Fish Habitat: Essential Fish Habitat and Rehabilitation

Fish Habitat Rehabilitation and Conservation in the Great Lakes: Moving from Opportunism to Scientifically Defensible Management

John H. Hartig and John R. M. Kelso

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781888569124.ch24

Abstract. —The Canada-U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) is an evolving instrument for ecosystem-based management. Its initial emphasis in 1972 was on controlling phosphorus inputs. In 1978, the GLWQA focused on control and management of persistent toxic substances and the use of an ecosystem approach in management and research. The 1987 Protocol to the GLWQA adopted new annexes mat focused on sources and pathways of persistent toxic substances and on development and implementation of comprehensive management plans to restore beneficial uses, including fish and wildlife habitat. Canada and the United States have achieved a number of Great Lakes successes. Examples of successes include: reversing cultural eutrophication in the lower Great Lakes and maintaining the oligotrophic-mesotrophic state of the upper Great Lakes as a result of phosphorus control programs, and achieving US$2-4 billion in economic return to the Great Lakes region annually as a result of fish stocking, restrictions on harvests, and sea lamprey control. As such successes have been achieved and cooperative management efforts have evolved to address ecosystem integrity and sustainability, the relative importance of habitat as a Great Lakes issue has increased. Current major challenges to further ecosystem-based management of habitat include: ensuring that all levels of government adopt strong habitat conservation and rehabilitation policy statements; recruiting and retaining trained habitat personnel to ensure that local and regional actions are consistent with such policies; sustaining creative ecosystem-based processes in light of government cutbacks; addressing the need for fish habitat assessment and analysis via effective institutional arrangements; agreeing on a core set of indicators and allocating required resources to sustain monitoring programs; and exchanging information about successful experiences with modifying habitat to support fish stocks and communicating broadly both ecological and economic benefits.