Research Document - 2014/108

Promising Indicators of Fisheries Productivity for the Fisheries Protection Program Assessment Framework

By Derrick Tupper de Kerckhove

Abstract

Amendments to the Fisheries Act in 2012 effectively changed the focus of promoting fisheries sustainability in Canada from managing the habitat that sustains fish populations (Fish Habitat Management Program - FHMP) to managing the ongoing productivity of fish stocks related to Commercial, Recreational or Aboriginal (CRA) fisheries (Fisheries Protection Provisions - FPP). The new and central role of fisheries productivity is clearly stated in Section 6 of the Fisheries Act such that the Minister must consider “the contribution of the relevant fish to the ongoing productivity of commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fisheries” when evaluating the capacity of a proposed development or activity to cause “the death of fish or any permanent alteration to, or destruction of, fish habitat”. Since the amendment of the Act, the science and policy divisions of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) have been providing technical advice on the implications of the new focus on the FPP.

The topic of this review is to discuss and evaluate appropriate indicator metrics that can link the changes in the components to productivity to a qualitative or quantitative change in CRA fisheries productivity. For a consistency of terminology within this paper, we will define “indicators” as metrics which have a direct link to CRA fisheries productivity, thus an indicator can also be a component of productivity metric. Advice from the recent drafts of the proposed FPP framework (Bradford et al. 2013, Koops et al. unpublished manuscript^{Footnote 1}) has suggested some desirable qualities in potential indicators.

This literature review has gained insight into the use of different metrics by other fields of fisheries research, management and biomonitoring and also in their theoretical links to “ongoing productivity of CRA fisheries”. It sounds simplistic to say that any indicator can be linked to fisheries productivity given a proper set of assumptions, but this is generally true and a great strength of this field of research. The many linkages back to the intrinsic rate of population growth, carrying capacity or steepness coefficient offers flexibility to proponents to demonstrate quantitatively, if needed, how proposed alterations to habitat is expected to affect the CRA fisheries. In the great majority of cases, we would expect that proponents would measure only the indicator and reference the specific qualitative linkages proposed in this review and others. A common theme that has emerged throughout the literature review is that there is likely no “one-size-fits-all” indicator, or even set of indicators. This is not surprising as considerable effort was expended under the FHMP to find simple and ubiquitous metrics, yet it also proved challenging. A suite of indicators is likely most effective, but will also only be required for a particular size of project. Further, through the search for specific indicators we have discovered that some are already well parameterized for Canadian fish, offering reference points and relationships (often allometric) with other indicators.

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