Where do whales and dolphins live?
Where do whales and dolphins live?
Friday, 27 October 2017
We’re learning a lot about whales these days but good information on where exactly they live has been scarce. At the same time, a quarter of the 90 whale and dolphin species are threatened and half are not well enough known even to classify them as threatened or not.
A new tool —Important Marine Mammal Areas, or IMMAs — aims to provide the best expert assessment of the location of special places in the ocean where marine mammals feed, breed, socialize and raise their young.
The IMMA e-Atlas, a new online facility to display the IMMA tool, reveals the latest results from two expert workshops that have put IMMAs on the map of the Mediterranean and across the Pacific Islands.
“IMMAs are based on the best science on offer, as part of a systematic, transparent process,” says Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, co-chair of the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force and aquatic mammal councillor for the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). Notarbartolo di Sciara is facilitating a side event: “IMMAs to Support CMS Goals” when the CMS Convention of the Parties (CoP) meets 23-28 October in Manila, Philippines.
“Worldwide, we have more than 700 marine protected areas that supposedly include protection of marine mammal habitat,” says Erich Hoyt, Task Force co-chair and Research Fellow with Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “The problem is that these are political or economic compromises often based on limited data. IMMAs tell us what marine mammals really need in terms of areas crucial to their survival that must be protected or monitored.”
Mapping an IMMA may trigger zoning or extending the boundaries of marine protected areas. In other cases it may be possible to re-arrange shipping lanes or other human activities for example, to avoid ship strikes or to reduce noise. IMMAs can also help monitor climate change effects on marine mammals.
IMMAs are modelled on a successful conservation tool developed by BirdLife called “Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas”, or IBAs. IBAs have been used for decades to show areas of land and water that need protection. But compared to birds, marine mammals have been left out of the conservation picture with only sporadic efforts to protect habitat.
With more than 100 countries adopting marine spatial planning in their national waters, knowing the important areas for marine mammals will enable a more systematic conservation approach.
“But the biggest gap in knowledge and conservation is the high seas, the two-thirds of the ocean outside of national waters,” says Hoyt. “The deep ocean is the frontier for research as well as industrial development and exploitation. Without efforts to identify whale and dolphin habitats in these areas there will be little marine mammal conservation. There is a lot to lose. Not just the whales and dolphins but the high levels of biodiversity in their favoured habitats.”
More information about the e-Atlas and the CMS CoP Side Event can be found here: https://www.marinemammalhabitat.org/immas-new-spatial-tool-making-waves-ocean-conservation/
Background Notes
What is an IMMA?
An important marine mammal area, or IMMA, is a discrete portion of habitat, important for one or more marine mammal species, that has the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation.
“Important” in the context of IMMA classification refers to any characteristic that extends perceivable value toward conservation. Candidate IMMAs are determined through expert workshops weighing expert information against various criteria and then subjecting the results to independent peer review.
An IMMA is not an MPA, but rather it’s a tool, independent of political and economic concerns, to inform the development and management practice of place-based conservation including:
• Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) identified through the IUCN Standard.
• National and regional measures to create, zone, evaluate, and refine MPAs and MPA networks, as well as to help in marine spatial planning (MSP) decisions.
•The IMMA process will also assist in providing strategic direction and priorities to the development of spatially explicit marine mammal conservation measures, such as ship strike directives through the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and future potential ocean noise directives through CMS, CBD and International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Acknowledgments
The Task Force is grateful to all the experts and observers who attended the Mediterranean and Pacific Islands IMMA workshops, to partners Tethys Research Institute, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, International Committee on Marine Mammal Protected Areas, the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI) and Eulabor Waterevolution, to the ACCOBAMS Secretariat for the Mediterranean region and to SPREP for the Pacific Islands region, and to the main sponsors, MAVA (for the Mediterranean meeting) and the International Climate Initiative (IKI) supported by the German Federal Government (for the Pacific Islands), the French Biodiversity Agency, and other supporters Animal Welfare Institute, The Ocean Foundation and Pacific Life Foundation.