Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) presented on its Fisheries Protection Program and how biodiversity offsets fit into the program. The Fisheries Act prohibits causing serious harm to fish and requires decision-making to support fishery sustainability. DFO's offsetting policy aims to maintain fishery productivity by avoiding, mitigating, and offsetting harm. Offsetting must be considered where serious harm cannot be avoided and becomes an enforceable authorization condition. DFO provides guidance on developing offset plans to select appropriate measures guided by principles like balancing project impacts and supporting long-term fishery benefits. Habitat restoration and creation are examples of offsetting options.

1. Fisheries and Oceans Canada:
Offsets and the Fisheries Protection Program
Presentation for Biodiversity Offsets in Canada
Institute of the Environment, University of Ottawa
1
February 13-14, 2014

2. The Fisheries Act
• New Fisheries Protection
Provisions:
• Purpose of decision-making to
provide for sustainability and
ongoing productivity of fisheries
• Prohibition against causing serious
harm to fish that are part of or
support a commercial, recreational
or Aboriginal fishery
• Framework for decision-making
3

3. New national policy on fisheries protection
• Policy goal: provide for
sustainability and ongoing
productivity of fisheries
• discusses key elements of the
Fisheries Protection Provisions
• interprets “serious harm to fish” and
the scope of application
• describes the factors to be
considered prior to authorizing
projects that cause serious harm to
fish
4

4. How offsetting fits into fisheries protection at DFO
• general advice and project reviews to
help proponent’s avoid serious harm
to fish
• where serious harm to fish is
unavoidable, offsetting is a required
• Offsets become a condition of
authorization and failure to comply is
enforceable
• offsetting can range from localized
improvements to habitat to more
complex measures to address factors
limiting production

5. New guidance on offsetting
• aims to maintain or enhance sustainability and
ongoing productivity of fisheries through
avoiding, mitigating and offsetting
• outlines the proponent’s responsibility to avoid
and, when it is unavoidable, to engage affected
parties to select appropriate offsets
• recognizes the importance, and challenges of,
determining equivalency, effectiveness, and
identifying appropriate options in some
environments
• designed to provide flexibility in offset choices
guided but is guided by clear principles and
informed by science

6. Offsetting
increase
Target: achieve at least original level of productivity
Net effect
decrease
mitigable
effects
Mitigation
Original impact (affected site)
7
total serious
harm to fish
Productivity
Time
residual
effects
Adapted from: ICMM IUCN (2012) Independent report on
biodiversity offsets. Prepared by The Biodiversity
Consultancy.(Figure 1).
offset of residual
serious harm to fish
Offset plan
Simultaneous
impact & offset

7. Developing an offset plan
1. Characterize the residual serious harm to fish
2. Select offsetting measures
3. Determine the amount of offsetting required
4. Establish the monitoring and reporting of conditions
5. Submit plan to DFO
8

8. Guiding principles of offsetting
1. Support fisheries management objectives or
local restoration priorities
2. Benefits from offsetting measures should
balance project impacts
3. Offsetting measures should provide
additional benefits to the fishery
4. Offsetting measures should generate selfsustaining benefits over the long term

9. Ways to offset
before
after
10

10. Habitat restoration
before
after
11

11. Habitat creation
12

12. Additional possibilities
• Chemical or biological
manipulations
• Complementary measures
(collection of data, research)
13

13. Summary
• The Fisheries Act and associated policies have
provided an opportunity to revise the way DFO
thinks about offsetting
• The emphasis is on outcomes that maintain or
enhance fisheries productivity
• Development of more detailed guidance is ongoing
with continued collaboration from scientists,
regulatory partners and stakeholders
14

14. Thank you
• For more information: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/pnw-ppe/index-eng.html
15