Planning Process

Defined Goals

Network planning in the Northern Shelf is guided by six goals:

Primary Goal:

• • To protect and maintain marine biodiversity, ecological representation and special natural features.
    
    

Additional Goals:

• • To contribute to the conservation and protection of fishery resources and their habitats.
  • To maintain and facilitate opportunities for tourism and recreation.
  • To contribute to social, community and economic certainty and stability.
  • To conserve and protect traditional use, cultural heritage and archaeological resources.
  • To provide opportunities for scientific research, education and awareness

Planning Principles

The suite of 16 guiding principles, identified in the Canada-B.C. MPA network Strategy, will guide site selection and shape the network planning process.

These principles are separated into three categories:

ECOLOGICAL NETWORK DESIGN PRINCIPLES

• • Include the full range of biodiversity present in Pacific Canada.
  • Ensure ecologically or biologically significant areas are incorporated.
  • Ensure ecological linkages.
  • Maintain long-term protection.
  • Ensure maximum contribution of individual MPAs.

SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL PRINCIPLES

• • Recognize and consider the full range of uses activities and values supported by marine environments.
  • Maximize the positive.
  • Minimize the negative.
  • Enhance management effectiveness and compliance to maximize benefits and minimize costs.
  • Work with people.
  • Respect First Nations’ treaties, title, rights, aspirations and worldview.

GENERAL OPERATING PRINCIPLES

• • Foster ecosystem-based management.
  • Apply adaptive management.
  • Build on existing MPAs, other management tools and marine planning initiatives.
  • Include a full range of protection levels.
  • Take a precautionary approach.

Network Objectives

Network objectives fall under the goals, and are used to identify and focus management priorities, provide context for resolving issues, a rationale for decisions and a means for assessing network effectiveness.

Our network objectives were developed by the Marine Protected Area Technical Team (MPATT) with input from other governments, stakeholders, academics and practitioners.

Network Objectives Goal 1: To protect and maintain marine biodiversity, ecological representation and special natural features.

• • Contribute to conserving the diversity of species, populations, and ecological communities, and their survival in changing environments.
  • Protect natural levels and interconnection of food chains.
  • Conserve areas of high biodiversity (including species, habitat and genetic diversity).
  • Protect representative areas of every marine habitat in the bioregion.
  • Contribute to protection of rare, unique, threatened, and/or endangered species and their habitats.
  • Conserve ecologically significant areas associated with geological features and enduring/recurring oceanographic features.
  • Contribute to conservation of areas important for the life history of resident and migratory species.

GOAL 2: Network Objectives

• • Maintain or improve stock stability and productivity of species important for commercial, recreational, and Aboriginal fisheries.
  • Maintain the natural size and differing ages of fished populations within protected areas.
  • Conserve habitat important to ensuring that the productive capacity and harvestable biomass of commercial, recreational, and Aboriginal fisheries species are maintained within healthy and resilient ecological limits.

GOAL 3: Network Objectives

• • Conserve sites compatible with, and of high value, for sustainable tourism and recreation.

GOAL 4: Network Objectives

• • Enable economic development opportunities that work with conservation objectives
  • Maintain or enhance the long-term productivity, resilience and reliability of marine ecosystem goods and services.
  • Support opportunities for local communities to benefit socially, culturally and economically from marine protected areas.
  • Strengthen participation and representation of communities and stakeholders in design, establishment and monitoring of the network.
  • Ensure that all marine protected areas have clearly defined objectives, as well as effective, adaptive management.
  • Support effective MPA network governance that includes monitoring, evaluation and reporting.
  • Establish collaborative approaches to surveillance and compliance monitoring.

GOAL 5: Network Objectives

• • Increase awareness and understanding of First Nations use and stewardship of resources and territories.
  • Represent marine areas of high cultural or historical value.
  • Contribute to the conservation of species significant to First Nations and coastal communities – including those important for cultural use and food security.

GOAL 6: Network Objectives

• • Increase awareness, understanding and stewardship of the marine environment.
  • Protect reference sites to support research and management.
  • Monitor and report on the effectiveness of management actions across the network.

NOTE: Specific representation targets, design strategies, and scales will be further defined, taking into consideration national and international best practices and commitments.

Conservation Priorities

Conservation priorities are the features to be protected in an MPA network.

They can be ecological (e.g., significant species, habitats or areas), cultural (e.g., species or sites of cultural significance), or include features important for sustainable tourism and recreation (e.g., kayak routes or campsites).

Conservation priorities support both the objectives and the goals by focusing planning and management on specific features that need to be conserved the most.

First Nations Cultural Conservation Priorities

First Nations cultural conservation priorities refer to the cultural and spiritual values and associated spatial features to be protected in an MPA network.

These conservation priorities:

• • Protect First Nations’ food security
  • Protect cultural sites
  • Protect traditional practices.

Design Guidelines

Design guidelines provide guidance on the application and implementation of the principles outlined in the Strategy.

The design guidelines address the process of creating the network itself by:

• • Considering ecological factors
  • Considering socio-economic factors
  • Considering cultural factors

Design guidelines influence where MPAs are located, and how they are selected, refined, and zoned to achieve the principles.

Design Strategies

Design strategies describe how the conservation priorities will be protected within the network and include area-based targets for conservation priorities.

Targets are estimates of how much of each feature (e.g., habitat types or species) should be included in the Northern Shelf MPA network.

This might include:

• • Protecting a certain percentage of the area covered by a habitat type (e.g., mudflats)
  • Including a certain number of versions of a specific habitat in the network
  • Protecting a proportion of a conservation priority’s distribution (e.g., X % of distribution of species A).
    
    

Significant effort has been made to compile the best available ecological, cultural and human use data. Data have been verified in consultation with scientists, independent experts, stakeholders and communities.

Data sets include:

• • Fish
  • Invertebrates
  • Mammals
  • Plants
  • Seabirds
  • Physical features; and
  • human use data (i.e., archaeology, cultural, aquaculture, fisheries, marine infrastructure, marine pollution, renewable energy, mining, oil, gas, minerals, public recreation, tourism, shipping and transportation).

About 180 layers of geospatial information are publicly available through the MPA network SeaSketch Portal.

Existing MPAs and other conservation measures vary greatly in purpose, size, protection level, and ecological composition. A “conservation gap analysis” was developed to determine where network conservation priorities are present in existing conservation areas and to assess how well they are can contribute to network objectives, through the management of that site.

The conservation gap analysis helps inform where:

• • Higher levels of protection may be needed
  • Boundaries may need to be adjusted to better capture features of interest; and
  • New marine protected areas and other conservation measures might be needed to achieve network objectives.
    
    

Identify Potential New Areas

Once the contribution of existing MPAs and other conservation measures to protecting conservation priorities is understood, Marxan, a decision support tool, will be used to help identify areas of high ecological and cultural conservation value not already captured in existing MPAs, as well as areas of high economic importance.

By combining areas of high ecological and cultural value with areas of high economic importance, analysis can highlight hotspots that meet our conservation priorities’ targets while largely avoiding areas of highest human use.

Design Draft Network Scenario(s)

The MPAs that make up the network will not all be created equally. Some will have high levels of protection while others will allow for a range of uses. The network scenario is being designed to build on existing sites to the greatest extent possible.

The boundaries of existing conservation measures may be refined, and protection levels modified to meet network objectives, while new sites with recommended protection levels may be suggested to meet the same.

The development of an MPA network in the Northern Shelf Bioregion involves making complex trade-offs to balance multiple objectives under considerable uncertainty. A structured approach is being followed to identify, assess and refine versions of the network scenario to determine which design will work best

Develop Action Plan

The Network Action Plan provides the blueprint to guide network implementation, monitoring and management.

The Network Action Plan will include:

• • A description of the proposed network design, including recommended sites and zones, conservation objectives, and tools to protect each network site
  • Identification of human activities in each site and zone; and
  • Recommendations for timelines for network sites to be designated.

Designate Sites

All the governing partners are responsible for implementation of the Network Action Plan consistent with their respective legal framework, priorities and timelines.

Implementation will occur over time and based on the recommended timelines in the Action Plan.

Implementation is expected to take several years, and will involve in-depth, site-level consultation with First Nations, coastal communities, stakeholders, and the public to confirm boundaries and regulations, develop management measures, and conduct detailed socio-economic analyses before a site is designated.

As part of future steps to designate sites in the network, the partners will work together to monitor how effective the MPA network is in achieving the stated goals and objectives.

The potential benefits of MPAs as well as potential costs will be monitored, and results from long-term monitoring will provide a report card on how the network is performing.