Are fishery closures MPAs?
Canada’s OPAT System does not include temporal fishery closures in its MPA inventory. “We don’t consider them to be marine protected areas,” said OPAT creator Peter Hale. One of the reasons is consistency. If OPAT included temporal fishery closures, he says, it would have to include other temporal closures, too, such as oil and gas moratoria. Canada’s entire Pacific coast is currently subject to federal and provincial moratoria on oil and gas development. Josh Laughren, marine program director for WWF Canada, an NGO, says fishery closures shouldn’t be included because they don’t offer permanent protection. To be an MPA, he says, a site must offer long-term, legislated preservation of habitat. “A fishery closure can be changed or removed by bureaucratic order — it can be here today and gone tomorrow,” said Laughren. “That’s not to say that closures aren’t an effective fisheries management measure. But calling them an MPA is a misnomer.” He points out that most every part of the Canadia
