Healing the wounds of marine mammals by protecting their habitat

G Notarbartolo Di Sciara,E Hoyt

doi:10.3354/esep00190

Abstract

Important marine mammal areas (IMMAs)—‘discrete habitat areas, important for one or more marine mammal species, that have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation’ (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force 2018, p. 3)—were introduced in 2014 by the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force to support marine mammal and wider ocean conservation. IMMAs provide decision-makers with a user-friendly, actionable tool to inform them of the whereabouts of habitat important for marine mammal survival. However, in view of their non-prescriptive, evidence-based and biocentric nature, the conservation effectiveness of IMMAs is strictly dependent on politicians’ willingness to make use of them. It has been the customary task of advocacy non-governmental organisations to lobby decision-makers to stimulate respect for environmental law, but the scientific community is increasingly joining this effort. Scientists can effectively strengthen a healthy relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging the credibility of conservation science. Thus, those undertaking the identification of IMMAs can be among those responsible for strongly advocating the implementation of IMMAs and other conservation initiatives.

Highlights

The oceans are being denuded of the life that supports and determines what the ocean is and what it means to humans
Important marine mammal areas (IMMAs) provide decision-makers with a user-friendly, actionable tool to inform them of the whereabouts of habitat important for marine mammal survival
Covering at this time most of the Southern Hemisphere and a small portion of the Northern Hemisphere (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force 2020) (Fig. 1), the present 158 IMMAs have been identified through international expert consultation and consensus

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The oceans are being denuded of the life that supports and determines what the ocean is and what it means to humans. One alternative is to employ protected area networks covering critical breeding or feeding habitat (Notarbartolo di Sciara et al 2016), which often leaves migratory corridors devoid of specific protection Aside from these issues, a more fundamental problem with marine mammal habitat protection is that vast amounts of data remain unpublished, and are fairly inaccessible for use in defining habitat (Hoyt 2018). The tool aimed to identify habitats using criteria based on data gathered and peer-reviewed as part of a scientifically robust process Such a tool, serving the purpose of outlining special areas that might be beneficial to the protection of specific marine mammal populations, and addressing the wide range of challenges to marine mammal conservation when planning human activities at sea, was launched in 2014 by the IUCN Joint Species Survival Commission/World Commission on Protected Areas (SSC/ WCPA) Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force (hereafter the ‘Task Force’, www.marinemammal habitat.org). The important marine mammal area (IMMA) was born (Hoyt & Notarbartolo di Sciara 2014)

IMPORTANT MARINE MAMMAL AREAS

BEYOND DRAWING BOUNDARIES ON THE WORLD MAP

Findings

A VISION EXTENDING BEYOND HABITAT PROTECTION