State of the Med: the UNEP 2009 report

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) and its Regional Activity Centres have released the first State of the Environment and Development report covering the Mediterranean region, which tackles key environmental issues, including climate change. The “State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean 2009″ was released during the 16th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention, which took place from 3-5 November 2009, in Marrakech, Morocco.

The report is a pilot exercise, based on available sources of information and covers the 21 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It finds that climate change is already occurring in the region and forecasts that it will lead to, inter alia, a decline in rainfall, increased periods of droughts and rises in sea-level. The report also identifies the most vulnerable Mediterranean zones and states that climate change will also affect agriculture and fishing, the attractiveness of tourism, coastal zones and infrastructure, and public health.

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The Report

New publication on the Pelagos Sanctuary

Back in 1990, the Tethys Research Institute proposed to the “European Association Rotary for the Environment” a project for the establishment of a marine protected area, a Biosphere Reserve, in the high seas encompassing the most important habitat for cetaceans in the region.

The rationale behind the proposal, which was named “Project Pelagos”, included the ecological representativeness of the area, its high species diversity, its intense biological activity, the presence of critical habitat for a number of pelagic species including cetaceans, and the opportunities that the area offered to baseline research.

Now, almost 20 years later, the pioneer of Pelagos Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara and other four authors published a comprehensive review on the Cetacean Sanctuary.

‘The Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean marine mammals’ provides a description of the rationale behind the initial proposal and an overview of the challenging process leading to the creation of the Sanctuary, a unique area that contains habitat suitable for the breeding and feeding needs of the entire complement of cetacean species regularly found in the Mediterranean Sea.

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To download the article:
Notarbartolo di Sciara G., Agardy T., Hyrenbach D., Scovazzi T., Van Klaveren P. 2008. The Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean marine mammals. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 18:367-391.

For more information:
www.cetaceanalliance.org
www.tethys.org

MPAs export fish

MPAs export adult fish, egg and larvae to adjacent areas, as results of BIOMEX project (Assessment of BIOMass EXport from Marine Protected Areas and its impact on Fisheries in the western Mediterranean Sea) prove.

Depending on the MPA, the effect is on some species or groups of species. Fish biomass export varies greatly in space and intensity according to fish species, and is restricted to a small distance from MPA border, but it is likely to have positive effects on adjacent fisheries.

Photo: © Photo Pablo Sanchez / Biomex

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For more information:
- MedPan, the Network of Managers of Marine Protected Areas of the Mediterranean
- Full Programme report and Biomex website

Rocky deserts at sea: causes and solutions

Many vegetated systems in temperate regions throughout the world may face dramatic ecosystems shifts to unvegetated states. So, flourishing kelp forests may become desolated bare rocky substrates void of the rich floras and faunas usually associated to forests.

In the Mediterranean there are no kelp forests, but rocky bottoms can be covered by macroalgae (e.g. Cystoseira spp) that host juvenile and adult stages of many invertebrate and fish species. The persistence of these macroalgal beds, that greatly contribute to maintain coastal biodiversity and productivity, is the result of a delicate equilibrium among environmental conditions, interactions among species and human disturbance.

In recent years it has been demonstrated that in Mediterranean rocky reefs where fishing is particularly intense fish predators may decrease in abundance and size. Their decreased predation impact on preys, including sea urchins (the most important grazers in such systems), may reflect in a dramatic increase of prey abundance.

The ultimate consequence of the fishing impact may thus be an increased grazing impact of sea urchins that causes the transition from macroalgal beds to the so-called ‘barrens’, that is bare rocks partially covered by encrusting coralline algae. They are a sort of rocky deserts.

How to cope with this? Management of complex natural systems is not easy because many processes may interact. Formation of barrens, for instance, can be also a consequence of other processes like water warming or sedimentation. However, fishing restrictions and fish predator recovery may be useful to reverse this phenomenon.

From this perspective, there is increasing evidence that the creation of effective Marine Protected Areas (and not paper parks) can allow fish predators to recover along with their potential in controlling sea urchin populations and their effects on macroalgae.

At the MPA of Torre Guaceto (SE Italy), in the same rocky reefs where in the past (before the establishment of the MPA) there were barrens, there are at present (after about 7-8 years of effective protection) more fish predators, less sea urchins and lower barren covers than outside the MPA, which is the proof that properly managed MPAs can allow the entire ecosystems to recover.

Paolo Guidetti

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For more information:
Guidetti P. 2006. Marine reserves reestablish lost predatory interactions and cause community changes in rocky reefs. Ecological Applications 16(3):963–976.

Global MPA database

MPA Global Database is a project that aims to create a database on the existing Marine Protected Areas, worldwide.

Based largely on information in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), the project has two main goals: to develop a more robust global MPA baseline than currently exists, and to develop alternative scenarios of global MPA networks using spatial modelling techniques.

MPA Global Database contains a great variety of information such as: names of MPAs for each country, area covered and year of designation, mean area of MPAs, percentage of MPAs located in a specific latitude etc.

This database shows that 4435 MPAs exist worldwide and they cover an area of 2.35 million km2. These numbers sound misleadinly big, but the fact is: only 0.65% of the world oceans is covered by MPAs!

Even more impressive is the estimate of global no-take areas (areas where fishing is banned). The percentage of world oceans subject to this specific regulation is only 0.08% !

This database is a new tool for the marine conservation and shows how much still needs to be done to protect marine biodiversity.

Silvia Bonizzoni

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For more information:
http://mpaglobal.org
http://depts.washington.edu

"Protected" marine protected areas are better than "just" marine protected areas

An obvious statement? Not so, as it seems. Many Mediterranean coastal states have established marine protected areas (MPAs), however more than 50% of these have no management plans and their regulations, particularly as far as fisheries are concerned, are not enforced. As a result, fish assemblages in these "paper parks" often cannot be distinguished from those found in non-protected waters.

Paolo Guidetti (University of Lecce, Italy) and colleagues have recently published (Biological Conservation, doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2007.12.013) results from research on fish assemblages simultaneously conducted across 15 Italian rocky shore MPAs within the framework of the "Sistema Afrodite" programme.

The authors discovered that only three of the marine reserves investigated had adequate enforcement, and that the degree of recovery of target fish species was tightly linked to the level of surveillance conducted in the MPAs. The study demonstrates the importance of including compliance among the factors considered in evaluating the conservation effectiveness of marine reserves, and warns that in careless analyses positive ecological responses in properly managed reserves can be masked by neutral or even negative results in paper parks.

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara
(photograph by Tundi Agardy)

Guidetti P., Milazzo M., Bussotti S., Molinari A., Murenu M., Pais A., Spanò N., Balzano R., Agardy T., Boero F., Carrada G., Cattaneo-Vietti R., Cau A., Chemello R., Greco S., Manganaro A., Notarbartolo di Sciara G., Russo G.F., Tunesi L. 2008. Italian marine protected area effectiveness: does enforcement matter? Biological Conservation 141:699-709.

Sanctuaries of the Sea

Sanctuaries of the Sea - Are Marine Protected Areas for Cetaceans a Solution? explores whether whales, dolphins and porpoises can be the catalyst in protecting marine biodiversity in this ancient sea.

earthOCEAN interviews Erich Hoyt of WDCS, and Ana Canadas and Ric Sagarminaga of Alnitak.

Victoria, a rehabilitated monk seal pup, released back into the Aegean Sea

MOm, the Hellenic Society for the Study and the Protection of the Mediterranean Monk Seal, is celebrating its 20th year of activities with the release today of Victoria, the 16th seal pup the organisation has rehabilitated since it began operating. With only 300-400 monk seals still existing in the Mediterranean, most of which in Greek waters, the survival of each individual is of greatest conservation importance.

Victoria was named after a lady who in October 2007 braved the rough seas near the Greek island of Tinos to rescue the seal pup, hours after she was born. When found, Victoria weighed just 15 kg, was malnourished and suffered from serious injuries. Having been treated for four months at MOm’s monk seal hospital, located on the island of Alonissos, she fully recovered and was taught the skills needed to survive on her own in the open sea.

At the time of her release in the waters of the National Marine Park of Alonissos - the world’s largest and most important Mediterranean monk seal sanctuary - Victoria now weighs more than 50 kg and is quite capable to hunt for her prey. To keep track of her movements and conditions, Victoria carries with her a special transmitter developed in cooperation with scientists from the Sea Mammal Research Unit in Scotland. This will transmit to MOm via SMS constant information on the seal’s whereabouts, depth of dives, time spent in and out of the water and swimming speed.

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara

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Photograph by Vangelis Paravas, MOm

For more information
MOm, the Hellenic Society for the Study and the Protection of the Mediterranean Monk Seal

Four marine protected areas added to the SPAMI List

During their last meeting in Almeria, Spain (15-18 Jan. 2008), the Parties to the Barcelona Convention adopted the inclusion of four marine protected areas (MPAs) from Italy in the List of Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMI): Miramare, Plemmirio, Tavolara–Punta Coda Cavallo, and Torre Guaceto. These four now join the Pelagos Sanctuary and 16 coastal MPAs from France, Italy, Spain and Tunisia, bringing to a total of 21 the SPAMI List, and significantly contributing to a greater geographical balance for the protected area system within the Barcelona network. Hopefully this development will provide a further stimulus to eastern and southern Mediterranean nations to establish MPAs in their waters to be proposed as further SPAMIs in the near future, thus completing the geographical balancing process.

(photograph: Tavolara, from www.parks.it)

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For more information: www.rac-spa.org

What is Mediterranean Conservation?

Mediterranean Conservation explores the possibility of merging the communication efforts of individuals committed to marine conservation in the ancient Tethys Ocean.