WWF-IUCN-IWC-Oceanmind: a Geospatial Analysis of Vessel
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
WWF-IUCN -IWC-OceanMind: A Geospatial Analysis of Vessel Traffic in Important Marine Mammal Areas Using the Automatic Identification System to Monitor the Important Marine Mammal Areas (01Sep2018 – 01Sep2019) Primary analysis conducted by OceanMind with funding from the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF). Technical support and data provided by the IUCN MMPA Task Force, COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE the WWF Cetacean Initiative, the International Whaling Commission, © 2020 OceanMind Limited. All Rights Reserved. Globice, and REMMOA Page | 1 © Pixabay - ArtTower Global Area Assessment Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) 01Sep2018 – 31Aug2019 Acronyms and abbreviations Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the ACCOBAMS Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic IWC International Whaling Commission area AIS Automatic identification system MCS Monitoring, control and surveillance Atl Atlantic Med Mediterranean region EEZ/EFZ Exclusive economic zone / Exclusive fishing zone NIO Northeast Indian Ocean IMMA Important Marine Mammal Area PI Pacific Islands IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature SAS Southeast Asian Seas Region IUU Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing WIO Western Indian Ocean Disclaimer: The analysis is based upon resources and data available to OceanMind Limited. The client should corroborate this analysis utilising alternative means if any action is to be taken based upon the analysis provided. This disclaimer is superseded by any contract OceanMind Limited already has with the receiving party. This document may include material from © 2019 exactEarth, © 2019 Orbcomm, © 2019 Maxar Technologies Ltd, © 2019 IHS Global Ltd, © 2019 Flanders Marine Institute, and © 2019 OceanMind Limited. In all instances, all rights are reserved. COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE © 2020 OceanMind Limited. All Rights Reserved. Page | 2 Global Area Assessment Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) 01Sep2018 – 31Aug2019 Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 4 Part I: IMMA-wide Analysis of AIS transmission densities .................................................................................................................................... 12 1 Mediterranean region ............................................................................................................................................................................. 27 2 West Indian Ocean ................................................................................................................................................................................... 105 3 Northwest Indian Ocean .......................................................................................................................................................................... 153 4 Southeast Asian Seas Region ................................................................................................................................................................... 224 5 Pacific Islands ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 296 6 Atlantic ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 353 PART II: Case Studies .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 368 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 368 Mascarene Islands and Associated Oceanic Features IMMA - Case study ............................................................................................. 370 Savu Sea Case Study ................................................................................................................................................................................ 388 Appendix I: Criteria used to select the two IMMAs to become the focus of more in depth analysis of the nature of vessel activity in relation to marine mammal distribution ................................................................................................................................................................................. 399 Appendix II: IWC SUMMARY TABLE OF SHIP STRIKE MITIGATION MEASURES THAT HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED WORLDWIDE ........................ 401 COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE © 2020 OceanMind Limited. All Rights Reserved. Page | 3 Global Area Assessment Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) 01Sep2018 – 31Aug2019 Executive Summary Background and context As top predators, marine mammals play a key role in most marine ecosystems (Roman et al., 2014) and can also provide economic benefits through tourism (O’Connor et al., 2009). While some whale populations are rebounding following the near-cessation of commercial hunting (e.g. Zerbini et al., 2019), many marine mammal populations around the world are under threat and in decline due to a wealth of new pressures, including fisheries (Brownell Jr et al., 2019), climate change (Tulloch et al., 2019), and the impacts of maritime traffic, which can bring with it the risk of ship strikes (Pirotta et al., 2019) and disturbance from underwater noise (Erbe et al., 2019). The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) of the IMO requires ‘AIS to be fitted aboard all ships of 300 gross tonnage and upwards engaged on international voyages, cargo ships of 500 gross tonnage and upwards not engaged on international voyages and all passenger ships irrespective of size’. Efforts to mitigate the many threats posed to marine mammals require place-based management measures in the areas that are most important for their life processes, including feeding, reproducing, migrating, and resting (Agardy et al., 2019). Identifying these important areas in a globally standardized fashion that is based on scientific evidence has been the main aim of the IUCN Joint SSC/WCPA Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force (MMPATF). At the time of writing this report, the MMPATF has worked with marine mammal experts around the globe to identify 114 Important Marine Mammals Areas (IMMAs) in five regions. These are viewable on the MMPATF website through a searchable database or in map form through the e-Atlas. COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE © 2020 OceanMind Limited. All Rights Reserved. Page | 4 Global Area Assessment Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) 01Sep2018 – 31Aug2019 Figure 1 | Screenshot from the IUCN MMPATF Website portraying the 114 Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) that have been proposed, reviewed and formally published on the eAtlas as of January 2020. In addition to coordinating the effort to identify IMMAs, The MMAPTF collaborates with other intergovernmental bodies as well as non-governmental bodies to identify and promote concrete conservation measures that can be implemented in each IMMA to mitigate threats. For example, collaboration with the MMPATF is embedded in the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) Strategic Plan to Mitigate the Impacts of Ship Strikes on Cetacean Populations: 2017- 2020 (Cates et al., 2017). In April 2019, the IUCN MMPA Task Force, IWC and ACCOBAMS jointly hosted a workshop to evaluate how the data and process used to identify Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) can assist the IWC to systematically identify areas of high risk for ship strike, a key goal of the Commission’s Strategic Plan(Cates et al., 2017). The workshop report generated a number of recommendations, including the following: ‘the IWC working with the IUCN MMPA Task Force and the CMS and its daughter agreements, undertake an initial analysis of global IMMAs, overlaid with shipping data, to identify potential high risk areas….’(IWC, 2019). This report represents a response to that recommendation, providing a first broad-scale overview of the potential risk that marine traffic poses to marine mammals within those areas. The report is divided into two main parts: 1) a broad-scale overview of vessel activity in each of the 114 IMMAs identified to date; and 2) two case studies that examine the nature of vessel traffic and co-occurrence with marine mammal distribution on a finer scale in two IMMAs that were selected on a number of agreed criteria. COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE © 2020 OceanMind Limited. All Rights Reserved. Page | 5 Global Area Assessment Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) 01Sep2018 – 31Aug2019 Overview of results: OceanMind conducted a geospatial analysis by overlaying the AIS transmission from all categories of vessels that transmitted signals between 1 September 2018 and 1 September 2019 with the shape files of all 114 IMMAs. This exercise revealed that almost every IMMA is affected by vessel traffic, with a total of 113 (97.4 %) of the IMMAs containing vessel activity during the year in question, while there were no AIS transmissions received in the other 2 areas. Furthermore, this phase of the analysis indicated that: o 28 IMMAs experienced a likely increase in vessel activity over the analysis period. o 38 IMMAs included well-defined