The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) of Halifax Nova Scotia, with support from the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, is taking the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to court. The Centre is proceeding with a legal action to protect Canada's marine fish habitat. They have brought an application for judicial review of a variation order issued by the Regional Director-General of DFO. The variation order would re-open the Canadian side of the highly productive and ecologically sensitive fishing ground called Georges Bank to groundfish draggers.
Under section 35(1) of the Fisheries Act, it is illegal to harmfully alter, disrupt or destroy fish habitat. The Fisheries Act makes the DFO legally responsible for the management and conservation of fisheries, the protection of fish habitat, and the enforcement of the habitat protection provisions. To date, DFO has enforced the act when people seek to alter or disturb a lake, river or stream that contains fish But they typically have ignored any responsibility for fish habitat in the ocean.
Although the Fisheries Act makes it illegal to harmfully alter, disrupt or destroy fish habitat, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans may authorize this destruction in specific instances, but after an environmental impact assessment. Habitat destruction by draggers has never been authorized by the Minister, and dragging has never been subjected to an environmental assessment.
Dragging or trawling is the towing of heavy fishing gear (nets, cables, rollers, and doors) over the bottom or through the water. Many marine scientists consider the impact of dragging on the ocean floor to be one of the most harmful human activities affecting the ocean today. Scientific literature detailing the damage done has piled up over the past two decades. In some cases studies indicate relatively little damage, for instance where dragging is done on mobile sandy bottoms. In other cases, for example along the outer edge of the Scotian shelf where there are forests of thousand year old corals, the damage is extreme. Dragging reduces species diversity, biomass and structural complexity and tends to homogenize the ocean floor. Many marine invertebrates and fishes, including the juveniles of commercial species, rely on structurally complex features such as corals for protection and food.
There are alternative fishing methods, such as bottom hook and line, which benefit both the environment and the economy. An environmental assessment would demonstrate that hook and line gear does minimal damage to the ocean floor, creates more jobs per pound of fish caught, is less open to abuse, lands a better quality fish and is less likely to over-exploit the stocks.
In spite of years of concerted research and lobbying by EAC and other environmental and (inshore) fishing organizations on the issue of responsible fishing, the Fisheries Management Branch of DFO has never made a concerted effort to encourage the use of less destructive gear types. It is EAC's observation that powerful interests in the fishery ensure that DFO does not change its current policy toward dragging. That leaves the EAC with no option but to go to court.
* Contact the Ecology Action Centre Marine Issues Committee c/o Mark Butler at ar427@chebucto.ns.ca
* Earth Action Weekly Bulletin #20, August 2001