Sustaining Marine Biodiversity in Canada and Globally

Increasing human pressures on the global ocean increase the demand for policy-relevant science. Canada’s coastline, the longest in the world, provides a wide range of functions and services critical to society. But increasing demand for ocean resources creates major challenges in meeting Canada’s national and international objectives on sustainable oceans. Conservation approaches may encompass a wide range of management strategies that include various types of marine protected areas and changes in fishing effort, but the efficacy of such efforts hinges on knowledge on habitat mapping, population connectivity, ecosystem functioning, and quantification of biodiversity. Such knowledge pulls in biological, physical, chemical, and geological oceanographic data that vary in scale from international programs such as the Census of Marine Life, to national programs such as the NSERC Canadian Heathy Oceans Network, to individual research laboratories. This presentation will draw on examples from each of these scales to illustrate how “pure” oceanographic research can help to address “applied” problems in ocean policy and help Canada meet its goals through the Oceans Act and international agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.