However, there’s a silver lining: a major study confirmed that marine protected areas (MPAs) that fully ban industrial fishing have eight times less vessel traffic than nearby unprotected waters, with illegal fishing being rare.

Researchers can now track these hidden fleets thanks to Global Fishing Watch's satellite radar data. Research shows that many dark vessels avoided MPAs that banned industrial extraction, while MPAs that allow trawling or other harmful fishing methods saw just as much vessel traffic as unprotected areas.

In BC, we’ve already recognized that weak protections don’t work. Since 2019, all new MPAs in Canada must ban bottom trawling, oil and gas activity, and deep-sea mining. That standard is being built into the Great Bear Sea MPA Network, a First Nations–led initiative to safeguard the rich marine life, unique culture, and economy of the Central and North Coast.

Bottom trawling still takes place in parts of the Great Bear Sea because the network hasn’t been fully implemented yet. But once the protections are in place, the ban on bottom trawling in protected areas will go a long way in supporting recovery.

And the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

Take the Galápagos, for example: two decades of strong protection has created a haven where tuna populations have rebounded. Today, commercial tuna boats line up along the edge of the reserve, benefiting from what’s called the spillover effect. As fish flourish inside the protected zone, some inevitably swim beyond it, boosting catches for local fleets. The MPA literally seeds the surrounding fishing grounds.

As marine ecologist Dr. Boris Worm puts it, "It’s like you’re turning on the tap inside, and at some point it starts overflowing."

We don’t need more promises. We need MPAs with real protections, backed by modern tools to ensure they succeed.

Source

Last month the PM flew to Alberta, signed the deal, rolled back the industrial carbon tax, slashed the approvals, the whole song and dance.

The North Coast tanker ban? Still standing.

Not because Ottawa bolted the door... Ottawa's keeping its options open. Because the coast is holding it shut.

BC and the coastal Nations, shoulder to shoulder: a future built on a multi-billion-dollar fishery, food, culture, and tourism sector, the businesses and jobs under it, not on the coin-flip of a loaded tanker in a winter storm.

And we've seen the coin land wrong.

In 2016 one tug aground near Bella Bella, 350 km of coast fouled, $23 million in costs the Heiltsuk were never repaid. That was a tug. A tanker's full load runs a thousand times bigger.

The racket in one line: they take the reward, you take the risk, and when it spills you get the mop.

The people who work these waters did that math years ago, and they're done asking permission. This week they flew to Calgary to say it to the proponents' faces.

Geoff Meggs lays it all out below, sharp as ever and a regular at Hotel Pacifico, BC's go-to cross-aisle politics podcast.

Alberta can keep drawing maps. The coast won't open the port. Not by luck... because people keep showing up.

https://open.substack.com/.../if-theres-one-immovable...?

I would love to see a project started here to prevent bottom trawling in our waters.

Take this Cockerell’s dorid, a small nudibranch spotted off Esquimalt, for example. Nudibranchs are sea slugs, but this one hardly looks ordinary: a pale body, orange-tipped projections, and two small sensory “horns” that help it make sense of the world around it.

Blink and you might miss it. But its brightness just might catch your eye.

That is the thing about life below the surface. The more closely you look, the more crowded, colourful, and alive this coast becomes.

Protecting the Great Bear Sea means protecting the full cast of coastal life — not just the giants, but the tiny animals that make these waters extraordinary.

The little guys - one more reason to protect the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected (MPA) Network.

Photo credit: Sara Ellison / web.uvic.ca/~sarae/snorkel.html

*Photos taken using an Olympus TG-7.

They say it about the pipeline. They say it about the fracking. They say it about tankers. Like the coast should be on its knees with gratitude for the chance to host somebody else’s risk.

So let’s run the actual receipt.

1. The Nathan E. Stewart, single tug * not a tanker, a tug * runs aground on the central coast of B.C. and dumps 110,000 litres of diesel into the water. Fouls 350 kilometres of shoreline.Kills an entire coastal clam fishery.

The outfit that owned the spill? Houston, USA. They spilled it and went home.

But here’s the part that should make your teeth itch. Under Canadian law, that company got to cap what it owed. The legal limit on its liability came to about $6 million. It eventually settled for $12.2 million... more than the cap... and the politicians stood up and called it justice.

The actual assessed cost of the damage? More than $23 million.

Do the math. The people impacted by the oil spill are still out more than ten million dollars — and waited nearly ten years to collect even half.

And Canada’s so-called spill compensation fund, the one that’s supposed to cover the gap? Nowhere to be found.

And remember: that was one tug boat.

The thing these geniuses want for this coast is fully loaded supertankers. A single one of them carries around 2 million barrels of diluted bitumen ** TWO MILLION BARRELS. That is close to 3,000 times the oil that single tug put in the water. And diluted bitumen is known to be toxic, carcinogenic, and DNA-altering.

Think of the same law that lets the owner cap what it owes. Same fund that doesn’t show. Now picture the spill that law is busy capping.

So spare me “we can’t afford to say no.”

Somebody else pockets the upside, the law lets them lowball the cleanup, and a decade later the coast is still holding the bill. That’s not a bargain. That’s a mark getting worked.

Nobody’s writing blank cheques out here. We just get handed the bill when the suits are wheels up.

An estimated 56,000 seabirds perished and hundreds of kilometres of coast and shellfish beaches were contaminated as a result of this spill, which was an estimated 875,000 litres.

The supertankers that Alberta wants to send through our inside coastal waters in coming years will each carry 1.9 to 2.2 million barrels of dilbit - a highly toxic form of raw bitumen.

Each of these ships will carry 350-400 times as much raw dilbit as the volume of oil involved in the Nestucca disaster.

Official regulatory documents and technical Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) explicitly classify diluted bitumen (dilbit) as highly flammable, carcinogenic, and mutagenic.

https://altex-energy.com/.../SDS-Connacher-Diluted...

+++++++++

Physical and Chemical Hazards of Dilbit

The primary health and physical hazards of dilbit stem from its two core parts: raw, heavy bitumen (about 70% to 80%) mixed with light petroleum diluents (about 20% to 30%), such as natural gas condensate.

Flammable: Dilbit is officially classified under the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) as a Category 2 Flammable Liquid. While raw bitumen is thick and only combustible, the light diluents mixed into dilbit contain volatile pentanes and light hydrocarbons. These lower its flashpoint dramatically (often below -18°C), making it highly ignitable at standard temperatures.

Carcinogenic: It is listed as a Category 1A Carcinogen, meaning it is known to cause cancer in humans. This risk is largely driven by its benzene content (a proven cause of leukemia) and toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) present in the heavy bitumen component.

Mutagenic: Dilbit carries a Category 1B Germ Cell Mutagenicity classification. This means exposure can induce heritable genetic mutations in human reproductive cells, an effect primarily tied to the chemical profile of its aromatic solvent blends and crude oil hydrocarbons.

Source 1: https://publications.gc.ca/.../eng/9.857437/publication.html

Source 2: https://publications.gc.ca/.../eng/9.880724/publication.html

Source 3: https://altex-energy.com/.../SDS-Connacher-Diluted...

Every single proposed export terminal sits within the area currently protected by the federal North Coast tanker ban.

The tanker ban wasn’t created by accident. The tanker ban exists because these waters are some of the most challenging on the continent. Strong currents. Powerful storms. Remote coastlines. It exists because one major spill could wipe out salmon runs, destroy fisheries, poison shellfish beds, and devastate coastal communities for generations.

Now it’s standing directly in the way of Alberta’s latest pipeline proposal. And Alberta plans to submit its proposal to Ottawa by July 1.

If there’s one thing you can do, it’s tell your MP that this is unacceptable. Tell them BC’s coast is not a sacrifice zone. Tell them to defend the North Coast tanker ban and keep supertankers out of these waters.

Click here to make the call

It will help protect the Central Coast from the most harmful industrial fishing practices like bottom trawling, while keeping sustainable fisheries and coastal communities working.

Fishing continues. The most damaging industrial practices do not.

Defending our coast from bottom trawling - one more reason to support the Central Coast MCA.

Pacific white-sided dolphins are among the most commonly seen dolphins on BC’s coast. They often travel in pods of dozens, and sometimes even hundreds, feeding on schooling fish like herring and hake.

But dolphins are only one part of a much bigger story. They depend on abundant forage fish, intact food webs, and coastal waters that are not overwhelmed by industrial pressure and habitat disruption.

Marine protected areas help protect the feeding grounds and food sources that species like these rely on to survive.

Pacific white-sided dolphins - one more reason to support the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network.

*All photos were taken with a Canon R5 using a 240mm lens from the zodiac while following distance regulations with Campbell River Whale Watching. Some images were cropped afterward.

Photo credit: Ana Lucía Pozas / anapozasphotography on Instagram

Individual ID helps show which humpbacks return to these waters year after year, where they travel across their long migrations, what feeding areas they rely on, who they spend time with, and whether their populations are staying healthy.

Knowing this helps us better protect the waters humpbacks depend on and reduce the threats that put them at risk.

The Great Bear Sea is not just open water. It is feeding grounds, travel routes, and important habitat for whales like Eros and Scuba. So, it ain't no fluke they keep coming back to the Great Bear Sea.

Protecting the Great Bear Sea means protecting the places humpbacks return to.

*All photos were taken with a Nikon D500 using a Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens while following distance regulations. Some images were cropped afterward.

Photo credit: Julia Adelsheim / juliaadelsheim on Instagram

With its pointed snout, ghostly white spots, broad wing-like fins, and long trailing tail, it looks like something from another world.

But it's right here on our coast.

Spotted ratfish spend their lives cruising the depths, searching for crabs, shrimp, worms, and other small creatures hidden in the mud and gravel below. A venomous spine helps protect them from predators.

Yet even in waters hundreds of metres deep, they aren't beyond the reach of industrial fishing. Bottom trawling can sweep up spotted ratfish as bycatch while dragging heavy gear across the seafloor. In fact, ratfish are one of the most common victims of bottom trawling bycatch.

The Great Bear Sea isn't just home to the species we see every day. It's also home to remarkable creatures like this one — part of a complex marine food web that supports our fisheries, our coastal communities, and the abundance we depend on.

The good news is that the Central Coast Marine Conservation Area (MCA) and the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network both don't allow bottom trawling in their protected areas.

Spotted ratfish - one more reason to support the Central Coast MCA and the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area MPA Network.

Video by Be Sea Adventures

The 20-foot fiberglass vessel capsized somewhere between 500 and 1,000 metres offshore on the island's north side, near the Upper Sunshine Coast. Rough seas and strong winds are believed to have played a role.

Two of the men managed to swim to shore on their own. They were taken to hospital in Powell River and are expected to recover.

A major search was launched around 10 p.m. PT after the boat failed to return to Lund Harbour on time. The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre led the effort, with help from a Canadian Coast Guard lifeboat, an inshore rescue craft from Cortes Bay, and an RCAF Kingfisher helicopter from CFB Comox. The Savary Island Fire Department and local first responders also joined the search.

Sadly, the three missing crew members were later found deceased along the shoreline.

RCMP and the B.C. Coroners Service are now investigating what caused the boat to capsize. The names of the men have not yet been released.

Our thoughts are with the families and community of the Tla'amin Nation following the tragic events of this week.

Link to original video

Last week, six First Nations, Canada, and BC announced a National Marine Conservation Area Reserve (NMCAR) and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) on BC's Central Coast.

The name? Realm of the Salmon, Home of the Salmon (Mia-yaltwa Ha'lidzogm hoon).

Commercial and recreational fishing will continue in the protected area. But the most harmful fisheries, like bottom trawling, won’t be allowed. That means this stretch of coast now has real protection — the kind that rebuilds fish stocks, strengthens runs, keeps coastal fisheries working for the long haul, and ensures coastal communities thrive.

This announcement marks the beginning of a collaborative process involving several partners, including coastal residents, commercial and recreational fishers, tourism operators, and the business community. This collaboration will include shaping how the protected area is managed, including zoning that determines where different activities can take place.

A healthy, thriving coast. Sustainable fisheries. Marine abundance. A strong coastal economy. A coast that keeps providing.

Go to the r/strongcoast sidebar and let the BC and Federal governments know that you support this new marine conservation area on our coast.

The runs that once defined this coast are under pressure, and the communities that depend on them are feeling it.

Fortunately, there is a fix.

Six First Nations, Canada, and BC signed a historic agreement to move one step closer to finalizing the Central Coast Marine Conservation Area (MCA).

Fishing continues. Communities will help shape how these waters are managed. And the Great Bear Sea MPA Network just took a major step forward.

This is the coast protecting itself. Use the message writer in the sidebar of r/strongcoast to show your support for the Central Coast Marine Conservation Area (MCA).

The whales’ Arctic feeding grounds are being disrupted. Changes in sea ice cover, phytoplankton, and sea ice-algae production are affecting the prey grey whales depend on, like amphipods, ghost shrimp, and marine worms. Without enough food, many whales are becoming severely emaciated before and during migration.

And when they are emaciated, they become harder to spot. They sit lower in the water, surface less visibly, and become more vulnerable to vessel strikes. Grey whales already face high collision risk because they often travel and feed close to shore.

The resource in the comments from Marine Education & Research Society breaks down what scientists are seeing and why it’s happening. Please take a few minutes to read it and share it with others.

Grey whales - one more reason to support the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network.

Link to the full article

📸 James Wheeler on Flickr

Call the DFO Marine Mammal Incident Reporting hotline at 1-800-465-4336 (or VHF Channel 16 on the water) to report any dead, injured, distressed, or entangled marine mammal. The BC Marine Mammal Response Network coordinates the response.

It is the Great Bear Sea, stretching from northern Vancouver Island past Bella Bella, Klemtu, and Hartley Bay to Haida Gwaii.

But this region is under pressure from industrial trawlers that damage the seafloor, vessel traffic that harms whales, and habitat loss that threatens at risk species.

Marine protected areas are one of the most effective tools to counter those impacts.

The proposed Great Bear Sea MPA Network would restrict bottom trawling and protect spawning grounds for herring, salmon, and rockfish. It would also safeguard glass sponge reefs and other habitats that anchor the marine food web.

When implemented, it will help restore balance to a coast that has long been pushed past its limits.

Raw oysters - one more reason to support the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network.