One Million Hectares of Lake Superior Will Become Canada’s First National Marine Conservation Area

Photo: Elena Kreuzbert

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The Governments of Canada and Ontario have signed an agreement to create the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area, which will be the largest freshwater marine protected area in the world!

The rugged shoreline and pristine waters of Lake Superior are among the most beautiful and celebrated natural spaces in North America. The area is home to endangered trout populations and other coldwater fish like whitefish and walleye, as well as woodland caribou, peregrine falcons, eagles and herons. The new conservation area will extend roughly 140 kilometres east of Thunder Bay.

National marine conservation areas are protected under the National Marine Conservation Areas Act (NMCAA) from such activities as ocean dumping, undersea mining, and oil and gas exploration and development.

Protected areas like this one conserve some of our most important natural spaces, providing Canada and the world with clean air and water, abundant wildlife populations, healthy communities and strong economies.

Nature Canada lobbied to create the National Marine Conservation Areas Act (NMCAA) and has been working since then to ensure that Parks Canada receives the resources necessary to establish these protected areas.

The NMCAA is one of several acts of legislation in Canada created to conserve marine and land-based areas, including a new Oceans Act, National Parks Act and Species at Risk Act.

In fact, Canada has world class environmental legislation in place, but such laws are not always used effectively. Canada still has a long way to go to become a global leader in nature conservation. Canada ranks 16th among OECD countries in the amount of lands set aside in terrestrial protected areas, and 70th globally in percentage of oceans protected.

Nature Canada has called for the establishment of a national system of marine protected areas by 2012, which would result in 14 new national marine conservation areas, including Bowie Seamount of the north coast of British Columbia and Iquali qluug off Baffin Island in Nunavut.

Protected areas provide insurance that key eco-regions will escape the worst effects of global warming as well as development, and they are essential yardsticks for measuring how unprotected areas are changed by these twin forces.

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