Take Action - Help Save Coral

Please send an e-mail to the Hon. Keith Ashfield, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

In the Finding Coral Expedition we saw that deep-sea corals provide important habitat for a number of animals, including commercial fish. We also know that these corals are easily damaged and destroyed by some kinds of fishing.

Canada recently released the Pacific Region Cold-Water Coral and Sponge Conservation Strategy. While we support much of what is in this Strategy, it has two major holes that will continue to allow commercial fishing to harm corals:

1. No interim protection

The Strategy will take time to put in place – years, in fact. During this time, fisheries may still damage and destroy corals. This is why we need interim protection for areas of high coral abundance immediately.

2. Can’t work without the national Ecological Risk Assessment Framework

By far, the greatest direct threat to our deep-sea corals are fishing gears that contact the bottom, such as bottom trawling. The national Ecological Risk Assessment Framework is the tool that will be used to manage fisheries impacts on corals and sponges. DFO has been working on this Framework for several years. Until it is finished, the regional Strategy can’t be put into action.

Please join us in thanking Minister of Fisheries and Oceans the Honourable Keith Ashfield for the release of the Pacific Region Cold-Water Coral and Sponge Conservation Strategy, and to ask him to further improve coral conservation with:

Interim protection for important coral areas in the Pacific, and
Completion of a strong, science-based Ecological Risk Assessment Framework

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To: The Hon. Keith Ashfield, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Dear Minister:

I am writing to thank you for the recent release of the Pacific Region Cold-Water Coral and Sponge Conservation Strategy. I would also urge you to take two further steps to protect corals, sponges and the creatures that live amongst them:

1. Implement interim measures to conserve areas of high coral abundance in Canada's Pacific Ocean. There are currently no measures in place to conserve corals in the Pacific Region. This means that while the Strategy is implemented over the course of several years, corals will continue to be impacted by human activities. DFO's own scientists recognize that coral recovery from human impacts is extremely slow, when it occurs at all. For this reason, the destruction of corals is largely irreversible. This is why I strongly encourage you to implement interim measures to protect areas of known high coral abundance in the Pacific while the new Strategy is being implemented.

2. Complete a scientifically sound Ecological Risk Analysis Framework. The national Ecological Risk Analysis Framework (ERAF) will be a key piece to the new Pacific Region Strategy. Without the ERAF, however, neither the Strategy nor the national policy to manage fisheries impacts on sensitive habitats can be fully implemented. DFO's Fisheries Renewal group has been working on the ERAF for some time, but it is not yet complete. I urge you see that a scientifically sound ERAF is completed soon, so that DFO may begin implementing the policy tools required to conserve cold-water corals and sponges in the Pacific Region.

By taking these two steps, your department will build on the momentum generated by the release of the Strategy and will substantially improve the conservation of deep-sea corals in the Pacific.

Sincerely,

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Take Action - Help Save Coral

Please send an e-mail to the Hon. Keith Ashfield, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

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