Terms of Reference

Science Advice on Marine Productivity Benchmarks

National Peer Review - National Capital Region

March 28-30, 2017
Ottawa, Ontario

Co-Chairpersons: Mike Bradford and Keith Clarke

Context

The Fisheries Act was amended in 2012 to include new provisions for fisheries protection which came into force in 2013.  The amended Act focuses on managing threats to the sustainability and ongoing productivity of commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fisheries and contains a prohibition against serious harm to fish that are part of or support a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fishery.  Serious harm to fish is defined in the Act as the death of fish, the permanent alteration to, or destruction of, fish habitat.  If serious harm to fish cannot be avoided, proponents of projects may apply for authorizations.

Although productivity is not part of determining whether serious harm to fish has occurred, Fisheries Protection Program (FPP) considers fisheries productivity, among other factors, when considering whether an authorization is appropriate (section 6, 6.1 in the Fisheries Act).^{Footnote 1}

Building on previous advice in freshwater ecosystems on the feasibility of using regional community and population productivity benchmarks (DFO 2016), Ecosystems Management is requesting science advice on the feasibility of determining benchmarks of fish productivity in marine ecosystems, including relevant methodologies and spatial units of variability. This advice is necessary to understand regional variability in fish productivity across Canada.  Once developed, regional productivity benchmarks are anticipated to be used in the following ways:

• To provide estimates of regional productivity that can be used for understanding baselines for the purposes of impact assessment in the absence of site-specific data for small-medium impact projects.
• To provide estimates of regional productivity that can be used to reasonably estimate targets of potential gains in productivity expected from offsetting.

Building on previous advice in freshwater ecosystems on the use of area per recruit (APR) estimates in setting thresholds (DFO 2015), Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Ecosystems Management is requesting advice on marine relevant estimates of Area per recruit.

Area per recruit (APR) is defined as follows:

• The area of nursery habitats in a stream or lake required to produce one adult recruit with recruits defined as reproductively mature fish.

Objectives

Participants will review Research Documents to address the following questions:

1. Is it feasible to use estimates of fisheries productivity in marine ecosystems to develop benchmarks relevant to evaluate project impacts and offsetting?
2. What approaches and methodologies would be appropriate to determine fish productivity in marine ecosystems?
3. What are the representative habitats or spatial units within which fish productivity can be evaluated, and how do they compare?
4. Is it feasible to use an area per recruit approach as a common metric for discussing impacts to habitat quantity and/or quality on Canadian marine fish?

Expected Publications

• Science Advisory Report
• Proceedings
• Research Documents

Expected Participation

• Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Ecosystems and Oceans Science, Fisheries Protection Program)
• Academia
• Other invited experts

References

DFO. 2016.  Science Advice on Regional Productivity Benchmarks. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Advis. Rep. 2016/053.

DFO. 2015. Science Guidance for Fisheries Protection Policy: Advice on Equivalent Adult Calculation. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Advis. Rep. 2015/011.