Socio-Economic Considerations

How Canadians value and use their coastal and ocean areas has a direct impact on those areas. In turn, the health of our oceans and people’s connections to them affect our social, cultural and economic stability and health. Resource-management decisions affect ecosystems, local people and businesses directly. These decisions can have both positive and negative impacts.

The expertise of Fisheries and Oceans Canada lies in ecosystem science. Not surprisingly, integrated-management planning typically started by first assessing the biophysical components within the planning area.

However, the need to understand social, economic and cultural considerations to inform sound management decisions has been acknowledged from the beginning. Social, economic, cultural and ecosystem considerations cannot be dealt with separately, but rather as integrated and interdependent systems.

Socio-economic expectations are brought into the planning process through a social, economic and cultural overview and assessment (SECOA) that is carried out for a defined area.

The information and data gathered through the SECOA is used to make planning decisions within LOMAs, but may have other applications over time. Specifically, the SECOA provides a basis for developing and refining the operational objectives of the integrated-management plans for LOMAs.

Value of coastal ecosystems to local communities

People in coastal communities depend on coastal ecosystems and often have long-standing cultural and economic connections to them.

A wide variety of economic activities depend entirely upon, or have strong ties to, coastal ecosystems. These include activities related to catching and raising, harvesting, and processing biological resources (e.g. fish and shellfish); exploration; tourism; transportation and ports; and energy (both renewable and non-renewable). Whether such activities are historical, community-based, large scale or newly developed, they can contribute significantly to the socio-economic and cultural well-being of coastal communities.

Long-standing economic or subsistence activities are often strongly linked to specific coastal ecosystem components (e.g. key habitats or species), which if lost can have a significant impact on cultural identity and can lead to social disruptions and loss of self-sufficiency. Furthermore, substitutes are typically not available when cultural services (e.g. aesthetic value, knowledge systems, etc.) are lost. Such effects may be both local and far reaching.

Importance of the human dimension of ocean management

Social, cultural and economic information may be used in addition to ecological information to characterize the LOMA. This information is useful for assisting decision makers to anticipate and understand conflicts of interest, and identify biases and sensitivities that need to be taken into consideration during any decision-making process. Recognizing the human aspects associated with oceans management can help ensure fairness and balance in decision making and lead to more effective management plans.

Involvement of stakeholders in the integrated-management process and consideration of social, cultural and economic characteristics and associated objectives are key to the success of integrated management.

Involvement of communities in decisions about oceans management and active participation in the implementation, tracking and evaluation of integrated-management plans are an integral part of Canada’s modern approach to oceans management.