As of October 2021, 173 IMMAs have been identified following the hosting of seven expert workshops in the regions represented in Table 1 below. There are an additional 23 candidate IMMAs (cIMMAs) and 140 Areas of Interest (AoI). Details of all these are in the searchable database and displayed on the e-Atlas. Table 1 shows the number of IMMAs by region.
Table 1 – Summary of the number of IMMAs, cIMMAs and AoI by Workshop
IMMA size
There is a huge range in size among different IMMAs, the largest is 2,861,819 km2 encompassing an area Prince Edward Island and Western Oceanic Waters in the Southern Ocean, and the smallest is 45 km2, the Akrotiri IMMA which includes small breeding caves for the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus).
Criteria used to identify IMMAs
Table 2 provides a summary of the criteria that have been used to identify IMMAs: Criteria C, Key Life Cycle Attributes, which includes migration routes, reproductive areas and feeding areas has been the most frequently used criterion, and Criterion D, Special Attributes has been the least frequently used.
Table 2 – Summary of the criteria used to identify the 173 IMMAs identified as of October 2021 (note that one IMMA can meet multiple criteria, so the totals in the table are greater than 173).
Figure 1 shows the number of IMMAs broken down by the sub-criterion applied. After Criterion A (Species or Population Vulnerability (23%), the most frequently used sub-criteria were C1 (Reproductive Areas) (17%) and C2 (Feeding Areas) (16%).
Figure 1 – Number of IMMAs broken by subcriteria
Qualifying Species in each IMMA
The documentation for each IMMA includes a list of the qualifying marine mammal species that occur and that are fundamental to satisfying each criterion used in the IMMA identification. Supporting species are marine mammal species that occur within the IMMA but which are not fundamental to satisfying the criteria. Figure 2 shows the number of qualifying species listed for each IMMA. The majority were identified on the basis of one or two qualifying species.
Fifty-eight different marine mammal species have been used as the qualifying species for an IMMA. As shown on Figure 3, humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), dugongs (Dugon dugon), Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) and spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) were the most commonly represented species.
Figure 2 – Number of qualifying marine mammal species listed for each IMMA
Figure 3 – Qualifying marine mammal species used to satisfy the IMMA criteria
