Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area is a

marine protected area Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conse ...

located off the northwest coast of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The goal of the marine protected area is to protect the rich biodiversity and dynamism of the High Arctic sea ice ecosystem. Covering an area of , Tuvaijuittuq is the largest protected area in Canada and among the largest protected areas in the world. It is part of a large permafrost region called the

Last Ice Area The Last Ice Area is broadly the large interior polar region of the Arctic Circle covering an area between the northern edge of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and is the most northerly coastal zone of the world. Being in a permafrost ...

that covers the northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

History

Tuvaijuittuq was established by ministerial order under the ''Oceans Act'' for interim protection on 21 August 2019. Under the order, no new or additional human activities will be allowed to occur in the area for up to five years while the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, the Government of Nunavut, and the Government of Canada work to establish long-term protection of the area. Exceptions to this rule include respecting Inuit rights to harvest wildlife under the Nunavut Agreement, scientific research, activities relating to national security and

emergencies An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

, and the safe passage of foreign ships through the region.

Geography

The northwest coast of Ellesmere Island is dominated by thick, multi-year

pack ice Drift ice, also called brash ice, is sea ice that is not attached to the shoreline or any other fixed object (shoals, grounded icebergs, etc.).Leppäranta, M. 2011. The Drift of Sea Ice. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Unlike fast ice, which is "fasten ...

created by the circulation of the

Beaufort Gyre The Beaufort Gyre is one of the two major ocean currents in the Arctic Ocean. It is roughly located north of the Alaskan and Canadian coast. In the past, Arctic sea-ice would circulate in the Beaufort gyre up to several years, leading to the forma ...

Ecology

Sea ice provides habitat for ice-adapted organisms within the

neritic The neritic zone (or sublittoral zone) is the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately in depth. From the point of view of marine biology it forms a relatively stable and well-illuminate ...

and

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...

zones of the area, most notably

ice algae Ice algae are any of the various types of algal communities found in annual and multi-year sea or terrestrial ice. On sea ice in the polar oceans, ice algae communities play an important role in primary production. The timing of blooms of the al ...

. In addition,

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

communities in this area exhibits higher that expected levels of biodiversity and biological productivity.

References

{{Protected Areas of Nunavut Marine Protected Areas of Canada Nature reserves in Nunavut Protected areas established in 2019

History

Geography

Ecology

See also

References