Ontario's Natural Heritage Areas - Ministry of Natural Resources

Image by T.J. Beechey
In selecting a potential National Marine Conservation
Area, consideration is given to a range of factors,
including:
• Quality of regional representation.
• Comparative importance for maintaining
biodiversity.
• Protection of endangered species critical habitat.
• Outstanding natural or cultural features.
• Current or anticipated marine protected areas.
• Minimizing conflict with resource users.
• Jeopardizing the sustainability of marine
ecosystems.
• Aboriginal claims and treaties implications.
• Education and enjoyment potential.
• Ecological research and monitoring value (Parks
Canada, 2006a).
The feasibility of establishing a National Marine
Conservation Area is assessed during a collaborative
process that can involve many participants, including
federal, provincial, and territorial governments,
communities, stakeholders, and Aboriginal peoples
(Parks Canada, 2006a). In proposing the boundaries of
a potential National Marine Conservation Area, every
effort is made to establish an area with a size and
configuration that:
• Protects a wide diversity of marine ecosystems
representative of the marine region.
• Accommodates the habitat requirements of
viable populations of marine species that are
native to the marine region.
• Does not fragment sensitive, highly diverse, or
productive marine communities.
• Protects exceptional marine phenomena, and
rare, threatened, or endangered marine flora and
fauna.
• Includes important sites for ecological research
and monitoring.
• Offers opportunities for public understanding
and enjoyment.
• Results in minimum long-term disruption of
the social and economic life in the surrounding
region.
• Does not encompass permanent communities
(Parks Canada, 1994:51).
Management Objectives and/or Guidelines
National Marine Conservation Areas are almost always
associated with large and dynamic open ecosystems
where the rates of change associated with many
important ecological processes are rapid. Given the
open, dynamic nature of aquatic ecosystems and their
links to terrestrial ecosystems, management usually
involves close collaboration and cooperation between
many agencies and organizations (Parks Canada,
1994:51). Instead of attempting to protect marine
ecosystems in an unaltered state free of human
activity (the primary goal in terrestrial National Parks),
management effort in National Marine Conservation
Areas is directed towards the conservation of
these areas in a manner comparable to the World
Conservation Strategy prepared by the IUCN/UNEP/
WWF in 1980 (Parks Canada, 1994:48). In this context,
conservation embraces a number of management
techniques, including preservation, maintenance,
sustainable use, and restoration. Therefore, protection
is attained through management of a range of human
activities to ensure the greatest sustainable benefit to
present generations while maintaining the potential
of the area to meet the needs and aspirations of
future generations (Parks Canada, 1994:48).
123 Ontario’s Natural Heritage Areas