Terms of Reference

Workshop on Criteria for Designating an Area as Biologically / Ecologically Significant

November 17-18, 2004
Montreal, Quebec

Chairperson: Jake Rice

Context

Canada’s Oceans Act authorizes DFO to provide enhanced protection to areas of the oceans and coasts which are ecologically or biologically significant. As DFO progresses with integrated management approaches to ocean areas, it is necessary to operationalise the term “significant” in this context. Consistent standards are needed to guide selection of areas where protection should be enhanced, while allowing sustainable activities to be pursued where appropriate.

Ocean areas can be ecologically or biologically “significant” because of the functions that they serve in the ecosystem and/or because of structural properties. Although structure and function are inter-dependent, an area can be “significant” for either reason. Many of the functional activities like feeding and spawning of fish occur widely throughout the ocean. Operationalising the term requires first establishing whether or not specific areas are particularly important for each function (i.e. “significant”), and thus warrant enhanced protection.

Goal

The goal of the Workshop is to develop a priori criteria to differentiate areas which are “particularly important” or “significant” with regard to specific ecosystem structural or functional properties from all other areas where the structure may occur or the function may be served, but which are not justifiably designated as “significant”.

Approach

Teams of experts have been selected and tasked to prepare short (3-5 pages) draft Working Papers on a variety of assigned structural and functional ecosystem properties. Each Working Paper is supposed to present draft criteria for designating an area as “significant”, and present brief rationales for each criterion. Each rationale is to be supported by references to the primary and/or technical literature, but the information in the references does not have to be summarized or discussed.

Based on the Working Papers and deliberations at the Workshop, we will try to specify explicit a priori criteria for each of the ecosystem properties addressed in a Working Paper. The Workshop may conclude that some properties either do not constitute a sound basis for designating areas as ‘biologically or ecologically’ significant, and that there are other properties that also should be evaluated in this way.

Activities

1. Review each Working Paper for completeness (have potentially important criteria been left out?) and soundness (is the rationale for each proposed criterion clear and justified adequately?)
2. Develop consensus on the key ecosystem properties which could justify designating an area as biologically or ecologically significant
3. For each property in 2) develop consensus on criteria that can be used in designating an area as biologically or ecologically significant for that property

Products

A Habitat Status Report summarizing the results of Activities 2 and 3 will be produced, as will a CSAS Proceedings Document. At the meeting the document authors will discuss options for publication of the Working Papers as separate CSAS Research Documents, consolidated as one ResDoc, or as Technical Annexes to the proceedings.