IMMA Spatial Layer Download

The IUCN Joint SSC/WCPA Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force or ‘IUCN-MMPATF’ maintains the complete spatial dataset of Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) around the world.  These areas have been assessed by regional experts and were further assessed by a panel of independent reviewers.

The IMMA spatial dataset compiled by the IUCN-MMPATF is made publically available by request under a User Licence Agreement for non-commercial use in a GIS compatible Shapefile (.shp) format to use in GIS mapping software. Please note that we do not provide shapefiles for cIMMAs or AOIs.

Full terms of use, including citation guidance and caveats, the definition of non-commercial use and commercial use, are available from the User Licence Agreement download button below.

A metadata description of the IMMA spatial dataset is also available for download from the button below. This metadata document describes the content within the most current version of the dataset made available by request and the information and spatial extent contained within the IMMA layer.

To make a request to download the IMMA Layer in either a GIS compatible Shapefile (.shp) or Google Earth compatible Keyhole Markup Language Zipped file (.kmz) please complete the following Contact Form.  We shall endeavour to send you the requested files as soon as we can although for some enquiries this may take longer due to the nature of the request

* Required fields

    * Required fields



    Please read the User Licence Agreement and IMMA Layer Metadata Description