Terms of Reference

Validation of Metrics Selected to Report on the State Of Fish and Fish Habitat in the Ontario and Prairie Region Priority Areas: Part 1

Regional Advisory Meeting – Ontario and Prairie Region

June 29–30, 2021
Virtual meeting

Co-Chairs: Glenn Benoy and Joclyn Paulic

Context

On August 28, 2019, a new Fisheries Act came into force with modernizations to help safeguard fish and protect the environment. To implement the modernized Act, the Fish and Fish Habitat Protection Program (FFHPP) was ‘revitalized’ with new funding and resources, giving DFO more capacity to work with communities, partners, and stakeholders in freshwater and marine / coastal environments to undertake activities that will improve outcomes for fish and fish habitat through conservation, protection, and restoration. With these additional resources, FFHPP plans to improve how it reports to Canadians on both its own activities related to fish and fish habitat protection, as well as on the overall ‘state’ or health of species and aquatic habitats.

Under section 2.1 of the Fisheries Act, “The purpose of the Act is to provide a framework for a) the proper management and control of fisheries; and b) the conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat, including by preventing pollution.” The Fisheries Act is divided into a number of sections with regulations that allow managers to manage fishes and the habitat that supports them. Many of these regulations directly or indirectly outline pressures on our fish and fish habitat, and legislative tools that can be used to protect them. The state of fish and fish habitat should, to the extent possible, report on these pressures as a measure of how Canada is managing and protecting its aquatic resources. Due to the nature of the environment and the Fisheries Act, these pressures are often broadly described and generally do not have specific goals or targets specified in the Fisheries Act. As a result, environmental indicators will be required to describe these pressures.

To guide the development of a Regional state of fish and fish habitat report, Ontario and Prairie region have set out clear definitions and outlined a step by step approach to develop the report. Efforts are currently underway to adapt this approach nationally so that each DFO Region can produce one or more reports on the state of fish and fish habitat and so that the reports all carry through the same narrative, and similar environmental indicators.

The state of fish and fish habitat is focused on freshwater and supports the identification of environmental indicators and associated metrics for each indicator. The Indicators are intended to provide national consistency while related metrics are selected according to the availability of information in the reporting area. These metrics are used to provide a snapshot assessment of the current environmental state of fish and fish habitat in the reporting area. Integrated Planning Operations – Ontario and Prairie Region has selected two reporting areas upon which to report: The Lower Great Lakes Area in Ontario, and the East Slopes Region of Alberta.

The reporting areas will be divided into assessment units (to be determined, e.g. tertiary watersheds) that will be mapped and information on the ‘state’ of each metrics in each unit will be displayed on those maps. ‘State’ refers to a classification of the assessment unit and will range from bad to good (e.g., excellent, good, fair, poor, unknown). In order to map the state of these metrics, thresholds need to be identified for each metric as a cutoff point.

The values for thresholds will become part of this approach, and should be considered in the context of allowing the analysis of trends over time for metrics and associated changes in state. This factor is a consideration when selecting environmental indicators and metrics. A state of fish and fish habitat report may also be used to guide the identification of restoration priorities or areas for protection. The ability to understand trends over the longer-term will be especially useful for understanding the impacts of both management actions and natural and anthropogenic habitat alterations.

A short list of potential environmental indicators and metrics for each reporting area has been developed. FFHPP has requested Science to provide advice on the merit of the selected metrics for each priority area that could then be used to further develop defensible thresholds or benchmarks for reporting on the current (~5 years from 2015–2019) State of Fish and Fish Habitat in the future.

The science advice on validation of metrics and ultimately the identification of thresholds will be developed in a two-part CSAS process. This first part is a workshop to provide a preliminary review of the proposed metrics with a larger team of experts for the two priority areas and to identify feasibility and accessibility of monitoring data. The second part will be a full CSAS peer-review based on an analysis of data that supports the validated metrics to identify thresholds.

Objectives

The objectives of the peer-review meeting are to:

• Provide an information session on the modernizations of the Fisheries Act and how it pertains to the objectives and timelines for the State of Fish and Fish Habitat reporting;
• Provide an overview of the regional approach and definitions;
• Review the indicators and metrics that are proposed;
• Review available existing information on metrics and available data for the two priority areas (Lower Great Lakes of Ontario and East Slopes Region of Alberta) to determine appropriate metrics for reporting, and;
• Identify working paper needs and objectives for the Terms of Reference for Part 2.

Expected Publication

• Proceedings

Expected Participation

• Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) (Science, Aquatic Ecosystems Management sectors)
• Province of Ontario
• Province of Alberta
• Parks Canada
• Environment and Climate Change Canada
• Academics
• Other invited experts