On Monday, 30 March, more than 150 marine experts from some 30 countries will gather in Maui to discuss plans for an internationally integrated network of protected areas for whales, dolphins and other mammals.
In this way, meaningful strings of reserves can be created to reflect known population movements of creatures around the oceans.
A local Hawaiian example will be the possibility of extending the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary into a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) across the Pacific.
The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, a co-sponsor of the conference, is calling for a total of 12 appreciably large MPAs to protect various mammal groups globally, to be in place by 2012.
"The best MPAs are part of networks which are particularly important for wide-ranging and migratory animals such as whales and dolphins, with their complex habitat requirements," says the WDCS.
"Most marine areas currently proposed for protection are piecemeal and disconnected. The goal of this conference is to bring together diverse people working in diverse areas of the world and to start to build networks which can truly offer protection for these iconic species and the eco-systems on which they depend."
The challenge will be to achieve broad acceptance among governments to bring in statutory measures where national waters are involved, and enforceable international agreements for international sea areas.
To be effective, says the WDCS, MPAs need to "include highly protected zones, as well as zones for other uses as agreed by stakeholders as part of a regularly reviewed management plan".
The Pacific region was chosen for the conference because it has "led the world in conservation through MPAs" over the past decade, and "hosts seven of the eight largest MPAs on Earth".
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