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What Happens When Politicians Ignore Ocean Science? · How To Protect The Ocean

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  I think there's a confusion with environmental and ocean conservation.
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  People think that ocean conservation is hard.
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  If you strip away all the different, like, politics and everything like that,
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  protecting an ocean is not difficult.
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  What's difficult is getting people to buy into that protection,
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  to agree to this protection.
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  To take away greed and understand that the ocean is a part of us, and we're a part of
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  it, and that we need to protect the ocean.
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  But when we put together legislation, strong legislation, that has
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  been worked on both parties or numerous parties and non-partisan.
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  Where people are working together on it, and they have a vested interest
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  in making sure that our planet is protected, especially within the
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  boundaries that they can protect, ocean conservation is not difficult.
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  And we've seen a lot of success from it in a lot of different ways.
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  From policies that don't normally get see the light of day on big
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  news items on, like, CNN or on CBC or even on NPR and stuff like that.
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  It's not sexy news.
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  And it's not really made to be sexy.
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  What's sexy is the outcome when we look at how we treat the ocean and
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  how when we change our ways and put the laws and policies and regulations
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  into place, that we can actually be successful in protecting the ocean.
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  So we're gonna talk about today.
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  But there's a free version of that where you can just get the interviews
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  Just go to speakupforblue.com/patreon.
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  This is exciting.
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  We're gonna be talking about policies and regulations that may not be
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  sexy in the regular news but that have actually worked over time.
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  I've talked about this before, but I wanna talk about this again
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  because they're so important.
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  By putting the legal framework into play, once this gets passed and once it gets
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  agreed on, once it gets enforced, we become active ocean conservation managers.
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  As nations, as international nations, this is what we do.
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  As a world, as a planet, we can actually protect the part of the
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  planet that covers 70% of it, over 70% of it, and I think that's important.
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  But the problem is, is those legislations, sometimes they don't
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  go anywhere or they get kiboshed because a certain party or a certain
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  individual does not like the environment.
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  Hint, hint, Trump, Trump.
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  And so it gets all discombobulated, and regulations get rolled back and stuff.
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  You have to put it together, you have to put it in play, you have to pass it
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  in law, but you also have to enforce it.
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  You have to make sure that you continue to put that into play.
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  And once you do that, you get to see some huge successes, and we're gonna
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  talk about some of those huge successes.
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  For Canada, for my country, we were at less than 1% protection.
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  We talked about this earlier this week.
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  Less than 1% protected of our oceans within the longest coastline of
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  the world, within the exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles.
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  We have actually increased it from less than 1% in 2016 to over 15%, and
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  there's a new proposal we talked about yesterday where they're gonna increase
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  it even more by designating more marine protected areas, putting $3.8 billion
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  Canadian into the pot to put together a number of different protected areas
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  at sea and on land and in fresh water.
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  Huge.
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  Huge things.
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  But we couldn't put that into place until we had the actual regulations,
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  which were installed in 1997, where we had the Oceans Act, which allowed
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  the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the federal government,
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  to put in marine protected areas.
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  And even then, when they were putting in, there was allowed to be a certain
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  extractive activities that could happen.
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  And then eventually they stopped that.
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  And now it's like fully protected once you're in there.
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  I think they allow scientific research and things like that.
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  But no oil and gas, no mining, no fisheries, nothing like that.
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  So it's wonderful when it works because now we have the legislative tool to
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  put together so that if we needed to ramp up our protected area space or the
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  things that are protected, we did that.
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  We could do that, and we did it from less than 1% to over 15% to hopefully
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  30% by the time we get to 2030.
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  That's in like three and a half years.
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  But we can do it because there are a number of processes that
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  are going on because of that legislation that was enacted in 1997.
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  It took us a while to get it going, but we're actually doing it.
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  So we have to have patience, obviously we want to do it more and faster, but we have
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  to have patience and we want to do that.
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  And who's to say that we can't do more than 30%, depending on
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  what we're looking at protecting.
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  I think that's an important aspect that we don't see all the time.
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  Now let's go back down to our neighbors down south, my
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  neighbors down south in the US.
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  The US has had some great Fisheries Act type thing.
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  We have the Fisheries Act that is part of the Oceans Act, and
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  where we protect habitat.
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  But like the Magnuson-Stevens Act was a huge thing that were put
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  in by Republicans in the '70s.
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  We also had the Marine Mammal Protection Act that was also put
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  in by the Republicans in the '70s.
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  We had the Endangered Species Act, and we had up here in Canada,
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  we had the Species At Risk Act.
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  All those that were put in back then, which is an important part
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  because they protect species.
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  And if you go back and you look at the species that they protect, they have
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  the legislative tool that triggers certain processes that actually forces
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  the government to ensure that those species, those habitats are protected.
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  So let's look at something like the manatee in the US that occurs in Florida.
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  They were down to like less than 600 individuals in the 1970s.
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  They got put on the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Endangered Species Act,
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  and they went up to 6,000 because that act triggers a lot of different tools
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  and a lot of different processes where there has to be recovery plans, there
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  has to be extra monitoring that's done.
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  There has to be like a habitat assessment that's done to make sure that these
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  manatees are being able to eat the seagrasses that they have, making
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  sure they're not getting chopped by the propellers in the intercoastal,
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  I guess highway or intercoastal waters in Florida, because that's
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  where they live and there's a lot of boats that go up and down.
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  So there's speed limitations that were put in.
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  There was habitat restorations that are put in.
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  Although they've been taken off and their population has gone down, which
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  they shouldn't have ever been taken off because we knew that this was
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  going to be a problem because of habitat, we know that it can be put
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  back on when the right government's in place and they can recover again.
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  We also have the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which is like a fisheries act, which
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  brought back like the sardines and anchovies on the West Coast and a lot
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  of other fish on the East Coast like the menhaden because it triggered
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  certain processes like stock assessments to manage and set quotas and set
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  limitations on how many fish are being taken every year and every season.
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  These acts not only allowed that to bring back, but because there were
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  more anchovies uh, and herring maybe.
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  All these forage fish that were allowed to come back, we could start
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  to see the sea lions come back.
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  And because the sea lions came back, we started to see an increase in
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  the great white shark population.
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  Because of the Endangered Species Act, 'cause of the Marine Mammal Protection
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  Act, all these took place because, seals are marine mammals, so that helped
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  them because they weren't allowed to be hunted or harassed or anything like that.
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  Great white sharks were put on the endangered species list.
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  They are starting to bloom in population on both the West Coast and the East
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  Coast, and they're a phenomenal species.
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  They're just wonderful.
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  But they put the policy in place to be able to get to that point where we can
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  say, "This is a conservation success."
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  And people followed it, and governments followed it, and
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  fisheries communities followed it.
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  And all these people that had all their say in this time, and what we've
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  learned over the years, have turned into conservation success stories.
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  That's a really important part.
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  And there are always, like, conflicts out on the ocean.
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  There's always people who may not be happy that there are that many sea lions
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  or that many great white sharks or, because of climate change, you start to
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  see fisheries slip and stuff like that.
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  But that doesn't matter because we have these monitoring systems in place because
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  of the policies that are in place, and you can see if populations go down.
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  You can find out why those populations are going down.
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  Sometimes you can do something about it.
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  Maybe you can't do something about it.
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  But we can understand the ocean better because we have these tools
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  in our conservation tool belt that we can use to help protect them.
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  And that's really, like… I don't know if I need to say anything more.
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  When we start to use them and we start to follow them, we can actually
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  do some really good for the ocean.
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  That's a really important part.
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  But we can't have politicians making decisions to go against them.
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  The Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans here in Canada, DFO, made a decision
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  last year to open up offshore fishing of cod to commercial industries.
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  Some people didn't like that.
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  The environmental organizations didn't like that.
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  I had Oceana on to talk about that.
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  The science didn't follow that.
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  This was a decision made by somebody who's not fisheries-based, who's not
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  science-based, is not a scientist, and they're supposed to follow the science.
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  And the science said, "No, let's not do it," but the politics overcame that.
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  And it was the burden that was taken on by the minister, but the minister,
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  to be honest, made the wrong decision.
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  We've had a huge history with cod.
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  It built our fishing fleet from the inception of Canada, even before that.
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  But we also destroyed it and then we had to put a moratorium in 1992.
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  To destroy it again as it's starting to recover doesn't make sense.
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  So having these politicians make these types of decisions is really bad for
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  the environment, even if you have the tools to make the right decisions.
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  We may not agree with all the decisions that are made, and that's fine.
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  I get that.
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  But, like, you gotta follow the science.
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  You gotta follow what people are saying, and you can't just dip into
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  pressure because somebody's saying, "Hey, I need this money," or, "I wanna
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  be greedy," and things like that.
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  We can't do that.
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  We're seeing it in the South happen in the United States, and it's just…
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  You know, when, when politicians don't have a connection to the environment
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  and only see the environment as a resource, as a natural resource, and
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  as a money-making machine, and not as part of the planet that we live
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  on and we need to treat properly.
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  I'm not saying we can't take advantage of some of the natural resources,
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  but not to a point where it's gonna degrade the planet further.
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  We need to make decisions with the planet in mind.
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  'Cause that's with us, our communities in mind.
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  And some politicians just don't get it.
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  They just don't get it.
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  How they get back in power?
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  I'm not a political analyst, so I don't have a clue.
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  But, we need to stand up to these types of politicians, and we need to vote
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  with the environment in mind, and the economy in mind, 'cause we can do both.
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  There's lots of things that we can do.
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  And some of you may agree with me, some of you may not, but I do feel
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  that we can grow the economy and the environment, or sometimes not
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  necessarily grow the economy, but we can protect our environment and
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  still have good, quality lives.
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  That's it for today's episode.
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  I wanted to just talk to you about some of the non-sexy things that we see in
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  ocean conservation but are very effective.
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  And so I wanted to talk about that.
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  I would love to hear your opinion.
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  I'll put this episode up on this week.
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  Some people don't like the solo episodes during the week because
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  it bogs up their newsfeed.
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  So we'll put that on Patreon as one, and I'll try and put just the solo episodes
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  Whatever's best for you and how you like to do that.
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  But I wanna thank you for being a supporter.
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  I wanna thank you for listening.
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  This is such an important part of my day to be able to talk to you, and
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  I really do appreciate it being a important part for you listening.
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  So thank you so much.
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  I'm very grateful for what you guys have been able to do and allow me
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  to do, continue to do, to be able to speak about the oceans on these
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  airwaves in this podcasting space.
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  And I just appreciate you.
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  That's really what it is.
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  So this is the end of Oceans Week, our episodes.
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  We hope you enjoyed it.
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  Please let me know what you think.
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  You can let me know in any kind of socials.
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  They're all in the show notes as well as the Patreon link.
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  And I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day and a great weekend.
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  We'll talk to you on Monday, and happy conservation.