This document provides feedback from SeaBlue Canada, a coalition of environmental non-governmental organizations with extensive experience in the establishment and management of marine protected areas (MPAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs).
SeaBlue Canada appreciates the opportunity to comment on Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)’s draft Marine OECM Guidance, and is pleased to see that work continues to strengthen OECMs in Canada. This feedback follows from our letter to DFO in April 2020 and from the SeaBlue Canada Report “A Technical Review of Canada’s Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures: Alignment with DFO Guidance, IUCN-WCPA Guidance and CBD SBSTTA Guidance,” published in January 2019. In both of these, we have provided clear text-based recommendations to bring Canada’s OECM guidance in line with that of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) guidance. In our 2019 report we also made recommendations specific to a number of individual OECMs, with the goal of ensuring that they met the criteria agreed to by Canada and the CBD.