Canadian Marine Environmental Legislation And Its Inspiration For Ours

Ocean as the biggest geographical unit on the earth makes up70.8percent of the Earth’s surface, which the mankind depends on for living. With the oceans becoming more and more significant, they have recently become the focus of the globalcompetition.However,the excessive development and unreasonable exploitation have seriously damaged the marine environmental and resources, even resulting in vicious effects. Canada, as one of the main marine countries in the world, Canada stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and the north surrounded by the Arctic Ocean, Canada not only has a Land Area of999,467km2, but also has a total length of coastline for202,080km, consisting of the exclusive economic zone for3.7million km. The national motto of Canada is "amari usque ad mare" meaning from oceans to oceans, which was carved into the national emblem of Canada in1921. The domestic trades of Canada are mainly based on sea transportation, totally1/4of the population living in coastal areas. Sea industry contributes$20billion to the economic growth of Canada, providing almost350,000jobs. Moreover, Canada was set as one of the three examples of the Global Ocean Comprehensive Management Country by the Secretary General of the United Nations in his report on ocean and sea laws in2002. Therefore, this paper chooses Canada as the country to study its legislations on sea protection.China is a country of vast maritime territory, and seas play a great role in its development. In the recent years, the sea economy has developed rapidly, sea industrial systems grow fast with the support of policies and technology and its position in national economy is becoming more and more significant. However, we are also faced with serious challenges, for example, the serious damage of sea ecology and worsening sea environment, and so on. Although in the recent years we have put more money and energies to protect the sea environment, such as improving the legislation and strengthening the management, there is still a very large gap compared with such countries like Canada who has many advanced mature ideas and experience worthy of our study. Therefore, this paper is intended to introduce Canadian present marine environmental legislations and relevant departments, including Canadian maritime law, Canadian Environmental Protection Law and Arctic Waters Pollution Act, AWPPA, etc, and compare them with ours to put forward some measures to solve the problems in our nation’s relevant legislations and Law enforcement as well as comprehensive management systems. Finally improve our sea laws, establish united administrative managing systems and strengthen comprehensive management of the seas to achieve the sustainable development of Marine industry in China.