Message from the Assistant Deputy Minister of Science

I am fortunate this year to be able to congratulate a very hard-working group of my colleagues on being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. I am immensely proud of the work achieved by scientists of Fisheries and Oceans Canada in their contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — co-winners of the prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Our understanding of the Arctic ecosystem, its climate and oceans, has never been more essential, and these scientists — too many to name in this short message — have made an immeasurable contribution to global science. They have indeed altered the world's knowledge of climate processes and our society's response to those processes. Although the Nobel Prize was announced in October 2007, long past the final date in the fiscal year covered by this report, I could not resist the opportunity to congratulate my colleagues and the IPCC as a whole, and to celebrate their outstanding work. There is more about their contribution in the Recognizing Excellence section of this report. I also urge you to read the IPCC summary report.*

Leading aquatic researchers around the world, many of them Canadian, advocate a dynamic and multi-disciplinary ecosystem approach to managing human impacts on aquatic resources. We believe this approach is suited to interpreting events in Canada's oceans such as ecosystem shifts, oceanographic changes, the collapse of the East coast ground fisheries and fluctuations in returns of West coast salmon stocks, and the management of freshwater ecosystems.

This year the Science Sector of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) took steps to move further ahead with an ecosystem approach to science, which is outlined for our clients and stakeholders in New Ecosystem Science Framework in Support of Integrated Management. The ecosystem approach focuses on the key relationships in nature, how human activities interact with one another, and how humans affect aquatic ecosystems. Using the ecosystem approach, our scientists will provide essential science-based advice about aquatic ecosystems and the impacts of people on those ecosystems for the integrated management of diverse activities involved in fisheries, transportation, aquaculture, habitat, ocean resources, and the recovery of species at risk, as well as those connected to oil and gas exploration.

Key activities of DFO Science — research, monitoring and advice — are moving toward using this multi-disciplinary, precautionary, rules-based and indicators-based approach, which makes use of risk assessment tools and best practices for the cumulative assessment of ecosystems. Stakeholders inside and outside the department will notice that we will focus more on providing ecosystem data and less on providing information on a single target stock or single human activity. Other core Science activities — managing data and information, and data products and services — support us in this approach, and we continue to provide these to Canadians.

During the year, we continued to establish Centres of Expertise to focus research efforts on high-priority issues where it is most effective to partner both internally and externally with academia, other departments and other governments to achieve results.

I was also pleased to represent DFO at the signing of a Letter of Intent on Scientific Collaboration with Spain for collaborative research projects on ecosystem and fisheries science, aquaculture and genomics, aquatic animal health and aquatic invasive species.

I believe it is vital that Canadians have perspective on the value and relevance of DFO Science. This report is part of that effort, as is Science that Matters, a brochure we created to introduce ourselves to new recruits, to those who would collaborate with us and to all Canadians.

Wendy Watson-Wright, PhD
Assistant Deputy Minister
Science Sector, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

* Learn more at: www.ipcc-wg2.gov