LOOKING BACK: Efforts to Protect the Quoddy Area Didn’t Happen!

Passamaquoddy Bay is known to have the highest biodiversity along the Northeast Atlantic coast. Does it need protection from continuing attempts to turn it into an industrial port?

Quoddy Region https://goo.gl/maps/TzP9oBjWM942

Marine Protected Areas (MPA) are created to protect special areas in our oceans around the world. The Passamaquoddy Bay Area or Quoddy Region is located at the northern reaches of the Gulf of Maine and is shared by the USA and Canada and is it one of those places that needs protection. But efforts to protect this special place for future generations have been unsuccessful.

For decades, large polluting industries have been trying to turn Quoddy into a huge industrial port. So far their efforts have been largely unsuccessful. But these efforts continue and the industrial growth that has occurred has had clear and measurable environmental and economic impacts and the degradation may continue.

In recent times, dozens of individuals and groups have attempted, largely unsuccessfully, to have the Quoddy Area protected in some way. Unfortunately, these efforts to protect the area have encountered serious local opposition based on a fear that “traditional” fishing will be impacted. Yet this is happening already because there is no protection at all and landings have continued to drop with huge losses of revenue. Pollution from industry, coastal sewage and aquaculture coupled with large-scale corporate fishing continues unabated and the impacts will continue unless the area has protection of some sort.

A few years ago, the new Government of Canada announced interest in exploring Quoddy as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). But that proved to be merely another “dance” for the electorate.

So … the question remains in 2021. Will the Passamaquoddy area be protected from further damaging developments or not?