MegaMove is proud to announce the publication of a key paper, marking a major milestone in the project’s mission to inform global marine megafauna conservation.
🔗 Read the full open-access paper here
Led by Assoc Prof Ana Sequeira, MegaMove’s Research Director and leader, the study brought together almost 400 researchers from 50 countries to reveal the areas in the global ocean most used by marine megafauna for critical behaviours. Together, the team assembled the largest-ever tracking dataset of marine megafauna, including ~15,000 tracks curated to 12,700 tracks from over 110 species—ranging from whales and sharks to turtles and seabirds. Tracks include animals’ movements across all five ocean basins over a time span of more than 30 years.
Using this unprecedented dataset, the team identified the most ecologically important areas used by marine megafauna, which they termed IMMegAs (Important Marine Megafauna Areas). These IMMegAs include areas used as key migratory corridors or used for important residential behaviours such as feeding, mating, and resting. The study found that animals spend 90% of their time in these IMMegAs, but only 5% of these areas currently fall within marine protected areas.
With the current goal to increase marine protected areas from the current 8% to 30% of the global oceans, MegaMove’s study provides a clear, data-driven approach for how to select where the protection should be implemented to assist the conservation of marine megafauna.
Over 60% of the regions classed as IMMegAs are located in the high seas, where the recently adopted (but yet to be ratified) High Seas Treaty is focused. Importantly, animals tend to spend most time within IMMegAs that fall inside national jurisdictions, meaning that national actions should not be delayed to more rapidly assist the conservation of these species.
This is the first study to unify global-scale movement data across marine megafauna taxa and regions, setting a new scientific foundation for global marine spatial planning. The findings directly assist the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s goals and those from the High Seas Treaty, offering a blueprint for protecting migratory species across jurisdictional boundaries.
MegaMove is an endorsed Ocean Decade Action.
This article was originally published on the MegaMove website.