Expansion of marine conservation areas (CA) necessitates resource-efficient and achievable strategies for monitoring and evaluation of ongoing fishing activity at national levels. To demonstrate and explore such a strategy, we conducted the first extensive analysis of fishing activity within Canada’s static, geographically defined marine CAs with fishing regulations (n = 264 areas). We used eight years of Automatic Identification System data to estimate fishing effort across three oceans and conducted temporal and spatial comparisons specific to each CA’s regulations and enactment date. We addressed questions on CA effectiveness, fishing displacement, fishing the line behavior, and relationships between fishing activity and spatial CA attributes. We estimated 22,000 hours of fishing activity within CAs after enactments, 22% of which was identified as illegal. CA effectiveness appeared to be lowest for Atlantic CAs based on illegal fishing effort density within CAs. Fishing displacement and fishing the line was generally not apparent as buffer areas around CAs tended to already have higher fishing effort prior to enactments. CA effectiveness and responses to CAs varied considerably, as was visualized using timeseries plots and maps developed for each CA. Our evaluation of a nation’s full suite of CAs provides managers with a foundation and approach for continued monitoring and reporting.

See Iacarella, J. C., Burke, L., Clyde, G., Wicks, A., Clavelle, T., Dunham, A., Rubidge, E., & Woods, P. (2023). Application of AIS- and flyover-based methods to monitor illegal and legal fishing in Canada's Pacific marine conservation areas. Conservation Science and Practice, 5(6), e12926 and Iacarella, J. C., Burke, L., Clyde, G., Wicks, A., Clavelle, T., Dunham, A., Rubidge, E., & Woods, P. (2023). Monitoring temporal and spatial trends of illegal and legal fishing in marine conservation areas across Canada's three oceans. Conservation Science and Practice, 5(6), e12919.

Data provided are specific to the analyses conducted on AIS-based fishing vessel activity conducted within and surrounding Canada’s static, geographically defined marine CAs.

There are three datasets:

1. Marine CAs and the buffer extents that include, the perimeter at 100 m inside and outside the CA, a 1 km buffer extending outside the CA, and a 5 km buffer area extending 1-5 km from the CA. There are shapefiles for the CAs’ and associated buffers for the final time interval when a new CA was enacted during the timeframe of the AIS dataset (2019-08-21).
2. AIS-based fishing effort hours per month from 2012-2019 for each fishing activity category (i.e., illegal, legal, and remainder) specific to the CAs’ extents, the perimeter at 100 m inside and outside the CA, a 1 km buffer extending outside the CA, and a 5 km buffer area extending 1-5 km from the CA. There are four csv files of fishing effort hours per month, one for the CAs' extents and the others for each associated buffer.
3. AIS-based fishing effort hours per year from 2012-2019 for each fishing gear class. There is a raster layer for each fishing gear class identified from 2012-2019.