Direct and indirect estimates of the productive capacity of fish habitat under Canada’s Policy for the Management of Fish Habitat: where have we been, where are we now, and where are we going?

Abstract

No net loss of productive capacity (PC) of fish habitat has been the central concept guiding Canadian fish habitat management policy since 1986. The purpose of this paper is to describe the concept of PC, to review the history and application of the fish habitat management policy in Canada, and to provide a critical review of the range of potential approaches to estimating PC. The approaches were grouped by their central focus: habitat, individual, population, and community–ecosystem. A set of case studies is used to illustrate the use of some approaches drawn from freshwater and marine contexts. Ten components to assessing no net loss of PC were developed and used in the review of approaches for evaluating potential limitations. The review also highlighted the likely future direction of method development, with increasing emphasis on dynamic models integrating population responses to habitat supply characteristics. More work needs to be done to turn research-based metrics of PC into practical operational management assessment tools and to better quantify the link between habitat structure and function and fisheries productivity. The evolving approaches to measure PC reinforce the ties that fish habitat management has to the emerging practices in ecosystem-based management.

The effect of regulation changes and influential factors on Atlantic cod discards in the Baltic Sea demersal trawl fishery

“…For example, our analysis of 122 case studies of authorizations given under the Fisheries Act between 1998 and 1999 found in Lange et al (2001) revealed that forestry, mining, and hydroelectric dams affected roughly 10 times the area of fish habitat compared with channel realignments, water management, and dredging. Given these larger areas, multiple seasons of field sampling may be required to fully understand the environmental resources within the project footprint (Underwood 1994) and suggest effective mitigation strategies (Minns et al 2011). Thus, an extended timeline would be essential for regulators to develop and review appropriate environmental impact assessments.…”

“…A set of standardized environmental assessment methods is needed at the federal level in Canada. There is a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods available for assessing, monitoring, and predicting the impacts of development on fish habitat (Underwood 1994;Minns et al 2011). However, with no standard set of methods prescribed to developers, regulators receive environmental assessments that contain methods and models outside of their scope of expertise.…”

“…Further, while the economic impact of environmental regulations is often perceived by many as negative (Konisky 2008), economic analyses generally yield mixed results (Jaffe et al 1995), with some even suggesting that companies can incur a strategic benefit from regulatory delays by using environmental review as an opportunity to claim a stake in a project or develop a good reputation among investors (Wirth et al 2011). The ecological and health benefits of environmental oversight have been well documented, as has the need for thorough studies of potentially complex projects that may require multiple field studies over many years (Underwood 1997;Minns et al 2011). However, new Canadian public policy will arbitrarily restrict the length of environmental reviews to between 1 and 2 years (Government of Canada 2012a).…”

The Canadian context for evidence-based conservation and environmental management

“…Under the previous "no net loss" habitat policy [14], the evidence needed to inform case by case decisions on approval of activities that would have impacts on aquatic habitats was only delineated in a general way, although the standard of tolerance of impacts (i.e., no net loss] was explicit. The aggregate outcome of the case-specific decisions fell far short of "no net loss" of aquatic habitats [15]. The framework for implementation of the new Fishery Protection Provisions of the Fisheries Act are more strongly evidence-based [16], but the tools for using existing evidence and augmenting the shortcomings in the relevant databases are still under development.…”

A network model for primary production highlights linkages between salmonid populations and autochthonous resources

“…The second reason is historical—an early emphasis on physical factors in studies of stream fish–habitat relationships, spurred in part by policy needs (e.g., Minns et al. ), may simply have narrowed the scope of inquiry for the discipline in general (Graham and Dayton ). A final, practical reason is that stream food webs are inherently complex, which poses significant challenges to efforts aimed at assessing habitat productivity in a manner that is meaningful to fish, tractable, and cost‐effective.…”