The First International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas

have been that MPA managers lack experience and training, there are no management
plans or means of evaluating effectiveness, local and national politics exert strong
influence on management board membership and financing, funds tend to be directed
toward infrastructure rather than “hands-on” management, and governmental (including
EC) funding has been very limited.
<strong>The</strong> National Marine Park of Alonnisos Northern Sporades provides a sobering example
of how difficult it can be to create and maintain an effective MPA for monk seals in
Greece. A “pilot” guard system set up in 1993 involved private guards supplied by
MOm, port police, and officers from the Ministry of Environment. Illegal activities
diminished, and local fishermen gradually came to respect the rules. With this success,
similar systems were designed for two more areas. However, enforcement depended on a
long, complex judicial process that was out of proportion to the low fines. <strong>The</strong>re was
local opposition initially due to fear of a decline in tourism. Moreoer, the program was
expensive, and stable government support was lacking. Upon the establishment of a
management body for the Marine Park of Alonnisos in 2003, the existing guard system
stopped functioning. Even though guarding resumed in 2007, the management body has
continued to encounter problems, including strong opposition from the local
community.
Monk seals in Greece tend to occur in areas with small, isolated, relatively undeveloped
island communities, where local people view nature conservation as an obstacle to
tourism development. In fact, it appears difficult to reconcile monk seal protection with
increased tourism; the seals are generally inaccessible to the public, and this makes it
difficult to promote seal watching as “ecotourism.” Public education and awareness is
especially challenging under these circumstances. MOm has managed to establish and
operate information centers and to conduct environmental education programs at key
monk seal sites; it uses rehabilitation centers for outreach as well. Despite the challenges,
there is a strong and growing community of individuals in Greece who are determined to
see monk seals recover, and who are eager to maintain close links and share ideas with
monk seal researchers and conservationists in both neighboring and distant countries.
Monk seals in Madeira: mitigating the impacts of fisheries
Rosa Pires
Historically (from at least the early 1400s), the now critically endangered monk seal was
abundant on Madeira Island – the main island of the archipelago. By 1988, only 6-8 seals
remained, and they were restricted to the uninhabited Desertas Islands, also part of the
Madeira archipelago. Direct hunting had been the main factor responsible for the
historical decline of monk seals, and, more recently, negative interactions between seals
and fishermen have been an important factor inhibiting their recovery. Before protective
measures were implemented, the seals died accidentally in nets and from illegal
explosives, and fishermen killed seals intentionally because they regarded them as pests.
Currently, the monk seal population in the Desertas is increasing, thanks to an active
conservation program implemented by the Parque Natural da Madeira. Conservation
measures include (a) strictly enforced prohibitions on potentially harmful human
activities in portions of the islands inhabited by monk seals and (b) aggressive habitat
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