Marine
Lions Mane Jellyfish; Bay of Fundy (Photo Credit: Scott Leslie)
Protect Our Oceans
Canada's oceans are in trouble. Our east coast is the site of one of the worst fisheries collapses in history. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds are killed every year in Atlantic Canada alone by ship-source oil pollution. Fragile coral forests and other deep sea communities off our shores continue to be damaged and destroyed by human activities such as bottom trawl fishing. Climate change is acidifying our oceans, raising sea levels, and changing marine habitats.
It is high time we take steps to halt and reverse the damage we are doing to our ocean ecosystems.
As a nation, we have a big responsibility - Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world, and a long history of close ties to the sea, both economic and cultural. Yet, less than 1% of Canada's marine waters have any form of protection. We need to take a stronger stewardship role over our vast ocean resources, so that future generations may continue to marvel at our wide, blue oceans and all of the life they contain.
CPAWS-NS strives to conserve and improve the health and biodiversity of the oceans in our region and beyond though work in three main project areas:
Establishing a network of protected areas in our region, with a particular focus on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and National Marine Conservation Areas (NMCAs)
Conserving special marine elements in our region (e.g. cold water corals, the Bay of Fundy horse mussel reefs, etc.)
Encouraging sustainable use of marine and coastal resources
