OceanCanada Newsletter – Fall 2016

Posted on by d.burnside

New OceanCanada Cross-Cutting Themes Created

A key objective of the OceanCanada partnership is to integrate knowledge across academics, community stakeholders, and organizations (private and public sectors) and offer a new avenue for data sharing, cross-fertilization of ideas, co-creation of knowledge, and collaborative building of research and governance capacity for the benefit of both current and future generations of Canadians. At our May 2016 conference, OceanCanada members devoted much time to devising plans to integrate the research of our existing Working Groups: Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic (regional); and National Data and Integrated Scenarios, Law and Policy, and Knowledge Mobilization (national).

Three new cross-cutting themes (CCTs) were created at this meeting – Access to Resources, Governance, and Changing Oceans, all in the context of ocean health and community well-being. Since our May conference, we have been working hard to advance the work of all groups to provide a more integrated approach to issues related to OceanCanada’s mandate.

The integrative and cross-cutting nature of these themes is captured in the OceanCanada Partnership roof. As depicted in this figure, the goal is to conduct research that cuts across scales and Working Groups

Structure for Cross-Cutting Themes

Each cross-cutting theme (CCT) has a coordinator who works with OceanCanada Director Rashid Sumaila to develop integrative projects, and draw people and resources from across the OceanCanada membership to execute the identified projects. Megan Bailey, CRC in Integrated Ocean and Coastal Governance at Dalhousie University, coordinates the Access to Resources CCT; Carie Hoover, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Earth Observation Science, University of Manitoba, leads the Governance CCT; and the Changing Oceans CCT is headed by William Cheung, Director of Science for the Nereus Program, University of British Columbia.
The first project for the cross-cutting themes is to develop a workshop on the three themes leading to one or more publications that integrate the regional and national groups’ existing research. Work has begun on this initiative with teleconferencing and the hiring of research assistants.
Together with the OceanCanada Director, theme coordinators will inspire, stimulate, and motivate all OceanCanada members to actively engage in cross-cutting and integrative work that meets the goals of OceanCanada.

Researcher in Profile – Dr. Rashid Sumaila

Dr. Sumaila, OceanCanada Director, is Professor with a joint appointment at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) and the Liu Institute for Global Issues, and Director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit (FERU) at the University of British Columbia. He has authored over 200 journal articles, including in Science, Nature and the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Dr. Sumaila is winner of the 2013 American Fisheries Society Excellence in Public Outreach award, the Stanford Leopold Leadership Fellowship, and the Pew Marine Fellowship. He has given talks at the UN Rio+20, the WTO, the White House, Canadian Parliament, State Department, African Union, European Parliament and the British House of Lords.
In 2016 Dr. Sumaila presented at numerous conferences, most notably the Our Ocean: One Future conference hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry, where an address was made by President Barack Obama. Click here to view Dr. Sumaila’s talk (starting at about 8:50).

Other recent presentations were made at the following events:

Partner News

World Wildlife Fund-Canada has awarded one of its 2016 Loblaw Water Fund awards to ARCTIConnection (both are OceanCanada partners). For its project “Water quality and fish safety monitoring in the Keewatin Watershed of Arviat, Nunavut,” ARCTIConnection will employ both Inuit knowledge and community-based science to establish a baseline for water quality and fish health near Arviat, part of one of Canada’s least known freshwater systems, the Keewatin Watershed. Read more.

Ecotrust has released the Atlas of Cumulative Landscape Disturbance in the Traditional Territory of Blueberry River First Nations. The 2016 Atlas shows that the Province of BC has not only continued industrial development in the area, but has done so at an accelerated rate, despite its knowledge of the worsening cumulative effects on the Blueberry River First Nations traditional territory. Read more.

New Partners

OceanCanada welcomes the following organizations as new partners:

Canadian Rivers Institute
Canadian Rivers Institute (CRI) researchers make significant contributions to advancing aquatic sciences, forging industrial partnerships and government collaborations, and building the infrastructure to train and deliver the next generation of water resource scientists in Canada and beyond. Contact Simon Courtenay.

Oceana Canada
Oceana Canada is an independent charity established to restore Canadian oceans to be as rich, healthy, and abundant as they once were. Founded in 2001, Oceana is the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation and includes organizations in Brazil, Belize, Chile, the European Union, Peru, the Philippines and the United States. Oceana organizations work in their home regions to educate the public about ocean conservation issues and to raise the profile of ocean conservation with decision-makers. Contact Robert Rangeley.

United Nations University – Institute for Water, Environment and Health
The UNU Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) responds directly to the global water crisis and facilitates global efforts to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Institute’s three core mandates are to help developing countries meet the MDGs through capacity development, facilitate knowledge enhancement and networking to address the global water crisis, and foster better approaches to water management and governance through applied research designed to fill critical policy gaps. Contact Nidhi Nagabhatla.

New Collaborator
Sidney Fels, Professor in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has joined OceanCanada as a collaborator. Professor Fels’ expertise will assist us in enhancing our communications strategy in terms of our web presence and data management.

Research in the News

WWF-Canada warns that small fish are in big trouble.
World Wildlife Fund News, August 2.

New Video

OceanCanada has just released a short video of Natalie Ban, Pacific Region Working Group Co-Lead, talking about the importance of ocean sustainability for coastal communities. View it here.

Recent Publications

Click on the titles for author information and abstracts.

Adaptive governance to promote ecosystem services in urban green spaces Aquaculture, law and policy: global, regional and national perspectives

Bioeconomics of ocean acidification effects on fisheries targeting calcifier species: a decision theory approach

Building confidence in projections of the responses of living marine resources to climate change

Canada at a crossroad: the imperative for realigning ocean policy with ocean science

Communities and change in the anthropocene: understanding social-ecological vulnerability and planning adaptations to multiple interacting exposures

Community-based scenario planning: a process for vulnerability analysis and adaptation planning to social-ecological change in coastal communities

A framework for understanding climate change impacts on coral reef social-ecological systems

Mainstreaming the social sciences in conservation

Marine species at risk protection in Australia and Canada: paper promises, paltry progressions

Observed and projected impacts of climate change on marine fisheries, aquaculture,

coastal tourism, and human health: an update

Projected change in global fisheries revenues under climate change

Projected scenarios for coastal First Nations’ fisheries catch potential under climate change: management challenges and opportunities

The relationship of social capital and fishers’ participation in multi-level governance arrangements

Sustainability of Canadian fisheries requires bold political leadership

Towards an integrated database on Canadian ocean resources: benefits, current states,

and research gaps

Trade policy options for sustainable oceans and fisheries

Using perceptions as evidence to improve conservation and environmental management

Presentations

  • Vancouver (UBC), BC, November 25, 2016. Juan José Alava. Exploring the impact of climate change on the bioaccumulation of chemical pollutants in a marine food web from the northeastern Pacific: an EwE model approach. Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries Seminar Series.
  • Vancouver (UBC), BC, November 24, 2016. Nathan Bennett. Conservation social science: understanding and integrating human dimensions to improve local to global conservation policy and practice. Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) Seminar Series.
  • Nanaimo, BC, June 24, 2016. Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor. DFO State of the Pacific Ocean Meeting.
  • Vancouver, BC, April 13-15, 2016. Nathan Bennett and Charlotte Whitney. Adaptive capacity: from assessment to action in social-ecological systems. Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference.
  • Vancouver, BC, April 13-15, 2016. Haley Milko and Evelyn Pinkerton. Dilemmas in First Nations’ Monitoring of LNG Developments on the Skeena River Watershed. Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference.
  • Ottawa, ON, February 22, 2016. Nathan Bennett. Making real progress on marine protected areas in Canada. All Party Ocean Caucus.
  • Hobart, Australia, February 9-12, 2016. David VanderZwaag. Marine species on the move in the northwest Atlantic: sea of governance challenges. Species on the Move Conference, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) and University of Tasmania. See our website for a complete list of publications and presentations by Working Group.

If you have OceanCanada-related news for our Spring 2017 Newsletter, please contact Anne Marie Goodfellow, OceanCanada Coordinator, at a.goodfellow@oceans.ubc.ca.

Have a happy holiday season, and all the best in 2017!

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