The IMMA initiative is the major activity of the Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force (MMPATF) which was created in 2013 by the International Committee on Marine Mammal Protected Areas (ICMMPA), the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Marine Vice Chair, and members of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) to help support a stronger global profile for the role of marine mammals in protected areas, and to provide a stronger voice for the MMPA constituency within IUCN. In 2026 the Task Force was invited by IUCN to form a Specialist Group.
The goal of the IMMA SG is to facilitate mechanisms to encourage collaboration, sharing information and experience, accessing and disseminating knowledge and tools for establishing, monitoring, and managing MMPAs. The IMMA SG promotes effective spatial solutions and best practices for marine mammal conservation within MMPAs.
From 2016-2026, the Task Force has been focusing (and will continue as IMMA SG) on setting up a series of regional workshops to identify Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs), beginning with the Mediterranean in 2016, followed by the Pacific Islands (2017), the North East Indian Ocean and South East Asian Seas (2018), the Extended Southern Ocean (2018), the Western Indian Ocean and Arabian Seas (2019), Australia-New Zealand waters and South East Indian Ocean (2020), the Black Sea, Turkish Straits and Caspian Sea (2021) and the South East Tropical and Temperate Pacific Ocean (2022), the South West Atlantic Ocean Region (2022), the North East Atlantic Ocean Region (2023), and the North West Atlantic Ocean and Wider Caribbean Region (2024).
