This article is over 5 years old and may contain outdated information.

Wildlife

Canada on track to protect 10 per cent of its oceans by 2020

Government is committed to using science to determine what areas of Canada’s oceans will be selected for protection, says Federal Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo
  • Mar 17, 2016
  • 240 words
  • 1 minutes
(Photo: Waqcku/Wikimedia Commons)
Expand Image
Advertisement

Federal Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo says that the government is committed to using science to determine what areas of Canada’s oceans will be selected for protection.

Tootoo, who made the comments in an interview with CBC, also confirmed that the government is on target to set aside five per cent of Canada’s oceans as marine-protected areas by 2017, and 10 per cent by 2020. Canada agreed to those commitments in 2010, after being ranked 119th in marine protection by the United Nations, but has only protected 1.3 per cent of its waters so far.

Tootoo has been meeting with scientists and environmental groups across the country before deciding which areas should be protected. During the CBC interview, the Nunavut-born Tootoo drew attention to the Arctic.

“I want to remind Canadians that we have a third ocean,” he said. “I think it shows that he [Prime Minister Justin Trudeau] sees the importance of the North, as part of our great country, and wants to bring a different perspective on how we look at things.”

Tootoo also told the CBC that the government would explore other, less conventional, options in protecting Canadian waters. “We’re going to have to look at how we’ve traditionally done this over the years, of just small little pockets of areas,” he said. “But we also have to look at some of things other countries have done, like identifying large areas to protect as well.”

Advertisement

Are you passionate about Canadian geography?

You can support Canadian Geographic in 3 ways:

Grizzly Haven

This story is from the April 2016 Issue

Related Content

Environment

The sixth extinction

The planet is in the midst of drastic biodiversity loss that some experts think may be the next great species die-off. How did we get here and what can be done about it?

  • 4895 words
  • 20 minutes
illegal wildlife trade, elephant foot, ivory, biodiversity

Wildlife

The illegal wildlife trade is a biodiversity apocalypse

An estimated annual $175-billion business, the illegal trade in wildlife is the world’s fourth-largest criminal enterprise. It stands to radically alter the animal kingdom.

  • 3405 words
  • 14 minutes
A crowd of tourist swarm on a lakeside beach in Banff National Park

Places

Smother Nature: The struggle to protect Banff National Park

In Banff National Park, Alberta, as in protected areas across the country, managers find it difficult to balance the desire of people to experience wilderness with an imperative to conserve it

  • 3507 words
  • 15 minutes
leather sea stars

Environment

“We did this:” Is there a way out of our intertwined climate and biodiversity crises?

As the impacts of global warming become increasingly evident, the connections to biodiversity loss are hard to ignore. Can this fall’s two key international climate conferences point us to a nature-positive future?

  • 5595 words
  • 23 minutes