The First International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas

MPAs in the Mediterranean and Black seas under ACCOBAMS, the CMS cetacean
agreement.
What is an MPA network? IUCN defines it as a system of individual MPAs operating
cooperatively and synergistically, at various spatial scales, and with a range of protection
levels, in order to achieve ecological aims more effectively and comprehensively than
individual sites could when functioning in isolation. An MPA system should also confer
social and economic benefits, although the latter might only be fully realized over long
time scales as ecosystems recover. With an MPA network, the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts.
<strong>The</strong> advantages of MMPA networks are that they can: (1) help compensate for the small
sizes of most MMPAs, (2) protect linkages between various types of habitat and in doing
so, support species, populations, and ecosystems, (3) bring together people and
communities around a common interest in marine mammals and marine mammal
habitat, (4) draw upon common legal frameworks to create shared or similar provisions
for management, enforcement, research, and monitoring, (5) help accommodate or adapt
to the damaging effects of climate change, and (6) facilitate an ecosystem-based
management approach, especially if this is employed in conjunction with ocean zoning.
<strong>The</strong> essential principles for designing and implementing MPA networks, as set down by
the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and all applicable to marine
mammals, are: (1) include the full range of biodiversity present in the biogeographic
region, (2) ensure that ecologically significant areas are incorporated, (3) maintain longterm
protection, (4) ensure ecological linkages, and (5) ensuring maximum contributions
of individual MPAs to the network.
To create effective MMPAs and MMPA networks, we need to learn more about species,
more about threats, and more about habitat. We need to characterize preferred habitat
and identify where such habitat occurs using habitat preference models. We need to
build human networks to collaborate on research projects covering whole oceans, such
as the recent SPLASH project on humpback whales in the North Pacific. We need to
have larger, more flexible, better-managed MPAs – 40% of all MMPAs are less than 100
km 2 in size and many have no management plan. We need to think critically. For
example, are MPAs always the answer? Ultimately, we may need to consider a much
larger-scale approach and pay more attention to areas outside MPA borders and the
spaces between parts of the MPA network. For this, the new tools of marine spatial
planning and ocean zoning could prove invaluable.
<strong>International</strong>ly agreed targets (e.g., under the Convention on Biological Diversity) have
provided the impetus to create many more MPA networks in national waters and on the
high seas by 2012. Marine mammal scientists have been charged with defining and
describing critical habitat so that it can be included in MPA network proposals. We
urgently need to fill the gaps in knowledge and to produce proposals that reflect the best
science and incorporate a precautionary approach. Otherwise, new MPAs and MPA
networks will be created without marine mammals in mind, and marine mammal habitat
may be left largely out of the picture. Marine mammals have the potential to put MPA
ICMMPA <strong>Conference</strong> Proceedings
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