LAST JUNE RODOLPHE DEVILLERS stood on the Canadian parliament floor in Ottawa and gave the ministers there a stark warning. Devillers, a geography professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, told them they should not allow industry to operate inside marine protected areas (MPAs), parcels set aside to safeguard ocean life. If the government continued to issue lax restrictions inside the nation's reserves, he said, "the Canadian MPA network is unlikely to bring the benefits the government and Canadians expect." The day before, he and 14 other scientists had sent a damning letter to two of the ministers, complaining about Canada's weak actions. They had also sent a copy to the media, and by the afternoon the story had become national news.
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy
