Guidance on the level of protection of significant areas of coldwater corals and sponge-dominated communities in Newfoundland and Labrador waters .: Fs70-7/2017-030E-PDF

“Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has identified Significant Benthic Areas (SBAs) as ecologically and biologically significant cold-water coral or sponge-dominated regional habitats. Within these areas, Sensitive Benthic Areas (SeBAs, not to be confused with SBAs) are defined based on their exposure to proposed or ongoing fishing activities. Mitigation of impacts of fishing in SeBAs, or avoidance of serious or irreversible harm to sensitive marine habitat, communities and species due to fishing activities is managed through DFO’s Policy for Managing the Impacts of Fishing on Sensitive Benthic Areas (hereafter referred to as “SeBA Policy”). […] further guidance is required for the operational implementation of the SeBA Policy regarding what level of protection to SBAs is sufficient to deliver the conservation goals of this policy. At the present time there are no National guidelines on this topic. Given the ongoing process for implementing the SeBA Policy in the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Region, Ecosystems Management requested that Science provide guidance and advice on the level of protection that would be deemed sufficient to mitigate impacts of fishing on SBAs or to avoid impacts of fishing that are likely to cause serious or irreversible harm to SBAs in the NL bioregion. The NL bioregion is defined as Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) Subareas 2 and 3, also denoted as “NL waters”, even though some analyses also required the inclusion of Div. 0B to preserve ecological integrity of some of the features considered"--Context, p. [1].

Permanent link to this Catalogue record:
publications.gc.ca/pub?id=9.839932&sl=0

• MARC XML format
• MARC HTML format

Request alternate formats