But protecting a big area ensures that some of these hubs of activity will be protected as well. “So we know that we’re catching a lot of them in this area of interest, too.” 

Co-governance or co-opting?

Fisheries and Oceans Canada brought their proposal for the area to the Haida, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Quatsino and Pacheedaht First Nations in 2016. That, explains Nuu-Chah-Nulth fisheries manager Eric Angel, was their first mistake. 

“We would much rather be involved in the conversations at the very start — not when they’re saying, ‘this is what we want to protect,’ ” he says. “We have concerns about what’s happening in the ocean much closer to shore, and those aren’t being addressed.”

The First Nations responded with a proposal to co-govern the area, making decisions as full partners — a notion he says Fisheries and Oceans Canada seems willing to entertain but has so far been unwilling to put in writing. The government “wanted it vague,” he says. 

Statements from ministers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promising “nation-to-nation relationships” and “reconciliation” don’t amount to much, Angel argues, when the actual process of dealing with the government has proven to be much more rigid. 

Despite the procedural letdowns of the process and the mismatched priorities, Angel says the goals of the marine protected area align with those of the coastal First Nations. Parts of the Offshore Pacific area are part of their respective traditional territories, as places where whaling boats would have hunted far offshore. 

Angel says working on this proposal has provided a catalyst for the First Nations to learn how to work together and has spurred new partnerships. They’re now building their own “oceans dialogue forum” between coastal First Nations to discuss pressing issues that bridge their territories.

The process is also helping to teach a new generation of homegrown researchers. Two young Nuu-Chah-Nulth student scientists, Joshua Watts and Aline Carrier, will be aboard the Tully, a Fisheries and Oceans research vessel, this summer, building relationships with government scientists and conducting their own fieldwork. 

“Each generation you make a little bit of progress and you leave it for the next generation,” Angel says. 

A shield and a buffer

The marine protected area designation would protect both the seamounts and the deepsea vents to some extent. Bottom-contact fishing would be ruled out. Oil and gas exploration, which is not of much interest in the area anyway, would also be prohibited. Scientific research would require permits and specific research plans. Deepsea mining, the aforementioned new technology with the potential to Fern Gully entire vent fields, will be preemptively banned in the area.

“There’s not a ton of industrial activity out there at the moment, which is good,” says Ross Jameson, ocean conservation manager at the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. “It’s an opportunity to get all marine users and all interested parties on board.” 

ROV Hercules exploring sponge colony at Explorer seamount. Research in the marine protected area would require permits. Photo: Ocean Exploration Trust / Northeast Pacific Seamount Partners

Just 94 vessels reported fishing for groundfish in the area of interest between 2007 and 2016, according to a slide deck prepared by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. That fishing generated an average of under $150,000 per year in total. The fishing industry argues that’s an underestimate but more current numbers are not publicly available due to privacy concerns.

Tuna, meanwhile, was a much larger fishery in the area. As many as 220 ships fished for tuna in the area of interest over a decade. That fishery, worth up to $2.9 million year on average, and making up about a fifth of Canada’s tuna catch, would be allowed to continue under the new rules since tuna are mostly caught closer to the surface.

Representatives of the bottom-contact fishing industry have expressed opposition to some restrictions in the area.

But there is only so much the government can actually protect against. Some limits are natural, and others jurisdictional. 

For example, Canada is not allowed to tell ships they can’t pass through its marine protected areas. Normal ship traffic — and its associated noise, risk of ship strikes, discharge of bilge water and other pollution — will be allowed just like everywhere else. 

Deck team prepares ROV Odysseus for deployment. Photo: Ocean Networks Canada

The core of the protected area as it stands now will also only cover an area of water well below the surface in most areas. Where the seamounts rise above the bottom, the protection will rise as well. Higher up in the water, an “adaptive management zone” will take over, which has significantly fewer protections.

“We’re really pushing back that they have an obligation to protect the entire water column, from sea floor to surface,” Jameson says. “So that’s one battle that we’re continuing to wage.”

The protected area used to overlap with an operations area used for exercises and testing by the Royal Canadian Navy. That was changed in later versions, but the two areas will still be side-by-side, and noise pollution does not respect lines on a map.

Short-term stressors like ship traffic and fishing are one facet of the risks facing the area. Meanwhile, climate change is mutating offshore ecosystems. 

“We’ve been seeing tropical animals inside Canadian waters for the first time,” Du Preez says. Species like bottlenose dolphins and thresher sharks, which should be found off Mexico or maybe California — have been found following warmer water north in the same process that’s happening all over the planet. 

Big protected areas, like the Offshore Pacific, create havens for wildlife where they aren’t put under additional stress from humans. They can act as nurseries, helping fish populations expand free from fishing impacts. They can also act as buffers against climate change and ocean acidification. But without action on climate change, they can only do so much.

“They’re not the only solution, and they’re not a magic bullet,” says Ritchlin, of the David Suzuki Foundation. “A huge protected area like this is fabulous but it’s not the end of the story.”

Updated at 1:30 p.m. on July 1, 2019: The article originally attributed quotes from chemical oceanographer Dr. Marvin Lilley to chemical oceanographer Dr. John Lupton. 

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As the federal government considers bringing in new laws to govern fish farms, there is widespread skepticism that the government will act in the public interest.

Tensions surrounding salmon farming are running particularly high in British Columbia where more than 100 operations dot the south and central coast. Many of the farms are located in the territory of First Nations who oppose open-net fish pens along wild salmon migratory routes.

‘Namgis First Nation Hereditary Chief Ernest Alfred says he finds the federal government’s consultation on potential new fish farming rules “a little suspect.”

“Let’s be honest, the federal government has, up until now, been pretty well blatantly helping this industry,” Alfred told DeSmog Canada.

Alfred said both the provincial and federal governments should realize that there can be no genuine reconciliation with First Nations while fish farms remain in the Broughton Archipelago.

“The economy on the coast is based on wild salmon,” he said. “This whole place is built on the bones and scales of the fish.”

In 2016 a Senate Committee recommended the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) introduce an Aquaculture Act and the department is now holding consultations on whether such legislation is needed and, if so, what shape it should take, spokeswoman Michelle Rainer told DeSmog Canada in an e-mail.

“Should a decision be made to develop proposed aquaculture legislation, the main aim would be to provide consistency and clarity for aquaculture operators across the country, while simultaneously reassuring Canadians that robust environmental measures are in place,” Rainer said.

DFO is wrapping up consultation sessions this month with First Nations, industry associations, licence holders, local governments and non-governmental organizations and feedback will be shared with the provinces, according to Rainer.

In the highly charged atmosphere surrounding salmon farming in B.C., suspicions about DFO’s promise of balancing industry benefits with protection of wild salmon are running at an all-time high.

The ‘Namgis First Nation, which has actively opposed salmon farming in its territory for decades, recently participated in a months-long occupation of a Marine Harvest fish farm in the Broughton Archipelago alongside the Musgamagw and Mamalililukulla First Nations.

In early March the ‘Namgis filed an application for an injunction against Marine Harvest, to prevent the company from restocking the nearby Swanson farm with up to one million Atlantic salmon smolts.

On March 26 federal Justice Michael Manson rejected the injunction request, telling the ‘Namgis their application was made too late. But Justice Manson agreed there is “real and non-speculative likelihood of harm” to the First Nation’s way of life due to fish-borne disease.

The ‘Namgis also applied for a judicial review of federal policy that allows fish to be placed into coastal farms without testing for piscine reovirus or heart and muscular disease.

“It is my opinion that the underlying application for judicial review should proceed as expeditiously as possible,” Manson said in his 41-page ruling.

Recent research found wild salmon that swim past fish farms are at a higher risk of contracting piscine reovirus, a virus that affects the health of fish hearts making it more difficult for them to swim upstream to reach spawning grounds. The Canadian Ministry of Agriculture estimates 80 per cent of Atlantic salmon farmed on the West Coast enter Pacific waters already infected with piscine reovirus.

As the federal government mulls over the need for an Aquaculture Act, the province is faced with the contentious problem of whether to renew 22 fish farm tenures of which 18 are in the Broughton Archipelago and opposed by six First Nations.

The tenures, which include Marine Harvest’s Swanson Island site, are due for renewal in June, meaning fish now being moved into the pens will not be ready for harvest until two years after the current licences expire.

British Columbia’s Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations Minister Doug Donaldson said it is too soon to speculate when a decision will be made on the tenures and government is holding discussions with First Nations.

There are opportunities for closed containment, but more work needs to be done, Donaldson said.

“There is one existing closed containment facility in B.C. and there are advancements in the technology in other parts of the world,” he said, adding the province is keeping a close eye on facilities in places like Scotland and Norway to see how B.C.’s industry could adapt.

Alfred says both governments are moving too slowly as there is already a dramatic collapse of sockeye and pink salmon runs around Kingcome and Knight Inlets.

“We know the fish farms are contributing and it’s only going to get worse,” he said.

Donaldson said he believes new aquaculture legislation could help.

“Given the federal government is the lead agency responsible for activities in Canada’s oceans, it’s important they have a strong regulatory framework in place. We share the same goal: to protect wild salmon,” Donaldson told DeSmog Canada.

Others are not so sure.

The fish farming industry has been lobbying for an Aquaculture Act since 2011, which arouses suspicions among those who want to see salmon farming moved into closed containment pens — a development that would mean dramatic changes for industry.

“One thing the industry is asking for is consistency around funding for marketing,” Stan Proboszcz, science and campaign advisor with Watershed Watch Salmon Society, told DeSmog Canada.

“Essentially, it sounds like they want more taxpayer dollars to market their industry.”

Proboszcz said he’s worried industry groups have been highly engaged with the government on the Aquaculture Act.

“Especially if the salmon farming industry is leading the charge on consultations with government, it’ll likely mean relaxed industry oversight, less monitoring, and growth of an industry that spews virus-ridden bloodwater into B.C. oceans,” he said.

Watershed Watch Salmon Society, along with Living Oceans Society, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, West Coast Environmental Law and many others, recently wrote a sharply worded letter to the federal government after the groups found Aquaculture Act consultations were being held among fish farm stakeholders on the East Coast of Canada, but not out West.

The letter outlined several governing principles for an Aquaculture Act which include moving open-net fish farms into closed containment systems, recognition of Indigenous rights, transparent reporting systems on the use of drugs, presence of disease, lice and parasites and a strong restriction on the introduction of diseased fish into B.C. waters.

The letter resulted in government meetings being arranged with western groups but Proboszcz said the process is moving too fast, with a federal recommendation expected this June.

“I believe that, given all the problems this industry has faced recently in B.C. around viruses and diseases, escaped fish moving into our waters from Washington…everyday British Columbians deserve to have an opportunity at this stage to provide their input — not down the road when the big decisions on direction have already been made,” he said.

The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance which represents ocean farmers of seafood says legislation is needed to set clear, consistent national standards.

“(The Act) would allow for much greater federal-provincial coordination in how our industry is managed. This will simplify cross-provincial operations and focus attention on creating sound, science-based rules,” the alliance said in a statement.

“Rather than being regulated under a 150 year old Fisheries Act, the Aquaculture Act would recognize our industry as a farming activity — consistent with the approach of other leading jurisdictions around the world.”

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Sharks, sea turtles, corals, wolffish — the 1,200 kilometre Laurentian Channel off the southwest coast of Newfoundland is home to tremendous biodiversity.

And that’s the reason it’s set to become Canada’s newest Marine Protected Area, a designation designed to conserve and protect vulnerable species and ecosystems.

There’s just one catch: draft regulations for the proposed 11,619 square-kilometre protected area allow oil and gas exploration and drilling for much of the year. In addition, the government has reduced the size of the protected area by more than one-third from what was originally planned.

Documents obtained by The Narwhal paint a picture of a disturbingly close relationship between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) and provides clues of how a “marine protected area” ended up allowing offshore oil drilling.

Canada is in a hurry to classify more marine areas as “protected” to meet an international target to protect 10 per cent of its oceans by  2020. Whether an area that allows offshore drilling will even qualify as protected is the subject of heated international debate.

ICYMI: Is Canada Fudging the Numbers on its Marine Protection Progress?

But “high confidence estimates” of up to 257 million barrels of oil and four trillion cubic feet of natural gas put the Laurentian Channel in the crosshairs of conservation and resource extraction.

The documents — obtained by The Narwhal via access to information legislation — reveal that lobbying meetings took place between government and industry without being recorded properly in the federal registry and that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans provided the oil industry lobby group with an advance copy of a presentation.

CAPP received advanced copy of DFO presentation

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans conducted more than 30 consultations since mid-2014, when a proposed regulatory framework for the the Laurentian Channel was first distributed.

Stakeholders included the fishing industry, oil and gas players, the Shipping Federation of Canada, environmental organizations, academics, Indigenous groups and various governments. The last consultation of this kind occured on October 28, 2016, with the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Committee on Oceans Management.

CAPP is listed as only having two consultations with DFO as part of this process: once on May 19, 2016, and another on Oct. 20, 2016.

But on the morning of the second meeting, Stephen Snow — DFO’s manager of oceans for Newfoundland and Labrador — sent an intriguing e-mail to Jennifer Matthews, a policy analyst at CAPP.

Both parties indicated that a call occured on Oct. 19 between Snow and CAPP, with the DFO manager beginning his Oct. 20 e-mail as “a follow-up from our discussion yesterday.” Then, Snow explained that he was attaching a draft presentation about marine conservation targets that he would be presenting that afternoon.

“As we have now concluded consultations with all stakeholders, we have not been giving out the presentation as it contains sensitive information from a DFO perspective that needs to be accompanied with the ‘Presenter,’ ” Snow wrote.  Following that, he specifically requested that CAPP “not share or distribute the power point and delete it as we agreed.”

Excerpt from documents released to The Narwhal via Freedom of Information Legislation. The e-mail exchange shows Stephen Snow, DFO’s manager of oceans for Newfoundland and Labrador, requesting CAPP review, then delete, a presentation regarding marine conservation targets.

This communication raises some big questions, according to Gretchen Fitzgerald,  director of Sierra Club Canada’s Atlantic region chapter.

“It seems like there’s some advanced notice and even some discussions that are happening alluded to in the e-mail that would make you think there’s a little bit too much collaboration going on,” Fitzgerald told The Narwhal.

“It’s just worrying when you see people getting documents in advance of what’s supposed to be a public multi-stakeholder consultation, and being given more opportunity to prepare and an inside-track on these consultations that are supposed to put everybody on an equal footing.”

Stella Ruddock, communications officer for DFO, said in an interview with The Narhwhal that the presentation was sent out early as CAPP had employees in Halifax as well as on the ground in Newfoundland, where the meeting was held, and that it was an attempt to “try to speed up the process of getting the meeting going on time.”

She said that DFO requested that CAPP not share the presentation as “there were maps in the presentation that DFO felt might be misconstrued, I guess, if they weren’t accompanied by the presenter. They felt that if it got out, if it was circulated without the presenter, it might be misunderstood.”

Ruddock couldn’t comment on which specific maps were considered sensitive, or if it’s standard practice for DFO to send out a draft presentation to stakeholders prior to a consultation.

10 CAPP members meet with DFO days after draft regs published

On June 27, 2017 — only three days after the draft regulations for the marine protected area were published in the Canada Gazette — CAPP and at least six other industry heavyweights met with DFO for 45 minutes.

That list included senior representatives from BP, Shell Canada, ExxonMobil, Nexen, Suncor and Statoil. However, e-mails from both CAPP and DFO made reference to “10 CAPP members,” suggesting more may have been present in the room.

Only CAPP and ExxonMobil actually registered the communication in the federal lobbying registry.

ICYMI: BP Wants to Drill Underwater Wells Twice the Depth of Deepwater Horizon in Canada

All companies should have registered the meeting, regardless of it being organized by CAPP, said Duff Conacher, founder of Democracy Watch.

“My opinion is that the companies violated the Lobbying Act by failing to register the meeting in the monthly communications registry,” Conacher said.

BP wasn’t even registered to lobby the federal government (and hadn’t been since 2014).

DFO wanted voluntary commitment not to drill in conservation area

A scenario note prepared for DFO’s senior assistant deputy minister of ecosystems and fisheries management Kevin Stringer noted that CAPP members “will likely raise questions on the intention of the government to prohibit or limit current or future oil and gas activities in MPAs in general, but more specifically in the proposed Laurentian Channel Oceans Act MPA.”

It also noted that DFO’s main objective for the meeting was to ascertain if CAPP would be willing to “demonstrate its marine stewardship commitment” by supporting a statement that “no calls for bid on leases in the Laurentian Channel will ever be issued in support of the long-term conservation of the area.”

It appears DFO did not meet that goal.

A summary of the meeting e-mailed out on July 10, 2017, stated that “there was some discussion about Laurentian Channel but not in detail or in any conclusive way; there was agreement to have an ongoing dialogue.”

Fitzgerald of Sierra Club said in an interview with The Narwhal that it was “quite startling” to see the number of senior representatives who met with DFO on June 27.

“I actually didn’t realize they were so interested in this piece of marine seascape,” she said. “But I think to them, it’s about their right to all the oceans on the East Coast of Canada. That’s the only reason they would assemble such a cast of characters.”

CAPP’s submission claims no serious impacts on marine mammals

Following the publication of the draft regulations on June, there was a 30-day window for public comment.

On July 21, three days before the window closed, CAPP sent its final comments to DFO. Signed by Paul Barnes — the director of the Atlantic Canada and Arctic regions for the association — the letter outlines CAPP’s argument for why it thinks that seismic and drilling activity in the region wouldn’t be seriously harmful to species and ecosystems.

Specifically, CAPP emphasized there have been no documented marine mammal injuries or deaths as a result of seismic surveys. In addition, it noted that impacts of drilling and production at two large offshore sites in Atlantic Canada have had negligible impacts on sediment and water quality monitoring.

Rodolphe Devillers, geography professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland and lead researcher at the Marine Geomatics Research Lab, reviewed CAPP’s final submission and said in an interview with The Narwhal that the facts presented appear accurate. However, he added the caveat:  “It’s just always a question of what facts they select in their letters and not others.”

For example, it’s true that there haven’t been any documented marine mammal mortalities as a consequence of seismic surveys, as it’s very difficult to relate deaths to specific sources.

It’s also consistent with the conservation objectives listed in the federal government’s draft regulations, with a particular focus on preventing “human-induced mortality.”

But as noted by Devillers, the overarching objective of the MPA is to “conserve biodiversity through the protection of key species and their habitats, ecosystem structure and function, and through scientific research.”

To him, and many other ocean scientists, that overarching objective requires the prevention of a wide range of disturbance and harms, not just deaths — something largely unknown due to a lack of scientific studies in the region.

“We do know as scientists that seismic activities do have a number of impacts, which can be loss of hearing, challenges to feed and communicate … Those affect the primary objective of the MPA.”

Seismic testing ‘serious’ pollutant: scientists

A 2013 report by Dalhousie University biologist Lindy Weilgart concluded that at least 37 marine species have been shown to be impacted by seismic testing, and that airgun noise “must be considered a serious marine environmental pollutant.”

On June 22, 2017 — incidentally, a single day before the government released its draft regulations — an article was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution that concluded seismic surveys can double or triple the death rates of zooplankton within a 1.2 kilometre radius. The authors wrote: “Significant impacts on plankton by anthropogenic sources have enormous implications for ocean ecosystem structure and health.”

Devillers voiced similar concerns about CAPP’s positioning on potential contamination.

In the final submission, CAPP said that no drill waste or petrogenic hydrocarbons have ever been detected “outside the 500 metre safety zone during drilling or operations phases” of nearby offshore projects. But Devillers noted that “even if it’s within 100 metres, it’s an impact on the ecosystem.”

“Sometimes things go wrong,” he said. “How willing are we to accept that things can go wrong? Even if it’s one chance in 50 years or something, that’s not acceptable. And they cannot guarantee that this will not happen.”

A simple fix could set clear standard for marine protected areas

A simple solution to all of this would be to amend the Oceans Act to prohibit all extractive activities in Marine Protected Areas, said Linda Nowlan, staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law.

Currently, each distinct protected area  is governed by an individual regulation, which can prohibit and allow certain activities. That’s why the Laurentian Channel Marine Protected Area allows oil and gas activities while the nearby St. Anns Bank Marine Protected Area banned them.

In comparison, Canada’s “National Marine Conservation Areas” — which include Ontario’s Fathom Five National Marine Park and Quebec’s Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park — have a blanket prohibition of oil and gas activities.

Nowlan suggested the federal government should take advantage of its ongoing amendments to the Oceans Act to prohibit all “harmful activities,” including oil, gas and mineral exploration and development.

“It sets the bar from the start so industries can’t go into negotiations and whittle down protection, which is what seems to have happened in Laurentian Channel,” Nowlan said.

The government is expected to release the final regulations this year.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A report submitted to the National Energy Board (NEB) by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) points to “insufficient information and analysis” in Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposal as it relates to whale populations off the coast of British Columbia.

“There are deficiencies in both the assessment of potential effects resulting from ship strikes and exposure to underwater noise in the Trans Mountain Expansion Project Application documents,” the report says. “Ship strike is a threat of conservation concern, especially for…Fin Whales, Humpback Whales and other baleen whales.”

The report concludes that an increase in shipping intensity related to Kinder Morgan’s proposal would lead to an increase in threats to whale populations that occupy the Strait of Georgia and the Juan de Fuca Strait.

As covered by Blacklock’s Reporter the DFO analysis outlines Kinder Morgan’s failure to adequately address these concerns and “lack of an appropriate assessment framework” that would allow the department to evaluate the company’s claims.

Kinder Morgan’s current proposal would increase the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of oil per day. The increased capacity would see a significant spike in oil tanker traffic on the Burrard Inlet, from around 60 to more than 400 per year.

Critical habitat for killer whales, proposed habitat for humpback whales and other important areas for marine mammals as outlined in Kinder Morgan's submission to the NEB. Click image to see original in report.

“It’s a big issue,” NDP MP Nathan Cullen told Blacklock’s. “It’s a global concern, particularly in an area where we have had recovery of whale species.”

“The process that is being used by the government so far is flawed, and the public has lost faith,” Cullen said of the NEB review process. “It doesn’t provide certainty and creates avenues for conflict.”

Cullen recently introduced Bill C-628, which seeks to ban oil tankers from the northern B.C. coast.

Last spring, the federal government downgraded the classification of humpback whales from “threatened” to “species of special concern” under the Species at Risk Act. The move provoked British Columbia's public interest groups, which saw the downgrade as an attempt by the federal government to eliminate a legal requirement to protect whale habitat along the B.C. coast.

In February 2014, the federal courts, prompted by an Ecojustice lawsuit, ruled the Harper government had failed to provide recovery strategies for 170 species at risk in Canada. Two months later the federal government reclassified humpback whales, eliminating the requirement for feeding ground protections.

The DFO review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project submission found the company only measured noise pollution in marine mammal habitat from one single tanker and did not include noise exposure from other marine traffic. Kinder Morgan also misapplied noise exposure models, leading to inaccurate results and did not use adequate measures to calculate potential whale strikes from oil tankers, the report found.

Image Credit: Trans Mountain

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Sea otters score top marks on the cute and cuddly scale as they float around kelp beds holding hands or hugging fuzzy pups, but when they show up on the marine doorstep, it is like having a pack of badly behaved German shepherds taking over the neighborhood.

“They weigh about 80 pounds, they eat 4,000 calories a day and they just tear through the environment,” said Eric Peterson, co-founder of the Tula Foundation, which funds research at the Hakai Institute, a field science station on Calvert Island on the Central Coast.

Sea otters and the effect they have on the environment became one of the institute’s research projects almost by accident after about 150 of them showed up near Calvert Island two years ago.

“The results have been quite amazing and dramatic,” Peterson said.

Research has centred around the effect sea otters have on sea urchin populations and kelp beds.

Sea otters were almost eliminated from many areas of the B.C. coast during the 18th and 19th century fur trade, but their populations are now recovering — to the point that their status has gone from endangered to a species of special concern.

But they compete with humans for prey species such as sea urchins, abalone, clams and crabs and they change the marine landscape, which brings its own special set of problems.

It is estimated that there are now about 1,000 sea otters on the Central Coast and possibly about 4,000 off the west coast of Vancouver Island where government biologists released 89 otters more than 40 years ago.

Populations have not yet re-established themselves in areas such as Haida Gwaii and the Strait of Georgia.

“Sea otters are a top predator. They are kind of like humans and one of the things they eat is sea urchins,” said applied marine ecologist Anne Salomon, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University, who has led some of the sea otter research.

The otters’ diet of sea urchins then affects the kelp beds, Salomon said in an interview after making a presentation at the Hakai Research Exchange in Sidney last week.

“The sea urchins are herbivores and they graze like elephants or giraffes, they are sort of lawn mowers.”

So, when sea otters eat the sea urchins, kelp beds, without urchins to keep them under control, turn into kelp forests.

That has some benefits as the kelp forests are carbon sinks and provide good habitat for fish, but shellfish harvesters prefer a marine environment with clams and abalone.

“Lots of humans have become very used to a coast without sea otters,” Salomon said.

The recovery of sea otters, which started in 1911 after they were protected through one of the first international conservation treaties, has been an incredible conservation success story, Salomon said.

“But it’s also really problematic.”

Until colonial rule, sea otter populations were kept somewhat in check because the otters were hunted by First Nations, but now there is little to control their population growth.

“People see them as a threat to abalone and that is eliciting major conflicts on the coast,” said Salomon, adding that her research shows that abalone and otters can co-exist as the abalone adapt and learn to hide in crevices.

But then there is the question of the otters’ behaviour.

“They do have a lot of sex,” Salomon said.

And it is often rough sex, with the male grabbing the female by the nose and holding her underwater.

“They’re not particularly nice to each other or to other animals,” said Josh Silberg, a master’s graduate student in Salomon’s laboratory.

“They are intelligent and charismatic and they may look cute and cuddly, but they are really a big weasel,” he said.

Image Credit: Marcio Cabral de Moura via Flickr.

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A former luxury fishing lodge on a remote island off B.C.’s Central Coast has been transformed into a cutting-edge research centre, producing some of the province’s most innovative science.

From early April until mid-October each year the off-the-grid Hakai Institute field station on Calvert Island houses renowned scientists, university professors, graduate students and post-doctoral students researching all aspects of the B.C. coast, from grizzly bears and sea otters to sand formations, archaeology and microbes.

The breadth of the research was show-cased Friday when more than 200 scientists and First Nations researchers gathered in Sidney for the Hakai Research Exchange.

And, sitting at the back of the room, listening intently to the presentations, were the two people who have made the field research station a reality.

The Hakai Institute and, now, a new field station on Quadra Island, are funded and run by Eric Peterson and Christina Munck, co-founders of the Tula Foundation.

The concept was born out of a love for the B.C. coast, combined with a realization that — despite a lot of talk about areas such as the Great Bear Rainforest — almost no coastal science was being conducted at the community level, Peterson said.

That science gap convinced the couple to put their money into the project after they sold their successful information technology company.

“I talked to university scientists and they would say it was so difficult to do work up there because there were no facilities,” Peterson said in an interview.

“The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Ministry of Environment and all the government services were stepping backwards. The paradox was that, with all the talk about how wonderful our coast is, at the community level and First Nations level, there was no work on the ground.”

Peterson decided to combine his entrepreneurial skills with Munck’s background in conservation and botany to create a venue where up-and-coming scientific talent could be mentored.

The Tula Foundation purchased the fishing lodge in 2009 and then the work of turning it into a field station started in earnest.

“We had to rebuild the power grid and the water system and the sewage system and the docks and then in 2012 we started doing science in a significant way and since then the enthusiasm has been almost frightening,” Peterson said.

“The growth has been greater than I would have expected. I think it indicates there’s such a pent-up demand for long-term ecological research.”

Chris Darimont, Hakai-Raincoast geography professor at the University of Victoria, has seen the benefits first hand as he conducts bear research.

“At a time when support for science has generally eroded across Canada, an absolute explosion of discovery is occurring in one of the least studied, but most beautiful parts of the planet,” he said.

The foundation funds graduate students and post-doctoral students, most of whom are itching to have the opportunity to get out of their laboratories and into the field, Peterson said.

In addition to becoming a place where “brilliant students can come and do their work” it is also a place where various parties and agencies can come together and talk about controversial issues, Peterson said.

“It’s a special place where politics gets left at the door.”

Research Includes How Sockeye Salmon Are Coping With Climate Change

Research themes are based on answering important questions, excellent science and great opportunities for teaching, Peterson said.

But, even with those criteria, there have been surprises, such as the archaeology program, he said.

“I had no interest in archaeology, but people pointed out to me that, where we were on the Central Coast, was a particularly appropriate place to do world-class archaeology. That was our first hit record,” he said.

At the Research Exchange, researchers described nine sites around the Discovery Islands where evidence of human activity from about 7,500 years ago is being studied.

“And there is at least 6,000 years of human history before that time,” said Quentin Mackie, a University of Victoria anthropology professor, describing discoveries of stone tool technology.

PhD student Will Atlas is studying how sockeye salmon are coping with warmer water temperatures and hoping a tagging program will help explain how climate change will affect salmon populations around the Central Coast.

Sam Harrison, of the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, is venturing into controversial territory as he looks at how diseases at fish farms are reported.

Information released by the federal government is useless as it is not specific — meaning it does not reveal which farms have diseased fish — and it is not accessible, he said.

“Disease publication matters because it enables independent research and informs decisions about farm siting,” he said.

Disease reporting falls far short of the information provided in Scotland and Norway, Harrison said.

For Peterson, the variety of research demonstrates that his vision has become a reality.

“There’s tremendous chemistry,” he said.

“It’s magic when (people) work on accomplishing something together.”

Image: Hakai Institute

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Walter M. Miller Jr.’s classic sci-fi book "A Canticle for Leibowitz" tells the story of a post-apocalyptic future in which a small group of monks strive to preserve the remnants of humanity's scientific knowledge. After the destruction of civilization, in the absence of physical records of its history, humanity repeats the worst of its mistakes.

There have been many tales over the years of the destruction of books. Sometimes, as with the sacking of the library of Alexandria, it was out of sheer thoughtlessness. Other times, it was with the clear intent of the reigning regime to banish knowledge that didn’t fit its worldview. However it happened, it was only in hindsight that we understood to what extent the loss set humanity back.

It’s hard not to think of these things when reading stories of the closure of seven of the eleven Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries across Canada. Local media outlets have reported dumpsters full of books. The Winnipeg-based North/South Consultants brought a flatbed truck to the closure of the library at the University of Manitoba’s Freshwater Institute and packed it full with the history of Canadian water.

“There's a treasure trove of stuff there,” Don MacDonell, a spokesperson for North/South, which does field research and environmental impact assessments for government and corporate clients, told the Winnipeg Free Press. “In our field, aquatics, the library was quite valuable. It serviced the whole central and Arctic region.”

When word first broke that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was closing the libraries, government officials promised that there would be no loss of vital historical material. Today many are skeptical of those claims.

In an interview with the CBC, former fisheries minister Tom Siddon called the move “Orwellian, because some might suspect that it's driven by a notion to exterminate all unpopular scientific findings that interfere with the government's economic objectives.”

Several scientists spoke anonymously to the Tyee’s Andrew Nikiforuk. "I was sickened," said a research scientist who had worked for the federal government for 30 years. "All that intellectual capital is now gone. It's like a book burning. It's the destruction of our cultural heritage. It just makes us poorer as a nation."

Green Party leader Elizabeth May, whose constituency of Saanich-Gulf Islands is home to one of the four remaining libraries, also condemned the move. “Consistent with their policy of muzzling scientists, the Conservatives have now moved on to trashing libraries,” she said. “This administration seems to be deliberately undermining our ability to make good policy decisions by limiting access to scientific evidence.”

On December 7, in response to the landslide of criticism, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea sent out a press release ensuring that it is “absolutely false to insinuate that any books were burnt.”

“The decision to consolidate our network of libraries was based on value for taxpayers,” she said in the release. “The primary users of DFO libraries, over 86%, are employees of the Department. An average of only five to 12 people who work outside of DFO visited our eleven libraries each year. It is not fair to taxpayers to make them pay for libraries that so few people actually used.”

The scientific community did not find the argument convincing, including Jeffrey Hutchings, Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation & Biodiversity at Dalhousie University.

“A logical extension of this argument proffered by DFO spokespersons is that it would not be fair to make taxpayers pay for the libraries and associated resources of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Bank of Canada, or even the Library of Parliament because ‘so few people actually used’ the libraries in question,” he told the Tyee.

Many of the research libraries facing closure are meant to act as resources for the federal government rather than the public, such as the library at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute. On the Institute's website, the research facilities are described as providing "the federal government with a scientific basis for the conservation of living marine resources, the protection of the marine environment, and safe maritime navigation, as well as to ensure the application of legislation designed for the integrated management of the marine environment and the protection of fish habitat."

Contents from the Maurice Lamontagne Institute library fill a dumpster in July 2013. File from www.cpcml.ca.

A memo uncovered by Postmedia’s Mike De Souza said that the closures would only save the taxpayers about $443,000 per year, after millions of dollars had recently been spent renovating the St. Andrews Biological Station in New Brunswick.

It referred to the removal process not as digitizing, but as “culling” materials to make room in the remaining four libraries.

Shea did not address widespread concerns regarding the technical aspects of the digitization process.

In response to a request for more information regarding the culling process, DFO media spokesperson referred to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Library Collection Development and Management Guideline released February 2013.

“The Department withdrew obvious duplicates from its collections and approached universities, academics, museums, community and non-government organizations, and other libraries and offered materials in the collection that were outside of the department’s mandate,” the department told DeSmog via e-mail.  

At the time, scientists expressed skepticism regarding the logic behind the withdrawal of materials and feared that important historical documents may be lost.

“It is information destruction unworthy of a democracy,” said Peter Wells, an ocean pollution expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax, told the Vancouver Sun. He called the potential loss of materials a “national tragedy.”

Biologist and researcher Pamela Zevit worked on an early effort to digitize government research in the mid-1990s when she served the British Columbia’s Ministry of Environment. She remembers the excitement around providing searchable, easily accessible databases quickly falling away to the enormity of the task.

The biggest issues, she says, are quality control and maintenance. How do you assure the sensitive historical documents are properly scanned and who will maintain these archives over time and changes in technology?

It would be a mistake, Zevit believes, to think of digitized archives as infallible guardians of data. A recent article by University of British Columbia researcher Timothy Vines found that as much as eighty percent of data is lost over a period of two decades because changes in technology make storage formats obsolete.

“What happens if you lose information digitally and you have no hard copy resource or archive to go back to?” Zevit says. “All trace of it is eliminated from the planet unless somebody’s actually downloaded something at some point in time.”

As a researcher, Zevit doubts the federal government’s ability to follow through on its promises to maintain quality of service at the remaining libraries. “When I worked for government, I worked under the premise that disclosure and transparency were very important responsibilities,” Zevit says. “There’s no point in investing tens of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in curating information if it’s never accessible to anyone.”

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A decade ago a group of First Nations communities on Vancouver Island approached Health Canada and asked whether it was safe to eat the foods, like wild salmon, or harbour seals, that make up a traditional diet. Health Canada did not have the answer, but introduced these communities to a Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientist named Peter Ross who made it his mission to find out.

Dr. Ross worked his last day as a government employee in late August, which officially brings his study on the contamination of traditional seafoods to an end. At the sixth annual Vancouver Island Traditional Food Conference, Ross expressed the significance of this: coastal aboriginal peoples will be the first to feel the effects of the DFO’s reduced capacity study ocean pollution in Canada.

An elder named Ipswa Mescacakanis described the cutbacks to DFO and ocean pollution research in particular as a broken trust. "The government of Canada has promised us access to food, to safe food, and culturally appropriate food. We can no longer be sure if the food we eat is safe."

The community Mescacakanis has lived in for 30 years, the Snuneymuxw First Nation, has seen the direct benefits of scientific research. One of the important traditional shellfish gathering places for the Snuneymuxw is in the Nanaimo River estuary, not far from a pulp mill.

The discovery that the use of liquid chlorine to bleach paper contaminated some seafoods near pulp mills led to a ban on this process in 1989, under the Fisheries Act. Levels of dioxins and furans have dropped considerably in seafoods like those harvested by from the Nanaimo River Estuary since this ban was put in place.

Mescacakani says that kind of science is now out of reach for his people. He says many people from his, and other First Nations communities rely on locally foraged food in large part because of economic hardship.

“Non-aboriginals buying their seafood from a grocery store have the benefit of science,” he says. “Industrial seafood operations like the Nanaimo clam deprivation system, for example, happen in areas where pollution is easy to control and monitor. Either that or major seafood harvesting operations occur well offshore in areas not affected by pollution.”

According to Dr. Ross's preliminary research, the average person living in a First Nation's community on Vancouver Island eats 55kg of seafood each year. That's 15 times as much seafood as the "average" Canadian. So Health Canada guidelines about what is safe to eat, says Ross, don't necessarily apply to those people whose diet is so far from the average Canadian.

The First Nations Environmental Contaminants Program which initially helped to fund Ross's work on traditional foods continues to offer $900 thousand annually in grants. However, Ross says that without the backing of a lab he can not continue the work.

"When it comes to testing for PCBs, organochlorine pesticides, dioxins, furans and PBDEs, which is what we're interested in when it comes to seafood, a private lab would charge more than $2000 per sample," says Ross. "You can see that with three oceans plus all the freshwaters in between (and other foods, such as game), $900 thousand is a modest budget."

When asked whether First Nations Communities on Vancouver Island will find some way to continue pollution monitoring without DFO, Mescacakani replied that most First Nations communities can barely get by with the challenges they face day to day.

“I suspect what will happen is that it is only when we are showing severe health concerns, as our northern Cree communities have, that we’ll be able to start putting pressure on the International Community to put pressure back onto the Canadian government, or that we’ll be able to pressure industry to stop producing whatever toxins are causing the harm.”

Photo Credit: Sophie Bragg

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.