Members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans are in Nova Scotia hearing from fishermen and other stakeholders about marine protected areas.
MPA’s are federally designated areas where human activity is restricted in order to protect sensitive ecosystems and at-risk species.
The committee was at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth Monday and held consultations in Cheticamp yesterday and are in Sydney today.
Bernie Berry, president of the Coldwater Lobster Association says fishermen in this area feel left out of the process.
“It’s kind of like we were excluded down here unfortunately and it’s disappointing. I know we can write in our responses and that’s always good but maybe they should have expanded their bases instead of having three, have four, five or six, whatever was needed.”
Berry says the end of 2017 target of 5 per cent for marine protected areas is closing in.
He says the big concern is the doubling of that number by 2020.
“We’re closing in on the 5 per cent target for 2017. That’s the easy part if I can put it that way. Where we have to double that by 2020, there’s the concerning part. Now it’s going to get really hard. And this is where we think there’s going to be some infringement of fishing grounds and that’s where we think we should be more involved than we have been in the last three years.”
Berry says that’s where fishermen are concerned that the MPA’s will further infringe on fishing grounds.
Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced recently in Malta that the government is establishing a national advisory panel on minimum standards for future MPAs in Canadian waters.
