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Appendix 3:

PRELIMINARY LIST OF SITES IDENTIFIED AS IMPORTANT AREAS FOR CETACEANS

This draft inventory was prepared with the help of various cetacean and habitat use/
MPA experts working in the Agreement area, based on knowledge currently
available. The inventory covers mainly the areas that have been intensively studied
and needs to be carried out in a more formal, detailed way and to be compared with
other inventories such as RAC/SPA which was not available yet for comparison, Hoyt
(2005) and the latest proposals for protection of dolphin habitat under the EU
Habitats Directive. It should be noted that half or more of the Agreement area is not
included at all, due to lack of research effort or communication of useful findings.

The purpose of preparing this inventory was to obtain the current, best available,
science-based recommendations for important or critical habitat for cetaceans
requiring some conservation action, though not necessarily by creating a marine
protected area (MPA). The inventory also covers a number of critical habitat areas
already declared in part or in whole as an MPA. This is because the work of cetacean
conservation usually just begins with its formal designation. In some cases, research
suggests expansion of the boundaries or mandates of existing MPAs. And in most
cases, what are essentially paper MPAs (“paper reserves”) must then be turned into
effective conservation tools, with the development of stakeholder management plans.
Such plans should draw upon species conservation plans to address threats to
cetaceans as well as to establish the appropriate zoning regime that will confer
adequate levels of protection and restriction of harmful activities as needed. Thus,
the SC’s involvement should not stop with selection of an area but continue through
the process of setting up management plans, monitoring and promoting periodic
review.

Experts were asked to provide location and estimated size(s) for suggested areas;
the identity, size and behaviour of the cetacean populations; details of threats to the
population; and reasons why critical habitat MPA protection might be useful and
important (how does an MPA help solve the conservation problems). Although the
data collected are incomplete, they still give a substantial insight into the known
cetacean critical habitat areas of the northern Mediterranean and the Black seas. Of
course, many of these areas have already been brought to the attention of
ACCOBAMS SC but it could be helpful to consider them all together in terms of
developing future strategies for deciding upon which areas require further work or
can be advanced as proposals now (using a combination of existing research, expert
opinion and the precautionary approach). This inventory along with species
“conservation plans” may also be useful for considerations about creating MPA
networks for populations found throughout the Agreement area.

[See attached xls file for Appendix 3]

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