ID: 1648
Presenting Author: Samuel Mansfield
Session: 529 - Strategic, Not Generic: The Next Generation of Regional Assessments
Status: pending
Collaborative, government-to-government approaches by First Nations and Transport Canada to assess regional cumulative effects of marine shipping in the Northern Shelf Bioregion, British Columbia.
Canada, through its Oceans Protection Plan, is advancing the Cumulative Effects of Marine Shipping (CEMS) initiative to improve understanding of the regional cumulative effects of vessel activities at identified assessment sites, including the Northern Shelf Bioregion (NSB) in British Columbia.
This presentation will highlight the collaborative approaches used by Pacific North Coast First Nations and Transport Canada to advance CEMS assessment work and decision-making in the NSB on a government-to-government basis, guided by commitments under the Reconciliation Framework Agreement for Bioregional Oceans Management and Protection (the RFA).
It will also showcase how CEMS embraces methods that are inclusive of both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems to assess the impacts of marine shipping on two key issues of concern: (1) Indigenous marine uses (incl. harvesting and safe access), and (2) marine mammals (incl. underwater noise and vessel strikes).
Examples and lessons learned from these collaborative assessment approaches will be shared. The presentation will be co-delivered with a First Nation representative (two presenters total) to enable the sharing of insights and experiences on CEMS from both Indigenous and federal perspectives.
More information on the CEMS initiative and the NSB Assessment Site (see pages 33-38) is available in the CEMS National Framework: https://tc.canada.ca/sites/default/files/2023-03/tc_marineshipping_en.pdf.
Sam Mansfield is an Environmental Analyst with Transport Canada. Since 2019, he has supported regional Cumulative Effects of Marine Shipping assessments in British Columbia and Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.