Fishing continues in areas where cod stocks are below "critical limits," says Jeffrey Hutchings of Dalhousie University and head of a national science panel that called Thurs-day for changes in the management of Canada''s oceans.

The change needs to start at the top, by reducing the "czar-like" powers of the federal minister of fisheries and oceans, the panel says.

The Fisheries Act, which dates back to 1868, also needs to enter the modern age, says the panel on marine biodiversity, which was established by the Royal Society of Canada.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is responsible for both exploiting and conserving fisheries - a "conflict of interest" the panel says needs to be resolved.

The 10-member panel spent two years assessing ocean bio-diversity and the challenges posed by climate change, fishing and aquaculture.

It has delivered a 316-page report that says Canada''s oceans are becoming warmer and more acidic, which could make some waters inhospitable to marine life. And sea ice disappearing from the Arctic and the East Coast will profoundly affect marine life and their eco-systems. It says overfishing has seriously depleted many species and disrupted marine food webs.

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, predator-prey interactions have changed and "Now we find cod and some other species in a position where they are headed for extirpation," Hutchings told a media briefing.

The panel says oceans stewardship and biodiversity conservation need to be made a "top government priority."

It notes that government officials like to say Canada is a world leader in oceans and marine management, but the rhetoric does not square with reality. "We made promises, and we haven''t kept them, " says Hutchings.

The government has com-mitted to creating a network of marine protected areas to cover 10 per cent of Canada''s ocean "real estate" by 2020.

So far, marine protected areas encompass less than one per cent of Canada''s ocean area, the panel says. And in 160 of the 161 protected areas off the B.C. coast, fishing is still allowed.

It says the government is still not using a "precautionary approach" to manage marine resources - a commitment that dates back to 1996. Far from being a world leader, the panel says Canada is a laggard.

"It''s just simply not up to speed with the rest of the world," says panel member David VanderZwaag, a law professor at Dalhousie University who specializes in marine and environmental law.

The United States, Norway, New Zealand and Australia have much more progressive programs to protect and rebuild fish stocks, the panel says.

Twenty years after the collapse of northern cod, which devastated East Coast com-munities and threw more than 30,000 Maritimers out of work, cod stocks are about a tenth of their former size, says Hutchings. And vulnerable cod stocks are still being overfished, he says.

The fishery was shut down in a bid to let the stocks recover, but Hutchings says in several instances over the past 20 years the federal fisheries minister allowed nets back in the water. "The reopenings took place at the discretion of the minister," says Hutchings. "They were not based on science, they were not based on an overall recovery plan." It is these discretionary, or "czar-like," powers the panel wants reduced, saying the minister needs to be more transparent and accountable for fisheries management decisions.