Our Coasts: Legacies and Futures
The biennial Coastal Zone Canada conference is the leading interdisciplinary forum held for professionals from across Canada and around the world to meet and discuss all aspects of coastal and ocean management. The 2014 conference theme, OUR COASTS: LEGACIES AND FUTURES, recognizes that our past choices and decisions have led us to where we are today, both positive and negative. The theme also recognizes that opportunities abound to influence and shape the future. Our choices today will determine which future path we will tread. We are all accountable to step up and take action for the future we want and need. Dr. Francis Zwiers, a Bureau member of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and currently the Director and CEO of the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium based in Victoria, British Columbia, will be addressing the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC in his talk on Wednesday, June 18th.
The Right Honourable Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada and present Commissioner on the Global Ocean Commission, will be the special guest speaker at the Thursday morning plenary session. Mr. Martin is one of seventeen Commissioners reviewing the present state of the World's oceans to provide politically and technically feasible short-, medium- and long-term recommendations to address four key issues facing the high seas: overfishing, large-scale loss of habitat and biodiversity, the lack of effective management and enforcement, and deficiencies in high seas governance.