Canada is working on a giant new conservation area on the country's west coast

Officials in Canada have spent years working together with several groups of First Nations in British Columbia to create one of the largest conservation areas in the world, and this new area will be completely underwater!

For years the Government of Canada has been working on a plan to bring an absolutely gigantic underwater protection zone to the country's Pacific West Coast, and in early 2023, the final touches were being put on scheme to create the Tang.ɢwan-ḥačxʷiqak-Tsig̱is Marine Protected Area.

In 2016, Fisheries and Oceans Canada began work on the creation of the massive Tang.ɢwan-ḥačxʷiqak-Tsig̱is Marine Protected Area off the coast of British Columbia. 

Earlier iterations of the project originally encompassed an area that covered an additional 6000 square kilometers, but the announced area is utterly enormous according to The Narwhal’s Jimmy Thompson. 

“The Tang.ɢwan-ḥačxʷiqak-Tsig̱is marine protected area will be 133,000 square kilometers,” Thompson wrote in a recent article on Canada’s newest conversation project. 

Thompson added that the area would cover a series of underwater mountain ranges as well as several little-understood ecosystems of deepwater marine species. 

“There are three unique, otherworldly ecosystems in the area to be protected,” wrote Thompson, “seamounts, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and methane seeps.”

Canada’s new marine protected zone is unique in that it was designed to protect a very rare series of seamounts and hydrothermal vents that only exist off of the country’s western coast. 

“Over 70 percent of all known seamounts and all known hydrothermal vents in Canada are found here,” according to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website.

The creation of Canada’s newest marine protected area has been done in collaboration with the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, the Council of the Haida Nation, the Pacheedaht First Nation, and the Quatsino First Nation.

“We were interested because we really want to make sure that our fishing territories are managed and protected,” Judith Sayers told First Nations news outlet Ha-Shilth-Sa.

Photo by Facebook @viuniversity

Sayers the current Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council President was quoted by Thompson in his article because of her role in signing the agreement to with the Government of Canada to help create the marine protected area. 

“We saw it as an opportunity... to take part in environmental protection,” Sayers said, adding: “We've inserted as strong language as possible, to ensure that we have a say over that area.”

Photo by Twitter @Uuathluk

For the Government of Canada, the Tang.ɢwan-ḥačxʷiqak-Tsig̱is Marine Protected Area is a huge step forward in reaching the country’s ocean conservation promises. 

“The establishment of this new MPA will contribute approximately 0.88 percent to Canada’s goal to conserve 25 percent of our ocean by 2025,” the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website noted.

The Fisheries and Oceans Canada website also added that the size of its new marine protected area would make it the largest ever created off of Canada’s Pacific West.

There are currently fourteen different marine protected areas in Canada that are covered under the country’s Oceans Act, and they make up roughly six percent of Canada’s marine and coastal areas according to government websites.