Integrated Management Planning

Placentia Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador

Integrated Management (IM)

The Placentia Bay / Grand Banks Large Ocean Management Area (LOMA) is one of five priority areas in Canada identified for Integrated Management (IM). Placentia Bay is an area within the LOMA that has been identified as a Coastal Management Area due to the increasing level of human activities. The Placentia Bay IM initiative is focused on integrated planning and management of human activities so that they do not conflict with one another. The Placentia Bay Integrated Management Plan will consider all factors necessary for the conservation and sustainable use of marine resources, shared use of ocean spaces, as well as social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects of the area.

Why Placentia Bay?

Emerging community-based approaches to marine resource management reflect the changing role of government. Under the Oceans Act, it is clearly stated that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

'...shall lead and facilitate the development and implementation of plans for the integrated management of all activities or measures in or affecting estuaries, coastal waters and marine waters...of Canada...'

In the early 1990's, the Public Review Panel on Tanker Safety and Marine Spills Response Capability identified Placentia Bay as the marine area with the highest potential for an oil-related environmental accident in Canada. More than 365 islands and reefs are found in the bay where visibility can be reduced to less than one kilometre on an average of 187 days per year. ^{Footnote 2} The reopening of the oil refinery at Come By Chance in 1987, along with the Newfoundland Transhipment Terminal becoming operational in 1998, has increased tanker traffic and the risk of accidents.

In 1997, the Terra Nova Project Environmental Assessment Panel recommended that

'…the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador establish a coastal zone management plan for the Avalon Peninsula and west side of Placentia Bay'.

The provincial government has accepted this recommendation and Fisheries and Oceans Canada has stated that it recognizes the sensitivity of Placentia Bay and will work on initiatives towards integrated management of the area.