About PNCIMA
The Pacific North Coast Integrated Man-agement Area (PNCIMA pronounced pin-SEE-ma) includes waters of the Central Coast, North Coast, and Haida Gwaii on the British Columbia coast. This is an area of high ecological, social, and economic importance and encom-passes approximately 88,000 km2. Man-agement to date has not always been effective at addressing all of the issues in this region, resulting in the degrada-tion of certain marine environments and fisheries.
PNCIMAwatch.ca was created to document the progress of the federal, provin-cial and First Nations governments in taking measurable action to launch a marine planning process in the PNCIMA that will establish a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) and an inte-grated management regime designed to maintain ecosystem health and integrity both inside and outside those areas.
This is the fifth e-newsletter PNCIMA Watch has sent to provide regular up-dates on the progress of governments toward showing true leadership in estab-lishing a marine planning process in the PNCIMA, one that will enable the people who work and live on this coast to create
Voting for PNCIMA
How can you make your vote count for the ocean in the PNCIMA? While most parties address climate change in their platforms, few include specifics on oceans policy. We’ve provided a sum-mary of party platforms related to oceans so you can decide how to make your vote count.
All of the candidates in Vancouver Island North (VIN), one of 2 Federal ridings in the PNCIMA, recognize marine planning as critical to healthy and sustainable economies.
VIN Liberal Candidate Geoff Fleischer said he supports the idea of a planning process that gives everybody who de-pends on the ocean a voice.
NDP incumbent Catherine Bell said she sees the need for an integrated manage-ment planning process adding, “I’m par-ticularly concerned about declining fish stocks and loss of habitat from logging operations.”
Conservative candidate John Duncan said he agreed that all ocean areas re-quire some kind of planning process but felt that “ocean planning did not rank high in relation to other issues in his rid-ing.”
Green Party candidate Phillip Stone said that resolving issues on the oceans re-quires constructive dialogue and felt that to make substantive change a cultural shift is required in the DFO so that stakeholder’s views are valued.
During this election, help get PNCIMA on the agenda. Talk to your local can-didates and ask them: "Does your po-litical party intend to support and provide federal funding for a marine planning process that includes establishing a net-work marine protected areas?"
Our Bountiful Sea
The bounty of PNCIMA and its essential value to the people in the communities of the area is beautifully presented in a landmark report - BC’s Bountiful Sea - Heritage Worth Preserving.
The report details the interconnected na-ture of the abundant, diverse and ever-changing marine environment and the values and benefits of the PNCIMA. Many of PNCIMA’s unique aspects are highlighted and should in-spire communities up and down the coast to work together and create a plan that manages ocean resources.
For example: Few know that PNCIMA is home to 9,000-year-old reefs made of glass produced by sponges. These reefs, found only off our coast, grow five stories high and cover 1,000 square kilo-meters. Unfortunately, the reefs are threatened - scientists estimate that 50 percent of these reefs have been de-stroyed by bottom trawling and will take lifetimes to recover.
Yet sustaining healthy oceans and healthy communities is possible. The report concludes, “The best way to achieve this is by creating detailed con-servation and management plans through an integrated marine-use plan-ning process that actively engages the people who live, work and play in the PNCIMA.”
Keeping PNCIMA ‘Integrated’
We have learned that Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and Coastal First Nations (CFN) are hoping to sign a bilateral agreement on PNCIMA following the federal election. Both govern-ments have indicated that this agree-ment will serve as a formal launch to the PNCIMA process. They intend to start by convening a Marine Transportation Working Group (MTWG) at the front-end of the PNCIMA process.
The rationale that DFO and CFN give for using only one of the industry sectors to start is that they anticipate the process will foster relationships and get relevant stakeholders engaged. While this ap-proach may make the start of the PNCIMA process easier to handle ini-tially, it does not follow best practices for an integrated approach.
The first step in any integrated manage-ment planning process should be to de-velop objectives for the process as a whole before addressing any single is-sue. This ensures there will be no con-flicting objectives as the process pro-gresses. Although both DFO and CFN assure us that the MTWG undertaking will indeed be part of a larger more com-prehensive planning process there is no indication how the objectives developed for the MTWG will connect to the larger PNCIMA process.
To that end, the BC ENGO Marine Plan-ning Caucus feels strongly that a com-mon suite of overall PNCIMA process objectives needs to form the foundation of the MTWG initiative. Furthermore, the MTWG initiative should be just one of several working groups that form the planning process for the PNCIMA, and the development of working groups should not replace or hinder the devel-opment of the larger PNCIMA process.
Building Relationships in PNCIMA
A working life on the waters in PNCIMA has never been easy, but when Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has lost the trust of the people who live off the ocean, it can only get harder.
As highlighted in the release of The Bountiful Sea – A Heritage Worth Pre-serving , protecting the productivity of ocean ecosystems can best be achieved through an integrated management planning process. Yet the hint of another planning process is far from music to the ears for many fisherman and tour opera-tors up and down the coast. In fact, DFO’s history of failing to incorporate the views of stakeholders has happened often enough to create a pervasive lack of trust in the agency.
We spoke with several people through-out the PNCIMA region to hear their thoughts.
Andrew Jones owner of Kingfisher Adventures said, “There have been a lot of good stakeholder processes with good management recommendations, none of which DFO acted on.”
Echoing this was a salmon fisher out of Prince Rupert who said, “I’ve stopped participating in the planning meetings be-cause the DFO was using us. Their man-date is to consult but it doesn’t seem to be to actually listen.”
As the lead federal agency behind PNCIMA, DFO has an opportunity to re-build lost trust and stakeholder confi-dence if it engages stakeholders in a meaningful way and follows through on the recommendations and commitments that result from the plan. However, to do this they need to start meeting with indus-try and community leaders now and shar-ing information related to the PNCIMA process.
Who We Are
The organizations that created PNCIMA Watch include the Living Oceans Society, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Si-erra Club-British Columbia. Together these groups make up the BC ENGO Ma-rine Planning Caucus. We are working to inform those who are interested in estab-lishing an integrated management plan for the PNCIMA that improves ocean management and establishes a rigorous conservation plan for the region.
Our organizations are committed to pro-tecting and restoring healthy marine eco-systems in the PNCIMA. We believe that the best way to achieve this outcome is through a collaborative marine planning process that includes bringing together the people who work and live on the coast. Only in this way can we decide
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Pncima.
