2 World Heritage papers32 Assessing Marine World Heritage from an Ecosystem Perspective The Western Indian Ocean Assessing Marine World Heritage from an Ecosystem Perspective The Western Indian Ocean Published in 2012 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France © UNESCO 2012 All rights reserved ISBN 978-92-3-001072-0 The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. Cover photo: © Keith Ellenbogen Supervision and coordination: Fanny Douvere, UNESCO World Heritage Centre Agne Bartkute, UNESCO World Heritage Centre Authors: David Obura, CORDIO Julie Church, CORDIO Catherine Gabrié Denis Macharia, CORDIO (map assistance) Overall coordination: Fanny Douvere Coordination of the World Heritage Papers Series: Vesna Vujicic-Lugassy, UNESCO World Heritage Centre Graphic layout: Jean-Luc Thierry Prefered Reference: Obura, D.O., Church, J.E. and Gabrié, C. (2012). Assessing Marine World Heritage from an Ecosystem Perspective: The Western Indian Ocean. World Heritage Centre, United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 124 pp. Website: http://www.vliz.be/projects/marineworldheritage This publication is made in consultation with IUCN. World Heritage Centre UNESCO 7, place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris 07 SP France Tel.: 33 (0)1 45 68 15 71 Fax: 33 (0)1 45 68 55 70 Website: http://whc.unesco.org This publication and the expert meeting was made possible thanks to the ongoing support to the World Heritage Marine Programme by the government of Flanders (Belgium) Additional support to this publication and the expert meeting was provided by the French Marine Protected Area Agency. The World Heritage Centre is grateful for the long-term support to its Marine Programme provided by the Tides of Time partners: 2 Preface This year is the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention. The World Heritage Committee, the statutory body in charge of the protection of the 936 properties on the World Heritage List, has recognized that the List does not yet fully represent all types of cultural and natural heritage which are of Outstanding Universal Value. In 1994, the World Heritage Committee launched a Global Strategy for a representative, balanced and credible World Heritage List. The Strategy suggests avoiding an over-represen- tation of a small number of regions or categories and ensuring that the World Heritage List reflects the broad diversity of the world’s cultural and natural areas of OUV. An important contribution to the Global Strategy is the effort to encourage nomination of properties from categories and regions currently not or underrepresented on the World Heritage List. One hundred and eighty-nine nations are now “States Parties” to the World Heritage Convention and therefore eligible to submit nominations for sites, including marine areas, to be considered for World Heritage listing to the World Heritage Committee. First, each country makes an inventory of sites located within its boundaries for inclusion on the Tentative List of sites that a State Party may decide to submit for inscription in the next 5–10 years. The World Heritage Committee cannot consider a nomination for inscription on the World Heritage List unless the property has already been included on the State Party’s Tentative List. Contrary to the traditional country-by-country approach, marine World Heritage requires reflection of marine features at larger scales meaningful from an ecosystem perspective. Marine ecosystems almost always transcend national boundaries. In anticipation of increased interest globally in designating new marine World Heritage sites, this project was established to test a more scientific and robust approach to identify marine sites of poten- tial OUV. The project initiated a new approach in the Western Indian Ocean, an area largely under the jurisdiction of African countries and with unique and age-old geological processes currently under-represented on the World Heritage List. The recent expert workshop and this report examined potential areas of OUV in the Western Indian Ocean. The results will enable the States Parties, the World Heritage Committee, and the World Heritage Centre, to take actions to address the need for enhanced protection and sustainable management of marine ecosystems in the Western Indian Ocean. Kishore Rao Director UNESCO World Heritage Centre 3 Introduction Introduction Since about 70% of the world’s surface area is ocean, marine areas are generally under- represented in the World Heritage List. In 2005 the World Heritage Marine Programme was established in part with the aim of ensuring that marine sites with Outstanding Universal Value are inscribed on the World Heritage List and protected so future generations can continue to enjoy them. Following the 1994 Global Strategy, a major focus of the Marine Programme is to support States Parties with the identification of sites in all major marine regions and marine ecosystem types in a balanced, credible and representative manner. Marine ecosystems support much of the world’s goods and services and provide invalu- able economic benefits, yet less than five percent of sites on the World Heritage List are nominated for marine heritage values at this time. Recent reports on the state of marine ecosystems and their resources provide alarming indications on their condition. For example, coral reefs and associated mangrove forests and sea grass beds are severely threatened from a combination of human activities and natural influences, e.g. climate change. Urgent action is needed to revert the decline of these globally significant diverse and productive marine ecosystems. Forty-five marine sites have now been inscribed on the World Heritage List, covering about 1.5 million km2 of the ocean surface – an area about the size of the Gulf of Mexico. Each of these 45 sites represents exceptional features in the ocean that are recognized by the international community for their outstanding natural beauty, extraordinary biodiversity, or unique ecological, biological and geological processes. However, on a planet where more than 95% of all living space is located in the ocean, a huge amount of our heritage is still left undiscovered. The World Heritage Convention is an important tool to bring attention and protection for these unique marine ecosystems as they are a compelling illustration of major types of natural heritage not sufficiently represented on the World Heritage List. This report builds on previous efforts to navigate a long-term future for the World Heritage Marine Programme and to facilitate the process of replicating regional assessments in other marine ecoregions. To access this report visit this webiste: http://www.vliz.be/projects/marineworldheritage/. Dr. Fanny Douvere Coordinator Marine Programme UNESCO World Heritage Centre 5 Assessing Marine World Heritage from an Ecosystem Perspective: The Western Indian Ocean Acknowledgements This report builds on prior work under the World Heritage Marine programme, and parts of the text in the first part of this report have been derived directly from those reports, including the 1994 Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List, the 2011 report Navigating the Future of Marine World Heritage, and the newly developed brochure on using Marine Ecoregions of the World as a basis for iden- tifying marine gaps on the World Heritage List, as well as from the World Heritage website and other official documents. We would like to acknowledge our use of unpub- lished datasets generously provided by the Indian Ocean Commission on behalf of the member countries of the Commission. We would like to thank Fanny Douvere and the staff at the World Heritage Centre, Diana Dumeril, Agne Bartkute, Rachida Kameche, for guidance and support in conducting this work. We would also like to thank the workshop hosts in la Reunion, Mrs Fabienne Couapel Sauret, Vice-Présidente of la Region Reunion, and Soudjata Radjassegarane, Laurence Provot and Anne Nicolas. The comments and feedback from the World Heritage Focal Points from countries of the Western Indian Ocean was helpful in scoping the document, and we thank Fareed Chuttan, Laure Dexcidieux, Solange Laura Macamo, Chumani Mangcu, E. Eliwasa Maro, G. James Njogu. Finally, for the experts who contributed their time in the workshop, and/or in providing or reviewing technical content of the report, we acknowledge Ameer Adbulla, Tim Andrews, Lionel Bigot, Philippe Bouchet, Jerome Bourjea, Salvatore Cerchio, Pascale Chabanet, Vic Cockroft, Gerard Collin, Bertrand Denis, Frauke Fleischer-Dogley, Hans Fricke, Nicole Gravier-Bonnet, Francisco (Tjess) Hernandez, Nigel Hussey, Jeremy Kiszka, Erwan Lagabrielle, Catherine Latreille, Mathieu Le Corre, Adriano Macia, Eric Marguerite, Carole Martinez, Jan Mees, Jeanne A. Mortimer, Mika Odido, Karine Pothin, Jean-Pascal Quod, Jerome Raimbault, Harifidy Ralison, Andriamia Ranjato, Sonia Ribes, Matt Richmond, Melita Samoilys, Francis Staub, Gisele Tarnus, Jean-François Ternon, Gwenaelle Thiery, Ross Wanless and Andrew Zaloumis. 6