The Marine Megafauna Conservation Toolkit is an open-access online toolkit which facilitates the identification of important sites for marine megafauna and pathways to advocate for their conservation.
A primary goal of the toolkit is to facilitate the application of methods to identify sites that meet Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) criteria, including from tracking data, and relevant implementation of conservation actions to support marine megafauna and achieve or maintain a favourable conservation status.
The toolkit was built because identifying important sites for marine megafauna and knowing how to leverage important site information to achieve a conservation outcome is not straightforward. This new toolkit therefore facilitates the urgent need to scale solutions for nature conservation.
Through three main components, the toolkit helps users identify:
- critical sites for species, including supporting users to turn complex animal tracking data into outputs useful for decision-makers,
- effective conservation interventions through case studies curated by the global Conservation Evidence Team, and
- mechanisms that can support decision-makers to act, by guiding users through the policy and advocacy opportunities for site-based conservation.
Whether focused on an individual site or networks of sites from national, regional, to global levels, the toolkit serves to scale solutions for the conservation of marine megafauna.
Ultimately, the toolkit is a key facilitating mechanism that can enable individuals or groups to better deliver outputs and information required for achieving globally commitments such as those of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Further information:
- Animation and graphics by Science Animation Studio