Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activities ◽  
Habitat Management ◽  
Fish Habitat ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Habitat Features ◽  
Science Advice ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Management Approaches

<em>Abstract.</em>—The landscape for policy and management of fish habitat is changing. The historic focus on evaluating environmental impact assessments for large projects, and issuing (or not) permits for small projects is being supplanted by new expectations for habitat managers and policy makers. Many of these new expectations are rooted in the adoption of an ecosystem approach to management of diverse human activities, including fisheries, in aquatic ecosystems, combined with a growing emphasis on integrated management of those human activities, in turn aided by spatial planning and spatial management approaches in many fields. These new expectations placed on habitat managers and policy makers create the need for expanded support from a new blending of habitat and population sciences. Historically, it may have been sufficient to use science advice based on relative indices of habitat quality and carefully assembled expert opinion as the basis for many tasks in habitat policy and management. Such tools now must be augmented by much more quantitative science advice, to allow for setting operational objectives for managing habitats, assessing the quality and quantity of critical or essential habitat for protected or exploited fish populations, conducting risk assessments of projects and mitigation measures, making siting decisions about marine protected areas and other spatial zoning measures, and many other tasks in which habitat managers and policy makers must participate. Science advice now must be able to quantify the relationships between habitat features and population status and productivity, as well with community properties such as resilience and vulnerability. This advice has to capture the uncertainty in the relationships and data sources, in forms that fit comfortably into risk assessments. Tools for forward projection of the habitat consequences of management options are needed, as are tools for cost-benefit analyses of tradeoffs among different types of habitats for different groups of aquatic species. None of these analytical challenges is beyond the scope of modern statistical and modelling capabilities, and current ecological concepts. Few of them can be met by existing tools and data-bases however. Moreover, many of the conceptual approaches to aquatic habitat management have been imported from terrestrial habitat management. They may have served adequately for management of riverine and marine benthic habitats, but some of the fundamental conceptual starting points are being questioned for marine and lacustrine habitats more generally. The paper brings out both some promising opportunities and some difficult challenges for the science needed to support contemporary habitat management and policy.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activities ◽  
Habitat Management ◽  
Fish Habitat ◽  
Management Program ◽  
Environmental Laws ◽  
Fisheries Resources ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Federal Statute ◽  
Fisheries Act

<em>Abstract.</em>—Canada’s <em>Fisheries Act</em>, the country’s primary law for regulating the harvesting of its marine and freshwater fisheries resources, includes provisions to regulate the impacts of human activities on fish and fish habitat. As a result of these provisions the <em>Fisheries Act </em>represents the main federal statute for protecting freshwater and marine aquatic ecosystems and is considered one of the strongest environmental laws in Canada. This paper outlines the legal and policy frameworks and institutional arrangements for the administration of these provisions of the <em>Fisheries Act</em>. It describes the review process and practices established by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) for administering the provisions of the <em>Act </em>assigned to the Department’s Fish Habitat Management Program (HMP). It defines the key issues and concerns raised about the delivery of the Fish Habitat Management Program and reviews initiatives undertaken to address these. It suggests that while these have improved delivery of the regulatory responsibilities of the HMP, there is a need for more fundamental changes that will enable it to keep pace with the increasing and cumulative impacts associated with population growth and economic development and create conditions under which human activities and fish and fish habitat can co-exist on a sustainable basis. This paper suggests that such a change must be founded on an ecosystem-based approach and on the application of modern scientific and management principles for regulating impacts to fish and fish habitat. It also describes steps to move forward to demonstrate and instill an ecosystem-based approach.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Fish Habitat ◽  
Cumulative Effects ◽  
Residual Effects ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Analysis Approach ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Zone Of Influence ◽  
Ecological Unit

<em>Abstract.</em>—Project level regulatory review and environmental assessment processes typically assess and ascertain potential impacts of one project or human sector activity on a specific habitat or species. The scope of the assessment is usually limited to the ecological foot print or zone of influence of the project. The assessment also identifies key mitigation measures designed to reduce effects to residual levels. These measures tend to be sector or project specific with a focus on activity specific adverse environmental effects such as fish passage, flow maintenance or sedimentation control. By design, such assessments are not effective to ascertain the project’s contribution to the overall cumulative effects in a given ecosystem. In this paper, a risk analysis approach is discussed as a means to structure and facilitate the characterization of cumulative effects and in priority setting for management. As part of the hazard identification step, the risk analysis approach requires that the ecological unit and the zone of influence of relevant drivers of human activities be identified. Cumulative effects are considered as the residual effects resulting from activities operating within their respective legal and policy frameworks. In preparation for the Risk Assessment step, the paper describes the need to establish pathways of effects linking the relevant drivers of human activities to their resulting pressures and potential ecosystem goods and services Impacts. Pathways of effects are important components of risk management in identifying which pressure require new or enhanced mitigation measures.

Fish Habitat: Essential Fish Habitat and Rehabilitation

1999 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Lake Erie ◽  
Habitat Management ◽  
Fish Habitat ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
Suitable Habitat ◽  
Physical Habitat ◽  
Fish Stocks ◽  
Habitat Features ◽  
Fish Habitats

<em>Abstract.—</em> The quality and quantity of habitats determine ecosystem productivity. Hence, they determine the potential fish productivity that sustains the fish harvests extractable from freshwaters and seas. Efforts to conserve and protect fish habitats are frustrated by key unanswered questions: which habitat types and how much must be protected to ensure natural self-sustaining fish stocks? Minns and Bakelaar presented a prototype method for assessing suitable habitat supply for fish stocks in Lake Erie, an analysis that can be used to address conservation issues. Here, the method is refined and extended, taking the assessment of habitat supply for pike <em>Esox lucius </em> in the Long Point region of Lake Erie as a case study. As with the previous study, much emphasis is placed on “learning by doing.” Because available inventories of habitat features are coarse and incomplete, improved guidelines for estimating habitat supply are expected from these prototype studies. The habitat supply method previously presented by Minns and Bakelaar is elaborated in three ways here: (1) the basic physical habitat assessment is derived from a remote-sensing inventory database; (2) methods of quantifying the thermal regime and integrating it with other habitat elements are examined; (3) habitat supply estimates are used in a pike population model, and pike biomass and production are simulated for the Long Point region of Lake Erie and then compared with available records. The roles of error and uncertainty are examined for all elements in the estimation and application of suitable habitat supply values. There is potential for supply measurement and analysis to guide fish habitat management.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Habitat Management ◽  
Fish Habitat ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Gold Deposits ◽  
Mining Activities ◽  
Project Assessment ◽  
Fisheries Resources ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Alluvial Floodplains

<em>Abstract.</em>—Modern placer mining continues to occur on many historically mined watercourses in the Yukon, while advances in gold recovery technology have enabled the industry to explore and operate in a number of newly developed areas. Placer gold deposits are typically found within alluvial floodplains, occurring adjacent to and in many cases beneath present-day streams and rivers. A large number of these watercourses in the Yukon provide habitat for a variety of resident (freshwater) and anadromous fish species which in turn, requires that careful planning and consideration for fisheries resources occurs when developing mining proposals and operations. Many activities and processes associated with placer mining have the potential to result in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat or direct harm to fish. In the past, the operation of large mechanized dredges resulted in extensive localized disturbance of fish habitats which, without active restoration, required many years to recover. In the Yukon, Fisheries and Oceans Canada administers the habitat protection provisions of the federal <em>Fisheries Act </em>and is principally responsible for ensuring that placer mining activities are carried out in a manner which achieves effective conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat resources consistent with the principle of sustainable development. Between 2002 and 2007, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in partnership with the Yukon Government the Council of Yukon First Nations and with support from the Yukon placer mining industry, developed a new integrated management process for regulating the effects of placer mining activities on fish and fish habitat resources. This new process is designed to integrate a number of key regulatory concepts and principles including cause-effect (risk-based) project assessment, industry-specific operational guidelines, watershed-wide fish habitat management planning, aquatic ecosystem monitoring, incorporation of Aboriginal traditional knowledge, proactive compliance and enforcement, and an adaptive management system through which adjustments can be made over time. Overall, this approach has been implemented with the objective of achieving conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat resources while facilitating a regulatory environment that enables the placer mining industry to continue operate in an environmental sustainable and economically viable manner into the future.

Fish Habitat: Essential Fish Habitat and Rehabilitation

1999 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Management ◽  
Fishery Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fish Habitat ◽  
Fish Populations ◽  
Essential Fish Habitat ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Fish Habitats ◽  
Important Fish

<em>Abstract.—</em> It cannot be denied that habitat is essential to healthy fish populations. A significant number of fish species in the Gulf of Mexico and around the country depends on estuaries during some stage of their life cycles. Despite this fact, fish habitats are increasingly destroyed and degraded by pollution, dredging, freshwater influx, and other human activities. If healthy fish populations are to be maintained, threats to fish habitat must be addressed. However, traditional management practices have neglected and continue to ignore threats to important fish habitat. The essential fish habitat (EFH) provisions of the 1996 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act) present an unprecedented opportunity to develop habitat-based management approaches to protect and restore important fish habitats in the ocean and in vital estuarine areas. This is not to say the EFH provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act are a panacea for habitat protection. For example, there is no enforceable mechanism for preventing activities that destroy areas of EFH. Nonetheless, the EFH provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act can go far in achieving the intended results if the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) promulgates guidelines requiring ecosystem-based management, if regional EFH amendments go beyond minimalist requirements to address threats to habitat through comprehensive habitat management plans, and if regional fishery management councils become important players in the host of federal decisions that affect fish habitat. The NMFS and the regional fishery management councils must be required to take full advantage of this unique opportunity.

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