Identifying Marine Areas For Protection: A Case Study From Japan
This paper was written by several Japanese scientists examining the selection criteria for ecologically and biologically significant areas, or EBSAs. The Aichi Protocol recommends that 10% of all marine and coastal areas be designated as conserved areas by 2020, and in order to decide which areas should be protected, the EBSA criteria were drafted by the Convention on Biological Diversity, a legally-binding multilateral UN treaty. Ecosystems are prioritized that are extremely rare, are important for critical life stages of certain species, contain a number of endangered or threatened species, are especially fragile or biologically productive, and that are relatively free from human interference. For this study, coastal and marine ecosystems were divided into five groups: kelp forests, coral reefs, seagrass beds, offshore pelagic (open ocean), and deep sea.
The researchers reviewed several issues with quantifying some of the EBSA criteria in certain ecosystems. For example, there is no scientific consensus on what qualifies as “biological diversity,” and there is a lack of information on endemic species in Japan in some ecosystems, like the deep sea. In addition, data is not available for the vulnerability or sensitivity of open-ocean or deep sea ecosystems, largely due to the difficulty of observing them. Animal tracking data was used for several of the criteria, especially in determining critical life stage habitats – breeding and feeding grounds – for migratory species. This tracking data can also be useful in determining particularly productive or diverse habitats, if numerous species are shown to be congregating in an area.
The researchers used these criteria for a test study in Hokkaido, Japan. They only looked at kelp forest ecosystems, and were able quantify each criterion. Each criterion was then scored on a 1 (poor) to 3 (good) scale, and then integrated into a single score for the entire habitat. Various integration methods were used, but all produced similar results.
The researchers concluded with some concerns about using the EBSA criteria to fulfill the Aichi Protocol. Firstly, prioritizing any individual criterion will be subjective, and must therefore be independently validated. Certain methods of integration hold criteria at different levels of importance, and this ranking must be validated by some body outside of that making the integration. In addition, the results of the EBSA evaluations must align with reality – that is, they must result in protection of the right areas. Conservationists must be careful not to blindly accept the EBSA scores and actually verify that the most important ecosystems are being protected.