What is PNCIMA?
The Pacific North Coast Integrated Management area (PNCIMA) is a unique marine area off the west coast of Canada.
The Canadian government named this region in 2002, when it officially recognized the need for a planning process to manage five of Canada’s most vulnerable ocean areas. The large section of B.C.’s valuable north coast was chosen, along with three Atlantic sites and another in the Beaufort Sea, to undergo a planning process to improve management and ensure long-term ecosystem health.
PNCIMA (pronounced pen-SEE-ma), stretches some 88,000 square kilometres from northern Vancouver Island to the southern tip of Alaska. 45,000 square kilometers have been identified as ecologically and biologically significant areas by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. This truly expansive and complex ocean area is similar in size to the Great Bear Rainforest, its spectacular land-based neighbour. The region includes the areas commonly known as the Queen Charlotte Basin, Hecate Strait, Central Coast, and northern Vancouver Island.
Why is PNCIMA So Special?
Credit Penny White
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From the beaches to the greatest ocean depths, from microscopic creatures to the world’s biggest animals, and from the life undersea to the things we can see, this ocean region supports a richness, abundance, and diversity of life that is truly spectacular.
PNCIMA has a combination of complex oceanographic conditions and seafloor characteristics.
With its channels, banks, deep troughs, eddies, upwellings, estuaries, and depths ranging from zero to over 2,000 metres, it creates a wide range of ecological niches and in turn supports a diverse array of species.
45,000 square kilometers have been identified as ecologically and biologically significant areas by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. PNCIMA region covers approximately 22 per cent of the total marine jurisdiction in Pacific Canada and includes major water bodies within the region such as Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait, and Dixon Entrance. There are 34,504 residents in the PNCIMA communities. 36 per cent of the residents are First Nations.
It is home to 9,000-year-old reefs made of glass. The globally unique reefs have grown to the height of a five-storey building and cover 1,000 square kilometres. Seabirds nest and raise their young in PNCIMA in globally significant numbers. 80 per cent of the world’s population of Cassin’s auklets are found on the Scott Islands. Twenty-seven different types of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and sea lions can be found in PNCIMA. Almost every square kilometre of PNCIMA is important to the commercial fishing fleet in B.C. Fifty-five per cent of B.C.’s finfish aquaculture sites are located within PNCIMA.
Features-Within-PNCIMA
