Please have a look at this news item about the Marine Mammal Management Toolkit launched yesterday by Ocean Governance project:

https://www.ascobans.org/en/news/new-toolkit-improve-marine-mammal-conservation-mpas

The Toolkit will provide knowledge to support marine mammal conservation in MPAs. It aims to empower policy makers, managers and practitioners to effectively conserve marine mammals, tackle the present threats they are facing and fill knowledge gaps on this topic. It also intends to better include marine mammals into MPAs and other conservation and management plans locally, nationally and internationally, and can be accessed by anyone – from professionals to members of the public.

For more details, please refer to the Press Release from the Ocean Governance Project.

‘Marine mammals play a crucial role in marine ecosystem function and climate change resilience by sequestering carbon through the consumption of energy rich plankton and fish. They provide valuable ecosystem services such as ecotourism. Conserving marine mammals provides significant economic, social and cultural benefits to coastal communities.

Historically marine mammals have been severely impacted through human activity with hunting in the 19th and 20th centuries nearly driving many species to extinction. While international efforts to ban such activities has seen some populations recover from these dangerously low levels (e.g., in 2021, increase of 36% of baleen whale species¹), this is not the case for all, with many populations remaining critically endangered. Whaling has been replaced by an abundance of anthropogenic hazards such as incidental by-catch, entanglement, ship strikes/collisions with ships, including in-direct habitat destruction, prey removal and noise pollution, as primary threats. To date, fishery by-catch continues to be a dominant conservation threat for many species.

With the continued threats to marine mammals, compounded by the detrimental effects of Climate Change, there is a real need for effective conservation measures. The diversity of threats faced by marine mammals requires an equally diverse suite of conservation tools. One of the most common approaches is the use of Marine Protected Areas (MPA). MPAs may be designed to protect marine mammals directly by targeting threats or indirectly through management goals that may reduce impacts. However, in many cases, the success of an MPA is drastically hindered through a lack of resources, capacity and/or knowledge to effectively implement management practices.’