Prince Philip and WWF launch new fund to protect Canada's marine environment

By Tom Davey, Editor & Publisher

Left to right: Joshua Laughren, Prince Philip and Monte Hummel at the press conference at Toronto's Royal York Hotel. Photo - WWF Canada

A powerful message in defence of the Canadian marine environment was delivered in Toronto, October 20, by Prince Philip. He was attending the launch of the Duke of Edinburgh Fund to Protect Canada's Waters. Speaking without notes he displayed impressive knowledge of the serious problems and economic realities of Canadian aquatic resources, its fisheries. His message was leavened with a regal touch of humour when he leaned over to give advice to a camera man lying in a contorted yet prostrate position on the floor. "Just wait until the TV lights come on," the Prince advised in a fatherly tone which broke up his media audience.

But his message was very serious and wide-ranging, and showed a great deal of scientific understanding about key areas of concern including:

• Gwaii Haanas: A spectacular area in BC, off the southern Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii, called Islands of Beauty by the Haida First Nation;
• Western Lake Superior: The great inland sea, provides crucial habitat for coastal brook trout, the bald eagle and the threatened peregrine falcon;
• The Sable Gully: Canada's underwater Grand Canyon, 200 kilometres east of Nova Scotia and home to the rare northern bottlenose whales and thousand year-old coral; and,
• Igaliqtuuq on Baffin Island, where the Inuit propose to protect the eastern Arctic bowhead whale, the longest-lived mammal on the planet.

"Progress in the protection of our marine environment has been rather slow compared to that on land," said Prince Philip. "The main difference is that the oceans belong to all; there are no proprietorial rights as exist on land." He cited the losses of the cod fisheries in Newfoundland and the loss of herring fisheries in the North Sea as tragedies. He said that despite immense developments by the global fishing industry in developing sophisticated trawling methods, the overall catch had remained static at some eight million tonnes. This means that the fisheries are in a state of decline the world over.

"How can you enforce rules in, say, the Pacific where some trawlers use up to six miles of micronetting which scoop up all sorts of fish besides the species the fishermen are seeking?" he asked. Most fishing regulations try to protect single species of fish but in the North Sea, for example, they often inadvertently catch many other fish species, including undersized fish. "These are usually thrown overboard because of regulations, but the fish are quite dead when they are chucked back into the sea. WWF has plans to obtain corporate involvement in new initiatives," he said.

In reply to an ES&E question on the apparent incompatibility of big business cooperating with environmental activists, Prince Philip responded: "We must bring market forces to bear on the problem." He cited the examples of the fishing industry where a system had been set up so that informed consumers would purchase supplies from fishing interests who harvested their catches on a sustainable basis. The Thames Estuary Stewardship Council was one such body where consumers could buy fish with the confidence that their purchases were part of a sustainable environment. There are many other areas where consumers are voting with their pocketbooks when buying from environmentally-aware suppliers.

There are some anomalies regarding ocean fisheries. The Prince wryly noted: "Fish seem to thrive around the huge oil rigs in the North Sea and other areas."

WWF-Canada President Monte Hummel, earlier had pointed out that Prince Philip had helped raise $200 million and traveled some 150,000 kilometres to attend over 100 WWF-Canada events since 1980, including news conferences for each of the four areas which will first benefit from the new fund.

Joshua Laughren, WWF-Canada's Director of Marine Conservation, noted that: "The pace of development is outstripping the pace of conservation. The pressures on our waters are building, such as oil and gas development, aquaculture, damaging fishing practices, and the loss of our coastal wetlands.

"We all know about the importance of the tropical rainforests, or the great coastal rainforests in BC, but how many know of the giant kelp, found mainly on the west coast, which can grow to 200 feet high and form dense underwater forests? Just like forests on land, these kelp forests provide the habitat, the homes for an entire ecosystem. As much as 50% of our kelp forests have already been lost or degraded," he said.

"On the Atlantic coast, at remote depths of at least 300 metres, live clusters of deep-sea corals, truly ancient forests - estimated to be anywhere from 500 to 1,500 years old, perhaps as old as our oldest trees. And they have been greatly damaged by fishing gear for over one hundred years."

He elaborated on the Sable Gully, offshore of Nova Scotia. It is two kilometres deep, right on the edge of the continental shelf, and home to ancient corals and threatened northern bottlenose whales. It is about as far away from humans as you can get in Canada, but oil, gas and fishing rigs are closing in, he noted.

"WWF has been working for seven years to protect the Gully from industrial pressures. In 1998, in London, England, Prince Philip hosted a press conference to celebrate the announcement of the Sable Gully as an area of interest by our Department of Fisheries and Oceans. There it remains today, an area of interest, but certainly not of action," he stressed.

"We know the story of the Newfoundland cod crisis all too well. We have seen the cost of inaction. After supporting a worldwide fishery for nearly 500 years, the cod collapsed in the early 1990s. Ten years later, the cod have not recovered. No one knows if they ever will. The direct costs of that collapse run into the billions of dollars, and that doesn't even take into account the human costs of more than 30,000 jobs lost and the continuing hardship of local communities."

But the focus at this meeting was Prince Philip whose message was articulate, powerful and very focussed on each environmental issue. Ironically, he said the media could be very powerful in putting pressure on politicians who breathe a sigh of relief when environmental news like this is ignored, or doesn't make the front pages.

Just for the record - at this meeting, some important and highly sensitive environmental issues were discussed at a high level by people in high places. It was covered by several TV stations and in syndicated Canadian press reports. But our rivers and seas were spared any contamination from printers' ink in the Toronto area. The Prince's erudite environmental message went unreported by four major newspapers, whose reporters attended the event.

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