Pacific Region

In the past year, our main activities have continued to focus on supporting work on the topic of access through the work of post-doctoral fellow Dr. Nathan Bennett, and by supporting the access cross-cutting theme. With partner T. Buck Suzuki Foundation and numerous collaborators, we worked with two Mitacs interns (Dacotah Splichalova and Anna Schubauer) to develop and implement a survey about access and well-being of owner-operator commercial fishers in BC. We obtained more than 100 responses throughout the province, carried out initial analyses, and communicated the findings to several fisher forums. Reports and manuscripts are being prepared from the results of these surveys. The small grants we provided to students during the first half of OCB in the Pacific region continue to bring research to fruition. In particular, two PhD students, Rachelle Beveridge and Charlotte Whitney, finished PhD research and dissertations. We are also supporting several new HQP to complete publications on topics pertinent to the OceanCanada Partnership.

In the past year, the main activities of the Pacific WG have continued to mainly focus on supporting work on the topic of access through the work of post-doctoral fellow Dr. Nathan Bennett. While several of the smaller projects of past years have been completed, progress on analysis, writing, outreach and publishing the results from them continues. In particular, two of our HQP (Rachelle Beveridge and Charlotte Whitney) have continued to advance their PhD research and dissertations, and several other members (Edward Gregr and Tom Okey) have published recent papers stemming from their work. We will also be hosting a final workshop focused on MPAs involving members of the Pacific WG. Many members of the Pacific WG attended the OceanCanada annual conference in Halifax in August 2018, as did our NGO partner, Ecotrust Canada, who has likewise focused on the theme of access within the context of community well-being. They completed the multi-year report “Just Transactions, Just Transitions” and published the Proceedings Report from the 2018 Fisheries for Communities Gathering. They continued to bring forward issues around, and barriers to, access in forums and presentations.

This past year, the Pacific WG has focused its efforts and funding on supporting the Access cross-cutting theme in two ways: by providing partial funding support for a postdoctoral fellowship for Nathan Bennett, and by supporting the workshop that the Access CCT held in Vancouver in June 2017, and research and a workshop co-hosted by Natalie Ban on the social impacts of MPAs. Progress also continues on small projects by WG members. A few examples include:

• a survey questionnaire, sampling plan, and data analysis plan on purchasing seafood in selected Canadian cities to measure consumer preferences related to certain seafood features. The main objective of the survey will be to contribute to assessing the market feasibility of developing and growing alternative seafood businesses in BC and elsewhere in Canada;
• continued work on issues of access, community well-being, and fishermen and community viability. A key milestone was the convening of fisheries and community stakeholders on Pacific access issues;
• understanding the effects of sea otter reestablishment on ecosystem service benefits derived by coastal communities on the west coast of Vancouver Island;
• continued coordination of the Local Environmental Observer (LEO) Network in Coastal British Columbia (leonetwork.org), which is enabling diverse knowledge holders to share observations of unusual environmental change.

This year, the Pacific Working Group made steady progress with ongoing projects which began to yield results, presentations and publications. Our approach has been to support projects and case studies that advance OceanCanada themes. We supported three new projects in 2016/2017, and others continued. Combined, these projects illustrate the diversity of perspectives and topics related to the oceans in BC, and provide a richness of case studies for future OceanCanada-wide integrative activities. We explored opportunities for linking with the three Cross-Cutting Themes and facilitating more integrative thinking at larger scales. More specifically, we did preliminary work to organize an Access Cross-Cutting Theme workshop for June 2017.

Our research activities have been in the following areas:

• marine community support for conservation;
• effects of sea otter reestablishment on the ecosystem in communities on the west coast of Vancouver Island;
• loss, recovery and stewardship of eulachon on the central Pacific coast of BC;
• local benefits from seafood value chains in BC coastal communities;
• ecological indicators, expert perceptions, and local observations;
• assessing changes in rockfish size and distribution for conservation strategies;
• moving from assessment to action on adaptive capacity.

The Pacific Working Group continued to support graduate student projects that involve local communities and industry stakeholders in conducting policy-relevant research investigating human well-being in the face of social-ecological change in Pacific coastal communities. It provided research funds to students through two calls for proposals. One of the funded projects resulted in two graduate students hosting a workshop in November 2015 on adaptive capacity which led to a publication relevant to the broader OceanCanada partnership. In addition, Working Group members presented at various conferences and had numerous publications related to OCP objectives.