Transcript Marine Corridor Planning

Marine Corridor Planning
Marine Corridor Planning
The underlying principles for terrestrial and marine biodiversity
conservation and corridor planning are often similar. However, it is
imperative to take into account a number of crucial differences in
ecosystem processes in order to best inform these principles.
Successful management and conservation of marine species and areas
will require a comprehensive knowledge of terrestrial and marine
approaches.
The areas of focus and study are similar for both systems:
- Biological/Ecological
- Sociological
- Governance
- Political and Legal
- Economic
- Business models
Marine Considerations
The main differences between marine and terrestrial conservation strategies
concern the relative importance of ecological processes.
Connectivity
 Pelagic distribution of larvae require potentially different models
Threat Differences
 Overexploitation
 A major threat for majority of marine species, reflecting in entire
ecosystems
 Fishing pressure: predominate threat but we have very little
knowledge regarding impact of fisheries / capacity to deal with threat
 Fragmentation
 Needs to be addressed in separate context, not comparable to
terrestrial threat level
 Pelagics generally unaffected by fragmentation—still have long
distance dispersal
 Mostly affects mobile benthic species at finer site scale
Marine Considerations (cont.)
Scale
 Species distribution scale for defining endemism is much greater for
marine than terrestrial systems (exception being limited range species
endemism for island and seamount areas)
Ecological biomes and boundaries
 Hard to define spatial units due to mobility and fluidity
 Larvae don’t necessarily rely on benthic habitat -- strong
interdependence between systems
 Dynamic and transitional boundaries
Governance

Ownership of ocean: coastal, economic exclusive zone (EEZ), high seas
Migrations
 Vertical and seasonal
 Aggregations of populations for spawning very common
Questions to Address
Define marine wilderness areas/hotspots
 How do we define these? Where are they? What do they look like?
 Example: are there deep sea wilderness areas/hotspots? No
people but high impact
 Don’t have marine “Amazons” or “Saharas” defined yet
Data (estimated to have 5% of the amount of terrestrial data)
 How much is enough for species and habitat?
 How do we move forward in the absence of an abundance of data?
KBA criteria/thresholds and monitoring habitat change/indicators
 Current approaches and similarities/differences to marine systems
Identify context analysis gaps
Marine Corridor Planning Process
Guiding marine strategy
 Focus on species, however, we need to concentrate on processes
in order to build the strategy
 Can’t concentrate effort on distribution of species alone
Institutional responses should be based on our global expertise
 Essential to get buy-in and local experience from marine field staff
Need for more data and capacity to adopt/modify terrestrial corridor
concepts for marine ecosystems
Connection and consideration of land-sea interfaces
Use this corridor workshop as platform for marine process in near
future
 Build upon similar concepts and identify and articulate differences
Current Initiatives to Address
Marine Corridor / Large Scale System Questions
Monitoring specialist
 Habitat change and indicator analyses
Conservation Synthesis Marine Specialist
 KBA criteria and thresholds
Oceanographer– Large Scale/Habitat Specialist
 Integration of biological/ecological and physiographic and
oceanographic concepts
MPA Science Center
 Study and application of MPA science to network/corridor
conservation planning
Current Initiatives to Address
Marine Corridor / Large Scale System Questions (cont.)
Learning from ongoing field projects and programs
Collaboration with other CI departments
 Example: CABS Human Dimensions dept-- socioeconomic
issues relating to links between terrestrial and marine
Marine Web Portal
 Capitalize on little information and limited capacity to create
momentum
 Quickly share lessons learned, coordinate information,
reduce overlap, and internally enable our marine experts all
over the world to communicate on this topic