Marine Life Sanctuaries Society

MLSS BC is a passionate group of volunteers, scientists, professional divers, and motivated members of the community who have been leading Citizen Science efforts to protect the marine ecosystems in Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound for the past several decades.

Through government collaboration, public outreach, and community partnerships, MLSS BC discovered, mapped, and protected the majority of sponge reefs in Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound and helped establish 13 Marine Refuge Conservation Areas.

Since its mapping efforts, MLSS BC has expanded its conservation efforts to include rockfish (including young of the year) monitoring, lingcod egg mass monitoring, temperature monitoring, glass sponge research and documentation, and various community outreach efforts such as our signature Beach Interpretation Program. Read more about our initiatives here.

Our work is not done yet however and we remain active in achieving further protection for marine life in Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound , all with the ultimate goal of “making the world a better place, one no-take marine protected area at a time”

The Pacific Marine Life Sanctuaries Society became a registered charitable organization in 1990, but was renamed the Marine Life Sanctuaries Society in 1993. That same year, Bernard Hanby, one of the founders of the society, wrote an article entitled, An Idea Whose Time Has Come wherein he identified the long-overdue justification for marine reserves. Since 1985 the idea of forming a society had been buoyed around by long time dive partners, Andy Lamb and Bernard Hanby, authors of the popular photographic and encyclopedic book, Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest (2005). Throughout thousands of dives on the Central Coast of BC over a period of 25 years, they had observed a significant decline in populations of inshore rockfish species that were formally abundant. Coincidentally, they noticed a major increase in the targeting of live rockfish species by commercial interests and increased sport-fishing pressure. They decided it was time to take action, and establishing marine sanctuaries was deemed a promising approach.

Since its initiation, MLSS has been working to achieve greater protection of our coastal waters through the creation of sanctuaries where absolutely no extraction of life, or mineral, is permitted within a marine protected area (MPA).

MLSS knows that the best methodology to support over-harvested marine life, and enable the ecosystems to return to a healthy sustainable state, lies in full no-take marine sanctuaries.

There is a false perception that MPAs are completely protected from all types of extractions (e.g., fishing, trapping, seining, trawling, etc.). This is not the case. Most MPAs allow one or more forms of extraction. For a marine sanctuary to exist and support sustainable marine life there can be no extraction whatsoever (full no-take initiative). If given time, the sanctuary will have a spill-over effect of marine life that will benefit the surrounding areas and populations.

Sanctuaries need to be large and the protection needs to be enforced. Growing evidence has shown that there is a prevalence of low compliance and a general lack of awareness of existing fishing regulations with rampant poaching, especially in Rockfish Conservation Areas (RCAs) (Haggarty 2013; Vachon and Kushneryk 2017). Enforcement of regulations has been a sorely lacking entity throughout Canada’s coastal areas.

MLSS continues to focus on a stewardship program at the community level to empower citizens to report on illegal fishing and other such activities that are harmful to sustainable fisheries and the overall health of the ocean. The program allows people to understand how to observe, record and report their observations to DFO. We do not advocate policing. We do advocate for education and awareness so that citizens can understand the existing rules and accurately report infractions to the appropriate federal or provincial conservation officers.

MLSS believes that the key to success lies in community engagement and education. Humans are intimately involved and responsible for the sustainability of marine life and the habitats or ecosystems that support it. Despite this, the average individual has never seen many of the common creatures that live in the ocean. Using science-based research, education, hands-on BIP activities, photography and video documentation, MLSS endeavours to not only change this but also to create an emotional attachment by citizens to marine life and to encourage a responsible approach to sustainable fisheries through the establishment of protected marine sanctuaries.

Not only does MLSS work with the general public, who may have little to no knowledge of the underwater world, we also work closely with the local dive community to monitor the health of our marine life and habitats. Our long term monitoring programs (found here) collect vital data which can be used to better inform conservation and management efforts by provincial and federal regulatory bodies. These programs have also created an extensive network of local citizen scientists who have become inspired marine stewards, directly involved in the caretaking of our ocean. Our citizen scientists commit thousands of volunteer hours each year and MLSS believes that their effort will achieve greater protection for our coastal waters.