Handbook for interpreting types of marine habitat for the selection of sites to be included in the national inventories of natural sites of conservation interest.

Abstract

The Protocol concerning specially protected areas and biological diversity in the Mediterranean and the Action Plan for the protection of the marine environment and the sustainable development of Mediterranean coastal areas (MAP Phase II), adopted by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention in 1995, contain arrangements for preparing inventories at national and regional level. In this context, at their Tenth Ordinary Meeting (Tunis, 18-21 November 1997), the Contracting Parties to the Convention for the protection of the Mediterranean Sea against pollution adopted common criteria to establish national inventories of natural sites of conservation interest. During that Meeting, the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC/SPA) was invited to work on elaborating these tools, including a Standard Data Form (SDF) to compile information concerning the sites included in the national inventories of sites of conservation interest. This form is intended to help in decision-making on the management and, if need be, protection of the site described, and to provide a tool for long-term monitoring. At the Fourth Meeting of National Focal Points for Specially Protected Areas (Tunis, 12-14 April 1999), RAC/SPA elaborated a reference list of types of habitat and a reference list of species for selecting the sites to be included in the national inventories, and a draft Standard Data Form whose general framework was adopted at the Eleventh Ordinary Meeting of the Contracting Parties (Malta, 27-30 October 1999). The draft Standard Data Form for the national inventories of natural sites of conservation interest was finalized in March 2000 in Rome at a Meeting of Experts. However, this tool should be regularly incremented to make it is efficient as possible. From the technical point of view, the SDF is an adaptation of tools developed in the context of the European Union’s and European Council’s NATURA 2000 and EMERAUDE network of sites to the specific features of the Mediterranean. This specificity ensures compatibility, as far as is possible, and thus facilitates the sharing of data and information, with database systems established as part of these initiatives. In accordance with the overall aims of the inventories, the SDF was designed with a double objective: - to give help in decision-making concerning the management and, if need be, protection of the site described - to provide a tool for the long-term monitoring of the site. From this angle, the Tunis Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas initiated the production of this handbook for interpreting the marine habitats that appear on the list of habitats that is appended to the Standard Data Form. The aim was to provide countries with a tool to help them identify and assess these marine habitats. This handbook must satisfy a triple requirement: -- scientific rigour -- readability for non-specialists -- compatibility with existing classification systems (EUR 15 European Union Habitat Directive, CORINE). To this end, the document has been subdivided into two levels: - detailed ‘habitats/biocenoses’ sheets to allow a general description - more specific ‘facies/associations’ sheets. Indeed, it appears to be difficult to fully describe a facies or an association without having first set them within their biocenosis. Similarly, this method of compilation avoids repetition where several facies belong to the same biocenosis.