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

Habitat Protection for Cetaceans around the World 211
Notes and rationale For more information
• This idea for a marine national park is being proposed under the • Contact: Hebridean Marine
National Parks Scotland Act 2000 to protect habitats, fauna and flora, National Park Partnership,
including cetacean and fish species. Kinvara, Bonawe, Oban
• As Britain’s first marine national park, this proposed MPA would bring PA37 1RL Scotland;
together educational programmes, promote sustainable use, enable email:
strengthened planning controls, better fisheries management, hebridean.partnership@
rerouting of oil tankers away from inshore routes and improve the virgin.net;
value of tourism, fish and other products from the area by creating a web: www.hmnpp.org.uk
high quality national park ‘brand’.
• This proposed offshore MPA could include habitat for some • Evans, 1980; Weir et al,
15–20 cetacean species and their foodwebs. 2001; Harwood and Wilson,
• Harwood and Wilson (2001) detail the implications of developments 2001
for cetaceans including oil exploration and extraction, as well as • Contact: Mark Simmonds,
acoustic impacts. A protected area could bring these developments WDCS,
and threats under management. email:
• In 1998, the Atlantic Frontier was proposed by Greenpeace as a mark.simmonds@wdcs.org;
World Heritage Site and supported by WDCS and other NGOs. web: www.wdcs.org
Despite support in the UK parliament, however, the UK government • Joint Nature Conservation
decided not to include the Atlantic Frontier on its list of World Committee (JNCC);
Heritage nominations to be presented to Unesco. This does not web: www.jncc.gov.uk/
preclude it from being presented at a later date and WDCS remains ProtectedSites/
convinced of the value of this area for protecting cetacean habitat. SACselection/default.htm
• St Kilda Archipelago, situated in the Atlantic Frontier, is already a
World Heritage Site and the area is proposed as an SAC. An SAC
would extend protection to the waters around St Kilda, possibly
including some cetacean habitat, and could be the nucleus of an
Atlantic Frontier MPA. However, the current St Kilda SAC proposal
seeks only to protect the habitats in and around the island.
• In 1999, the prospects of massive oil exploration and production
in the Atlantic Frontier, along with seismic testing (shown to have
negative effects on whales and dolphins) as well the prospects of
increasing shuttle tanker traffic to service new oil fields led to the
St Kilda World Heritage Site being considered as a case for inclusion
on the List of World Heritage in Danger, although it was not in the
end placed on the list.