The waters off the coast of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula are part of Canada’s newest marine protected area (MPA).

Official protection of the area has been a long time coming, with efforts to have the peninsula designated having started in 2011. This week, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made it official.

The Banc-des-Américains (American Bank) MPA covers 1,000 square kilometres of ocean between Cap-Gaspé and Cap-d’Espoir, where the Gaspé and Chaleur Bay currents meet. A “biological crossroads,” the area is home to many species of fish, crustaceans and seabirds, as well as endangered whales and wolffish.

Alexandra Vance, a marine scientist with Oceana Canada, said the long-term protection has come not a moment too soon. The area is a highly-productive habitat, given the two strong ocean currents that collide along a steep rock wall. That creates an upswelling and leads nutrients to concentrate. They’re brought to the surface and form the beginning of the food web, which benefits everything from corals and krill to fish and whales.

The area also attracts species for mating and spawning.

“The Gulf of St. Lawrence is one of largest and most productive estuaries in the world and this is one of the most productive sites in the Gulf,” Vance said. “It’s a hotspot of biodiversity with an abundance of species all across the range.”

However, the creatures that call the area home are increasingly threatened by climate change and human activity.

”Having prohibitions on (human) activities really does help to safeguard, and in some cases help rebuild, some of these populations.”

While researchers and Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) had seen footage of the shallow area along the top of the area’s rock wall and its silty seafloor, until last summer, good visuals had not been produced of the MPA’s steep rocky slope and the boulders at the foot of it. That’s when DFO partnered with Oceana Canada on an expedition that set out to document it through photos and video surveys, in an effort to fill the gaps in existing research.

“What we found was incredible,” Vance said. “The jaws of researchers on board just dropped.”

There were bright sea anemones and sponges, and tonnes of sea stars and urchins.

“It was gorgeous. We had all that biodiversity right in front of us.”

As a result of that visual evidence, Vance said they were able to say definitively that the area was a hotspot with high abundance and productivity — and one that deserved immediate protection.

In addition to photos and videos, the team also gathered a number of specimens. Vance said the identification is ongoing, but the genetic analysis may very well reveal new species.

“At the very least it will help us get a better understanding of what’s actually there and, through that, how to better protect them.”

The technology employed by the expedition allowed everything the team’s remotely operated vehicle was capturing underwater to be broadcast in real time online to viewers in Canada and around the world.

“As a scientist, I know the conservation value that has,” Vance said.

While many people live on the shores of the Gulf, most don’t know what lives beneath the surface, especially at greater depths.

“It was incredible to bring that wildlife onto their screens so they can have an appreciation for it and can advocate for its protection. It was really bringing this into living rooms that helped with this (MPA) designation,” she said.

This is the first project under the Canada-Quebec Collaborative Agreement for the establishment of a network of marine protected areas in Quebec, and in the estuary and the Gulf. The American Bank will have dual status: an aquatic reserve under Quebec law, and a marine protected area under the Oceans Act.

It’s also part of a larger undertaking. In 2010, Canada signed on to a global effort to protect biological diversity by achieving 20 objectives known as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. As part of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Canada committed to protecting 10 per cent of marine ecosystems by 2020.

It was the previous Conservative government that committed Canada, but did nothing to reach the targets. Since taking power in 2015, the Liberals have worked to increase declared protected areas from about one per cent to eight. However, the majority of those are not MPAs, they’re what’s known as “other effective area-based conservation measures,” (OECMs) or marine refuges. Those are created under the Fisheries Act in a shorter amount of time and don’t always offer the same level of protection as an MPA.

[READ MORE: Focus on quality, not quantity, when protecting marine areas, say scientists]

In October 2018, the National Advisory Panel on Marine Protected Area Standards issued its final report, which said no oil and gas development, seabed mining, or bottom-trawling fishing should be allowed within the boundaries of MPAs. The panel was created early in 2018 by DFO, and also recommended the federal government adopt International Union for the Conservation of Nature standards and guidelines for all MPAs.

Right now, each MPA in this country has its own regulations for what’s permitted within its boundaries. There are no standard prohibitions on extraction activities, including seabed mining and seismic testing. For instance, oil and gas exploration is not prohibited within the proposed MPA in the Laurentian Channel, which is also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

As for OECMs, the panel didn’t recommend extending the same protections to them.

Wilkinson has not yet responded to the panel’s report, but the government has introduced Bill C-55, an act to amend the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, as it works to create a network of MPAs and improve the process of designating them.

[READ MORE: Environment and economy face off in battle over marine-protection bill]

That bill also enhances and clarifies the responsibilities of the minister of fisheries and oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard to designate locations and establish the network.

Right now, even when a vital, unique area has been identified for protection, no increased protection is put in place until regulations come into force to officially designate an MPA — a process that can take up to 10 years. If passed, the bill would allow for an interim-protection MPA to be designated under the Oceans Act.

The bill is currently before the Senate Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

[READ MORE: Ocean protection needn’t involve ‘a huge hammer,’ senators told]

This week, Wilkinson announced the establishment of eight marine refuges in British Columbia’s Howe Sound to protect nine newly discovered glass sponge reefs. Located in the Salish Sea, northwest of Vancouver, the reefs are some of the most biologically productive reefs, providing habitat for more than 84 species of invertebrates and fish, such as prawns and rockfish.

In a statement, DFO said that combined the reefs clean more than 17 billion litres of water — the equivalent of nearly 6,800 Olympic swimming pools — every day, filtering bacteria and processing carbon and nitrogen.

Because glass sponge reefs are highly fragile, grow slowly and take a long time to recover once damaged, they’re particularly vulnerable to impacts from fishing gear. For that reason, fishery closures will take effect ahead of the spring fishing season and apply to all commercial, recreational and Indigenous bottom contact fishing activities.

As for the American Bank MPA, it is made up of two zones. In the more sensitive of the two, anchoring, commercial and recreational fishing activities are prohibited, while Indigenous fishing for food, social and ceremonial purposes is still allowed. In the second zone, commercial traps, longlines and hand line fishing are allowed as long as they’re not used to fish forage species.

Throughout the entire MPA, oil and gas activities, discharge of sewage and the release of grey water from large vessels is prohibited.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the regulations that are in place to protect this vulnerable place,” Vance said.

“This is one of the crown jewels of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, so we’re especially pleased to see those destructive activities prohibited.”

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