Marine protected areas for whales, dolphins, and porpoises: a world ...

Strategies for Protecting Cetaceans to Supplement MPAs 85
7 National laws and international agreements – not just those pertaining to
MPAs but those concerning species protection, trade and other matters –
should be researched and utilized for the additional protections they can offer
(see Table 1.6 on p43).
8 Some countries, states and provinces have established regimes of land use
planning and coastal zone management that can provide useful management
tools for wildlife corridors and transition zones.
9 A big part of any conservation strategy is the political dimension. This means
that campaigning conservationists with good lobbying and overall
communication skills can help create an awareness of and constituency for
cetacean needs. In dealing with politicians and bureaucrats, remember the
power of the people. Building broad public support for all kinds of cetacean
conservation especially through expansion of items 4 and 6 above (educational
and scientific aspects) can go a long way towards creating the depth of
sympathy for cetaceans that can move or, if necessary, force politicians and
bureaucrats to act.
OTHER PRAGMATIC APPROACHES
In some countries, there have been calls to direct marine conservation efforts
away from MPAs towards a purely ecosystem-based management approach, with
MPAs an occasional or incidental part of conservation. In other parts of the
world, MPAs may be difficult or impossible to obtain. This may be because of a
prejudice against designating protected areas. Sometimes, local extractive marine
industries such as whaling, dolphin hunting and sealing make serious habitat
conservation an unpopular suggestion. Japan, for example, has been criticized
by marine conservationists and scientists for having one of the weakest MPA
programmes of all developed countries and for neglecting to consider marine
mammals in biodiversity conservation plans (see Box 5.10 Do MPAs really exist
in Japan?, p379). And in some countries with MPA programmes, it is clear that
MPAs are not always the answer for marine ecosystem protection in general or
cetacean habitat protection in particular. The bottom line is that whatever kind
of management helps the situation, even a little, is better than nothing at all. The
hope is that the ‘powers that be’ will take these suggestions to heart and work to
improve the situation. Yet, at the same time, we the people must drive the powers
that be to do a good job.
Of course, national policies and cultural beliefs are subject to change. There
is no doubt that for most of the world the idea of MPAs has gained some
acceptance, even powerful currency, as a tool for marine conservation, although
it has a long way to go before it becomes meaningfully enshrined in every
country’s environmental policy. In the absence of better or more widely
accepted alternative regimes for protecting essential ecosystems and species