Science Response 2017/030

Guidance on the level of protection of significant areas of coldwater corals and sponge-dominated communities in Newfoundland and Labrador waters

Context

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has identified Significant Benthic Areas (SBAs) as ecologically and biologically significant cold-water coral or sponge-dominated regional habitats (DFO 2017). Within these areas, Sensitive Benthic Areas (SeBAs, not to be confused with SBAs) are defined based on their exposure to proposed or ongoing fishing activities. Mitigation of impacts of fishing in SeBAs, or avoidance of serious or irreversible harm to sensitive marine habitat, communities and species due to fishing activities is managed through DFO’s Policy for Managing the Impacts of Fishing on Sensitive Benthic Areas (hereafter referred to as “SeBA Policy”). Management decisions to address the impacts of fishing in SeBAs will be based on precautionary and ecosystem approaches, and take into account socio-economic considerations (DFO 2009). Recent science advice has identified SBAs and estimated their degree of overlap by fishing activities in Atlantic Canada and the Eastern Arctic (DFO 2017). However, further guidance is required for the operational implementation of the SeBA Policy regarding what level of protection to SBAs is sufficient to deliver the conservation goals of this policy.

At the present time there are no National guidelines on this topic. Given the ongoing process for implementing the SeBA Policy in the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Region, Ecosystems Management requested that Science provide guidance and advice on the level of protection that would be deemed sufficient to mitigate impacts of fishing on SBAs or to avoid impacts of fishing that are likely to cause serious or irreversible harm to SBAs in the NL bioregion. The NL bioregion is defined as Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) Subareas 2 and 3, also denoted as “NL waters”, even though some analyses also required the inclusion of Div. 0B to preserve ecological integrity of some of the features considered. This guidance should, whenever possible, consider:

1. The fraction of the SBA area and/or biomass that needs to be protected to avoid serious or irreversible harm.
2. The spatial arrangement of the potential closure areas.
3. The potential impacts of current fishing effort within SBAs.

This Science Response Report results from the Science Response Process of April 19, 2017 on the Guidance on the Level of Protection of Significant Areas of Coldwater Corals and Sponge-Dominated Communities in Newfoundland and Labrador Waters.

Complete document (PDF, 2,856 KB)

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