Regional Coordinators: Simone Panigada, Tilen Genov
The major activities of the Mediterranean Regional IMMA Group in 2019 are provided below
- IUCN-IWC-ACCOBAMS workshop during 5th International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas (ICMMPA5) to assess the use of IMMAs to mitigate ship strikes, report available here;
- several presentations dealing with IMMAs in the Mediterranean were presented during ICMMPA5, both in plenary and at workshops;
- several presentations dealing with IMMAs in the Mediterranean were presented during the World Marine Mammal Conference in Barcelona (December 2019), in the main conference and at several workshops;
- IMMAs are receiving great attention and consideration from the EC and during ICMMPA5 several EU delegates had a reference to the process in their presentations;
- emails have been sent to the Mediterreanean colleagues, for example to gain support for the mitigation of oil and gas activities in the Hellenic Trench and to share the reports of workshops and activities in general (little/no feedback received);
- continuous links between the IMMA secretariat and the International Whaling Commission (IWC);
- the ACCOBAMS Survey Initiative will provide the opportunity to update the IMMA process in the Mediterranean Sea, with the identification of potential new cIMMAs;
- the migration corridor, recently established as a SPAMI (Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance), will be the ideal candidate for a new IMMA in the future;
- ongoing effort to use the IMMA for fin and sperm whales in the Ligurian Sea (North West Mediterranean Sea, Slope and Canyon System IMMA) for the establishment of a large Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas under the framework of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO);
- ongoing effort to use the IMMA for sperm whales in the Hellenic Trench for better management of threats to sperm whales, specifically related to shipping and to oil and gas;
- A paper recently published (Bonizzoni et al 2019) making specific reference to IMMA (Gulf of Corinth, Greece) in the paper title and text;
- although not directly related to the Mediterranean, a paper recently published on habitat use of Chilean and Peale’s dolphins in Chile (Heinrich et al. 2019, and co-authored by one of the regional coordinators for the Mediterranean), make a deliberate effort to make a reference to the IMMA process, relevant to the designation of IMMAs through spatial modelling;
- The Northern Adriatic IMMA has been repeatedly presented during lectures at various scientific and public events in Slovenia;
- Meeting with the management body of Strunjan Landscape Park MPA in Slovenia, discussing the IMMA and its possible use/leverage to expand the existing MPA boundaries in the area; and
- several references to the IMMAs in the Mediterranean were made during the recent ACCOBAMS Meeting of Parties (Istanbul, Novemner 2019), report available at: https://accobams.org/meetings/7th-meeting-of-the-parties-to-accobams/
