IMMA e-Atlas

Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA)

Discrete portion of habitat, important to marine mammal species, that has the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation.

Area of Interest (Aol)

area that had been proposed as a candidate IMMA at a regional workshop but with insufficient information to satisfy the IMMA criteria. Areas of Interest are included in the online searchable database and displayed on the e-Atlas with a blue colouration. It is possible in the future when more information becomes available, that an AoI will become an IMMA, subject to undergoing consideration at a new workshop and review process.

Criterion A - Species or Population Vulnerability

Areas containing habitat important for the survival and recovery of threatened and declining species.

Criterion B - Distribution and Abundance

Sub-criterion B1 – Small and Resident Populations

Areas supporting at least one resident population, containing an important proportion of that species or population, that are occupied consistently.

Sub-criterion B2 – Aggregations

Areas with underlying qualities that support important concentrations of a species or population.

Criterion C – Key Life Cycle Activities

Sub-criterion C1 – Reproductive Areas

Areas that are important for a species or population to mate, give birth, and/or care for young until weaning.

Sub-criterion C2 – Feeding Areas

Areas and conditions that provide an important nutritional base on which a species or population depends.

Sub-criterion C3 – Migration Routes

Areas used for important migration or other movements, often connecting distinct life-cycle areas or the different parts of the year-round range of a non-migratory population.

Criterion D – Special Attributes

Sub-criterion D1 – Distinctiveness

Areas which sustain populations with important genetic, behavioural or ecologically distinctive characteristics.

Sub-criterion D2 – Diversity

Areas containing habitat that supports an important diversity of marine mammal species.

‘Important’ (in the context of the IMMA classification)

Any environmental condition, biological property, or value of a place, which supports marine mammals, and maintains or improves their conservation status.

Qualifying species

Species that satisfy one or more of the IMMA criteria; including the species that apply to the diversity criterion (D2).

Supporting species

species that obviously have habitat within the IMMA but that do not satisfy any of the IMMA criteria. Species that have occupied the area historically but no longer occur, vagrants, single sightings or strandings of species that normally occur in habitat outside the IMMA boundary should not be listed as supporting species.