Ontario's Natural Heritage Areas - Ministry of Natural Resources

5.2 National Marine Conservation Areas
Introduction
Parks Canada is committed to establishing a
system of National Marine Conservation Areas
designed to represent the full range of Canada’s
marine ecosystems, coastal zones, and Great
Lakes (Parks Canada, 1994:48-49). National Marine
Conservation Areas (NMCA) are “marine areas
managed for sustainable use and containing smaller
zones of high protection” (Parks Canada, 2006a).
These areas are primarily associated with large, open
ecosystems characterized by rapid rates of change,
where many fish and wildlife species undertake
long-range migrations associated with feeding and/
or reproductive cycles. National Marine Conservation
Areas include the sea bed, its subsoil, and the
overlying water column (Parks Canada, 1994:48) and
may include wetlands, estuaries, islands, and other
coastal lands (Parks Canada, 2006a). The water column
is the primary context for most marine ecosystems
because it:
• Sustains primary production and provides for
most of the habitat requirements of aquatic flora
and fauna through the movement of nutrients,
food, and their larvae.
• Provides a transportation medium for pollutants
that enter the water from the atmosphere and
through terrestrial run-off, rendering these areas
vulnerable to a range of potentially harmful
downstream effects (Parks Canada, 1994:47).
Canada’s oceanic assets and the Great Lakes are
divided into 29 marine regions, each of which warrants
representation in the National Marine Conservation
Area system (Parks Canada, 1994:49). Ontario is
represented by seven marine regions: Hudson Bay,
James Bay, Lake Superior, Georgian Bay, Lake Huron,
Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario (CEAC, 1991). Currently
two NMCAs have been established in Canada and
a third is planned. Fathom Five National Marine
Park is located in Ontario (Box 5-1, Fig. 5-2) and
the Saquenay-St. Lawrence Maine Park is located
in Quebec. Planning for the Lake Superior National
Marine Conservation Area is nearing completion
(Office of the Prime Minister, 2007; Parks Canada,
2007b).
Ontario’s Natural Heritage Areas 120
Box 5-1. National Marine Conservation Areas in Ontario.
Originally a Provincial Park, Fathom Five (Fig. 5-2) (11,300
ha) was designated as Canada’s first National Marine
Conservation Area through an agreement between
Canada and Ontario in 1987 (Duffus and Dearden, 1993;
McClellan, 1992; McComb, 1997).
In 1997, the federal Department of Canadian Heritage
and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources created a
Regional Committee and initiated a study to determine
the level of support for the establishment of a National
Marine Conservation Area adjacent to the north shore of
Lake Superior. In October 2000, the Regional Committee
submitted detailed recommendations to the Minister of
Canadian Heritage (Regional Committee, 2001).
In October 2007 the Government of Canada announced
the creation of the Lake Superior National Marine
Conservation Area, which extends from Thunder Cape
at the tip of Sleeping Giant Provincial Park in the west,
to Bottle Point just east of Terrace Bay and out to the
Canada-US boundary. It includes the waters of
Black Bay and Nipigon Bay and encompasses over
1,000,000 ha of lake bed and overlying waters as well
as islands, shoals, and some mainland (Office of the
Prime Minister, 2007). It is the largest freshwater Marine
Conservation Area in the world (Nature Canada, 2007).
Legislation and Policy Basis
National Marine Conservation Areas are formally
established by the Parliament of Canada in accordance
with the Canada National Marine Conservation Act.
Parks Canada takes the lead role in developing
cooperative arrangements with all concerned parties
for the complementary use and management of
resources within a National Marine Conservation Area.
National Marine Conservation Areas are established
pursuant to agreements with the concerned provincial
and/or territorial governments, federal departments
and agencies, and with Aboriginal organizations, as
required. The agreement describes the boundaries
of the NMCA and stipulates the role(s) of concerned
government departments and agencies, any local
communities and affected user groups, as well as
interested non-government organizations and the
public in the cooperative stewardship, planning, and
management of the area (Parks Canada, 1994:51-52).