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Advancing an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management: A discussion document

August 2023

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Purpose and introduction

This discussion document aims to start an early dialogue with Indigenous Peoples, co-management partners, fish harvesters, industry, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others about the broad adoption of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM) for federally managed fish stocks and fisheries in Canada.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has long been committed to employing EAFM, something intended to enhance the understanding of fish stocks through the consideration of environmental information to support fisheries management decisions. To date, that approach has been implemented opportunistically and incrementally, but not yet comprehensively or systematically across the stocks and fisheries that DFO manages. In March 2023, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO) recommended that, “DFO speed up the implementation of an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management in Canada given the impact of climate change.”

Internationally, in late 2022, Canada committed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a new strategy to guide actions worldwide through 2030 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, with targets that include the adoption of the ecosystem approach to help ensure the sustainable harvest of wild stocks and provide social, economic and environmental benefits to people.

Consequently, DFO is seeking input and ideas about how best to move forward with a more systematic implementation of an ecosystem approach for managing fisheries. The objectives are to support the overarching goals of 1) securing economic prosperity in the fishing sector while 2) fostering productive and sustainable marine ecosystems to support that prosperity over the long term, a future expected to be substantially disrupted by climate change and other ecosystem variability.

Resource availability in aquatic ecosystems is becoming increasingly uncertain as formerly healthy ecosystems become less resilient, particularly with respect to the impacts associated with climate change. All of Canada’s aquatic ecosystems have undergone, or are undergoing, substantial changes in the abundance and diversity of fish stocks. In addition, Canada’s waters and its extensive coastlines are particularly sensitive to climate change impacts in northern latitudes, where rates of change are predicted to be highest.

Ecosystem changes can affect the overall productivity of marine ecosystems, including the amount of food available for fish stocks to thrive, and can alter prey-predator interactions. Changes can be multifaceted and may include, but are not limited to:

Some of these ecosystem changes take place gradually over time while others may be more rapid and difficult to predict, such as sudden marine heat waves or cold spells, all of which can affect stocks differently. The magnitude and specific impacts of such changes vary across aquatic ecosystems, but nonetheless point to the need for action to manage fisheries in ways that anticipate and are responsive to these changes.

In this context, EAFM will become increasingly important as a tool that helps to incorporate environmental information – climatic, oceanographic and ecological variables – into stock assessment advice and fisheries decision-making, to enable sustainable and prosperous fisheries.

This document provides an outline of EAFM and examines how it may be used to respond to both the risks facing ecosystems, including from climate change, and the fishing sector that relies on those ecosystems. It also outlines some of the EAFM work currently underway both internationally and domestically and discusses how ecosystem information might be more systematically employed as part of fisheries management.

At this time, DFO does not have a timeline for the full implementation of EAFM. Nevertheless, the department wishes to share its thinking with Indigenous Peoples and stakeholders at this early stage to benefit from their views and feedback and engage in what DFO hopes will be a productive dialogue that ultimately benefits communities and businesses that depend on Canada’s aquatic ecosystems.

Project and process

The project to advance EAFM has two principal outputs, each of which DFO will engage with Indigenous Peoples and stakeholders on:

  1. this discussion document
  2. a draft EAFM implementation plan that will be produced using information gathered from engagement sessions

Regarding the eventual approach to implementing EAFM, the expectation is that an implementation plan would proceed incrementally and systematically, allowing for its gradual incorporation as part of existing fisheries management practices.

This discussion document

As noted, this document's purpose is to help in the department obtaining initial feedback and advice from Indigenous Peoples and stakeholders about EAFM and how best to proceed with a more systematic approach to implementing it across the department.

This discussion document provides a high-level perspective on EAFM and the department’s current thinking about its wider adoption. The intention is to encourage reflection, seek input, and obtain views on EAFM and its future implementation. The views of Indigenous Peoples and stakeholders obtained during outreach and engagement on this discussion document will help to inform the future draft implementation plan.

The draft implementation plan

Following engagement on this discussion document, the department will prepare a draft EAFM implementation plan for review, further engagement and feedback. The implementation plan will provide greater details about how implementation could proceed, and what fisheries management processes that incorporate EAFM could be expected to look like. Having an implementation plan that is informed by a range of perspectives is expected to improve its robustness and overall relevance.

Timelines

The department anticipates that engagement on this discussion document will occur during the late summer and fall of 2023. It is expected that engagement with Indigenous Peoples and stakeholders across DFO’s regions will proceed through a set of virtual meetings. The department also expects to continue to provide updates on the advancement of EAFM at DFO through established fisheries advisory committees and other regular departmental processes.

The department intends to have a draft implementation plan ready for circulation and further engagement in the winter of 2023-24, with the target of having a final implementation plan completed in the spring of 2024.

Pending necessary funding and final approvals, implementation of an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management will follow. Adopting EAFM is highly dependent on the collection of essential environmental information and the associated scientific research and assessment to support decision-making. The rate and extent of EAFM implementation is contingent on the availability of incremental resources, particularly for critical scientific work.

What is an ecosystem approach to fisheries management?

DFO’s working definition for EAFM is the incorporation of environmental information from the relevant ecosystem into stock assessment and fisheries decision-making processes for a given fish stock to support fisheries decision making. EAFM seeks to improve the understanding of how fish stocks may be influenced by the components of their ecosystems and how these interactions affect stocks. The insights gained are intended to help inform decisions about those stocks. EAFM offers a means through which to support fisheries resilience and adaptive management in pursuit of the dual goals of economic prosperity and ecosystem sustainability upon which lasting prosperity for coastal communities depends.

Incorporating ecosystem information into fisheries management has long been a departmental direction. It is already employed, to varying degrees, in a number of Canadian fisheries through considerations of environmental variables such as climate, habitat, and key food web interactions. Importantly, however, EAFM has yet to be undertaken comprehensively or systematically across most federally managed fisheries.

The rate of aquatic ecosystem changes and their potential effects on fish stocks points to the need for a more thorough understanding of environmental drivers and their consequences. With expanded research and advancements in ecosystem and fisheries science, the department aims to be able to more fully use existing environmental data that it has and collect new information to improve the science advice that informs fisheries management decisions. This means incorporating environmental information into stock assessments, to better understand stock health and improve forecasting. Relevant environmental information may include, but are not limited to:

Employing EAFM can provide a range of benefits, including:

Operationally, EAFM would maintain the familiar single-stock approach to management that the department currently uses but would build on that approach by acquiring and incorporating additional environmental information into that approach.

Other ecosystem-informed approaches, such as ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), share the same interest in bringing ecosystem information to bear in improving fisheries management choices. The terms EAFM and EBFM are often used interchangeably, however EBFM moves beyond single-stock fisheries management, adopting a multi-stock assessment and management perspective within a particular ecosystem. Although incremental advances and improved levels of sophistication in understanding ecosystems may tend to lead naturally to EBFM in the longer term, the approach and focus of this discussion document is EAFM within a single-stock management approach.

What is the cause for action?

A level of urgency drives the need for adaptation by the department in the face of biodiversity loss and climate change-induced effects on aquatic ecosystems. Changes in the ocean environment driven by climate change are many and varied. At a general level, Canada’s oceans are now warmer, more acidic, and less oxygenated, all of which have important implications for Canada’s fishing sector. Canada’s Changing Climate Report identifies, with a high degree of confidence, increasing acidity of the upper-ocean waters surrounding Canada, consistent with increased carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere, something that is expected to continue, with acidification occurring most rapidly in the Arctic Ocean.

While this discussion document is not intended to be an extensive description of changing conditions in Canada’s oceans and their related impacts on the fishing sector, various studies have pointed to, for example, impeded growth of shrimp, lobster and phytoplankton due to increasing ocean acidification. The phenomenon of northward species migration has already been widely observed, conferring losses in some areas and gains in others, at least temporarily. At the same time, changing ecosystems also create conditions supportive of invasive species (such as Green Crab or tunicates), with potentially substantial environmental and economic impacts to current fisheries and aquatic ecosystems.

Also, Parliament has indicated interest in EAFM. As noted above, in March 2023, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO) underlined the importance of moving forward with an ecosystem-informed approach to fisheries management. In its report Science at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the committee advised that “DFO speed up the implementation of an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management in Canada given the impact of climate change.”

Importantly, the recent Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Convention of Biodiversity, held in Canada in late 2022, saw the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), mentioned earlier. That framework committed the parties to implementing a number of targets which explicitly include the adoption of the ecosystem approach to help ensure the sustainable harvest of wild stocks and provide social, economic and environmental benefits to people.

Biodiversity plays an important role in an ecosystem’s ability to regulate and withstand both biotic stress (damage done to organisms by other living organisms), such as changing predator-prey interactions, and abiotic influences (the impacts of non-living factors on organisms), such as changes in water temperature. Biodiverse ecosystems are recognized as being better able to respond to the pressures of pollution and habitat degradation or loss, for example.

There is much more to be said about the various climatic, oceanographic and ecological changes underway and expected in Canada’s oceans. The scope and scale of environmental change points to the need for improvements in fisheries management practices to anticipate and respond more effectively to an increasingly dynamic marine environment, and the risks that this implies for the fishing sector.

Other pressures for EAFM adoption

As discussed, comprehensive adoption of EAFM would provide DFO with improved capacity to understand fish stocks in their ecosystem contexts, thereby providing improved capacity to manage those stocks in the face of growing uncertainty. Additionally, EAFM would also respond to other key fisheries management requirements that DFO must address.

The fish stocks provisions (FSPs) of the renewed Fisheries Act create obligations with respect to considering the broader environment for fish stocks. They note that

More broadly, the Fisheries Act also notes that,

In general, while EAFM represents a valuable tool to support adaptative management, the approach can also serve other purposes such as helping to address legal obligations under the Fisheries Act involving consideration of broader environmental factors.

Doesn’t DFO already undertake EAFM?

Beginning in 2009, DFO developed and implemented the Sustainable Fisheries Framework (SFF), which comprises a suite of policies and tools designed to help ensure that Canada’s fisheries are environmentally sustainable while supporting economic prosperity. Among SFF elements is DFO’s Precautionary Approach (PA) Policy, which describes a fishery decision-making framework for setting harvest levels for target stocks. There are also policies to manage the risks to bycatch stocks in fisheries, to protect sensitive benthic habitats, and to better manage forage fish stocks. Overall, the SFF assists in establishing a broad policy basis for implementing EAFM and will remain a key part of the federal fisheries management regime with full EAFM implementation.

As well, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), of which Canada is a member state, has committed to working towards an ecosystem approach to fisheries management. In 2019, NAFO developed its Roadmap to describe the implementation of an ecosystem approach. It contains a set of principles that allow for the continued use of existing tools informed by ecosystem knowledge. In this respect, Canada’s international membership obligations are linked to the pursuit of EAFM.

Overall, EAFM has been recognized as a desired direction for federal fisheries management domestically and is something in which Canada is implicated internationally.

What are other countries doing?

Canada is not alone in moving forward on EAFM. The following is a very brief and non-exhaustive summary of a number ecosystem-informed approaches to fisheries management taking place internationally.

United States – Fishery ecosystem plans

The United States has developed a stand-alone policy regarding ecosystem approaches in fisheries. It outlines the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) strategic vision for implementing ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM). NOAA’s 2016 EBFM Policy situates this management approach within existing legal authorities and establishes guiding principles for the implementation of EBFM in US fisheries in collaboration with Regional Fishery Management Councils.

Each of the eight established US Regional Fishery Management Councils have developed regional EBFM Implementation Plans to catalogue existing EBFM progress and identify new management and research milestones. In addition, four of those Councils have developed Fishery Ecosystem Plans (FEPs) for nine major ecosystems. FEPs are mainly descriptive documents that provide information on ecosystem interactions, direct how this information can be applied in Fishery Management Plans, and, in some instances, set policies by which management options are developed.

For example, NOAA’s management of Atlantic menhaden involves the use of ecological reference points to support directed fishery management decisions with specific consideration of predator interactions, principally focused on Atlantic striped bass. NOAA’s use of ecological reference points provides a method to assess the status of Atlantic menhaden not only with regard to its own sustainability, but also with respect to its interactions with predators and the status of other prey species.

European Union - Barents Sea cod and capelin

Along the northern coasts of Norway and Russia, an ecosystem approach has been adopted for the management of Atlantic cod and capelin in the Barents Sea, involving (1) a broad-scale ecosystem overview; and (2) dedicated stock assessments for both Atlantic cod and capelin which expressly include consideration of species interactions and climate change influences.

For the Barents Sea, science advice is provided via the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). The ecosystem overview report is a comprehensive review of the Barents Sea, with a focus on the oceanographic, biophysical and geospatial aspects.

In the current ICES ecosystem overview for the Barents Sea, the science advice indicates that Atlantic cod stocks have extended their spatial distribution northwards and exhibited a higher biomass in those regions in recent years. Capelin populations were also found to have increased in abundance, but with reduced recruitment rates and resultant higher predation pressure on plankton as the food source. Also, recommended fisheries management measures at the ecosystem scale include measures to reduce bycatch of coastal cod stocks as much as possible in order to promote stock rebuilding.

Implementation of EAFM in the Pacific

Indonesia has collaborated with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to apply EAFM to address ecosystem threats, and fisheries and food security challenges. In Australia, the principle of ecologically sustainable development has been included in more than 60 pieces of legislation and takes an ecosystem-based approach to commercial fisheries by applying an Ecological Risk Assessment framework to assist decision-makers. The Ecological Risk Management Policy requires an Ecological Risk Assessment for the Effects of Fishing (ERAEF) to be conducted on fisheries every five years. The ERAEF is a hierarchy of risk assessment methodologies progressing from a primarily qualitative analysis to more detailed and quantitative analysis, and to identify high risk, low risk and data deficient species.

It can be seen from these examples that the emerging trend is the increased and incremental use of ecosystem-informed approaches to fisheries management and measures that can both build resilience to climate change and strengthen the fisheries sector by helping to ensure longer term sustainability.

What would change compared to how DFO manages fisheries right now?

Moving to full EAFM implementation is expected to proceed incrementally. Over time, DFO would work towards integrating environmental variables through comprehensive and systematic inclusion of physical, biological, and environmental information as part of stock assessment and fisheries management. It is early at this stage to say with any certainty what specific changes would occur compared to current practices. Nonetheless, the following provides some initial thoughts on possible changes and areas of expected continuity.

The current fisheries management approach that DFO employs is framed by the Fisheries Act, regulations, and key policies, and is something that would continue into the future. As noted, the SFF suite of policies, including A Fishery Decision-making Framework Incorporating the Precautionary Approach (PA Policy), would continue to be central in the federal fisheries management regime.

In general, implementing EAFM would rely on a substantially expanded program of scientific work related to the acquisition, analysis and modelling of environmental information to support stock assessments and fisheries management decisions. While it is difficult to specify with certainty the full extent of that program of work, it could initially include: the evaluation of existing environmental information; research to obtain new environmental information to address data gaps; development and implementation of ecosystem indicators; analysis of status, including review of trends, key system interactions and associated risks; and finally, delivery of overall ecosystem assessments.

An integrated ecosystem assessment would be a formal synthesis of relevant environmental factors in relation to an aquatic ecosystem and would be used to help inform eventual advice and fishery management decisions. It would likely include climate change vulnerability assessments, evaluated as changes in growth and mortality rates of fish populations, stock distributions, prey-predator relationships, etc. Integrated ecosystem assessments would begin with defining conservation and management goals and highlight the process for how science would feed into management choices and receive feedback based on the impact of management actions and changing ecosystem status and objectives.

The implementation of EAFM could have benefits for developing better informed reference points (limit reference points, upper stock reference points) for the management for various stocks, as required under the PA Policy. Recently, DFO Science has applied ecosystem information in the development of Limit Reference Points (LRPs) for capelin and striped shrimp. The use of ecosystem information in this work may offer a more comprehensive and robust view of stock dynamics and allow for determination of LRPs when the traditional data are limited or non-existent.

Regular stakeholder engagement processes involving fisheries advisory committee meetings presently in place would continue. Advisory committees would continue to provide views and advice to the department with respect to fisheries management actions, but in doing so would benefit from the results of the broadened science program of work involving analysis of key environmental variables and their implications for particular fish stocks. For example, Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMPs) could incorporate approaches for responding to changing environmental conditions with the objective of helping to ensure long-term sustainability of the fishery. Supported by ecosystem analysis, IFMPs would be better able to set out general plans for responding to changing environmental conditions with the objective of helping to ensure long-term sustainability.

A case study example

After a comprehensive review of federally managed stocks, DFO has analyzed more than 30 case studies of domestic fisheries to understand how environmental variables can influence the development and provision of DFO science advice and subsequent fisheries management decisions.

An EAFM case study of Newfoundland snow crab demonstrates how environmental variables can help to provide a deeper understanding of stock performance and contribute to an improved capacity to make predictions about that performance. The case study, initiated in 2021, focused on incorporating several environmental variables into the stock assessment, including water temperature as a primary environmental variable, the North Atlantic Oscillation index (fluctuations in atmospheric pressure at sea level), biological structure and trends, and available knowledge of ecological interactions (e.g. predator-prey) and stressors (e.g. anthropogenic impacts), all of which demonstrate how climate systems can directly impact fishery dynamics and productivity.

The case study demonstrated a correlation between changes in environmental variables and resource decline and subsequent recovery. In other words, environmental variables were shown to help predict stock status.

The resulting science advice for Newfoundland snow crab specifically noted that several ecosystem drivers may be encouraging both short and long-term growth of the stock, including the influence of cooler bottom water temperatures and a slight decline in predation in most areas. Ultimately, the scientific information helped to inform the decision for an overall total allowable catch (TAC) increase of 29 percent. For fisheries management and decision making, this case study in the use of environmental variables points to increased confidence that may be available for TAC decisions that do not compromise the future health of stocks and can provide resource users with longer-term certainty about likely stock trends, associated economic opportunity and fishery stability.

Building on the success of the Newfoundland snow crab case study, environmental variables have been part of snow crab advisory meetings since 2021 and stakeholders have become increasingly aware of the opportunity and impact of environmental variables on the current and future state of the stock and management of the fishery.

Why is DFO talking about implementation of EAFM now?

At present, DFO does not have a fixed timeline for the full implementation of EAFM, nor has it confirmed a source of additional funding that would enable the comprehensive implementation of the approach in federally managed fisheries, though it is actively exploring funding sources.

Notwithstanding that uncertainty, we would like to hear your views at this early stage to help inform the advancement of this initiative. The approach to engagement adopted in this exercise is to conceive of the time available for discussion as a resource in and of itself, one that is typically more sharply limited. The time available should allow all interests sufficient opportunity to develop their views with respect to the broadened implementation of EAFM, and to engage with the department over several rounds of outreach as described above.

We believe that engagement in these terms will help to achieve a common and clearer understanding of the overall direction regarding EAFM, something that should help to foster greater predictability and certainty in future departmental programming.

Next steps

This discussion document is intended to provide Indigenous Peoples and stakeholders with the department’s early thoughts on EAFM. Your feedback will help inform a plan to move towards the more systematic, and hopefully more comprehensive, implementation of it. This short document is intended as an early step in a constructive dialogue on advancing the acquisition and consideration of ecosystem information as part of fisheries science and decision making.

As noted, outreach and engagement are anticipated to begin in the fall of 2023. The department will work to ensure that the scheduling of outreach sessions accommodates as best as possible the various fishing seasons. Engagement sessions are expected to occur through virtual meetings. DFO will also continue to provide information on the advancement of EAFM at DFO through fisheries advisory committees and other regular departmental processes.

The views obtained during engagement on this document in the fall of 2023 will help to inform a subsequent draft implementation plan to operationalize EAFM at DFO. Again, that draft implementation plan will be the subject of further engagement, expected in the winter of 2023-24. A finalized implementation plan is targeted for completion in the spring of 2024.

Appendix 1 of this document includes several questions that we hope might help to generate feedback regarding EAFM. These questions are not intended to be exhaustive or represent the full range of points that could be raised; rather, they are intended as a possible starting point for helping to foster reflection, views, and discussion.

Should you wish to provide comments directly to the department in writing, please send your views to: dfo.eafm-aegp.mpo@dfo-mpo.gc.ca.

Appendix 1. Engagement questions

  1. What changes have you noticed in the stocks that you fish? For which fishery? Over the last 5 years? Over the last 10 years (e.g., location of catch, timing of catch, required fishing effort, etc.)
  2. How concerned are you about the future of your fishery and prospects for future generations of harvesters? Why?
  3. From your experience, what do you think are some of the priority species or stocks where ecosystem considerations (e.g., climate change, predator-prey interactions) might be important? Why?
  4. What potential benefits do you think could emerge from taking an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM)? For your fishery, your community, the environment?
  5. What potential concerns/negatives do you see with EAFM?
  6. What role do you see for yourself and/or other groups to be involved in the development and implementation of EAFM?
  7. Are there existing forums that you think would be helpful for advancing EAFM (e.g., stakeholder advisory boards, roundtables, wildlife boards)? If so, what are they?
  8. How else would you like to be engaged as EAFM is developed and implemented at DFO?
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