Toward a common approach for assessing the conservation status of marine turtle species within the european marine strategy framework directive

Abstract

Environmental policies, including the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), generally rely on the measurement of indicators to assess the good environmental status (GES) and ensure the protection of marine ecosystems. However, depending on available scientific knowledge and monitoring programs in place, quantitative GES assessments are not always feasible. This is specifically the case for marine turtle species, which are listed under the Biodiversity Descriptor of the MSFD. Relying on an expert consultation, the goal of this study was to develop indicators and a common assessment approach to be employed by European Union Member States to evaluate the status of marine turtle populations in the frame of the MSFD. A dedicated international expert group was created to explore and test potential assessment approaches, in coherence with other environmental policies (i.e. Habitats Directive, OSPAR and Barcelona Conventions). Following a series of workshops, the group provided recommendations for the GES assessment of marine turtles. In particular, indicators and assessment methods were defined, setting a solid basis for future MSFD assessments. Although knowledge gaps remain, data requirements identified in this study will guide future data collection initiatives and inform monitoring programs implemented by EU Member States. Overall this study highlights the value of international collaboration for the conservation of vulnerable species, such as marine turtles.

Advancing Sea Turtle Monitoring at Nesting and Near Shore Habitats with UAVs, Data Loggers, and State of the Art Technologies

“…The use of novel technologies could be an important tool for the collection of crucial on-field information, that either wise would be difficult to collect for a limited number of scientists, managers, or volunteers. Methodological frameworks such as the one presented here could assist in a more automated and easy collection of data, that could support a more integrated and systematic monitoring of protected areas, which may suffer from a lack of funding for research and personnel for the realization of conservation fieldwork [58]. As ecosystems are currently under change, it is essential to make use of any technological advancement that offers the possibility of recurrently collecting new information and enables the systematic monitoring of changes in the long term.…”

Development of a new control rule for managing anthropogenic removals of protected, endangered or threatened species in marine ecosystems

“…We focused on cetacean species with which we are most familiar, and for which a large body of work exists. Our results and discussion are, however, not necessarily limited to cetacean or marine mammal species as previous work on marine mammals have been transfered on seabirds or turtles ( Dillingham & Fletcher, 2008 ; Girard et al, 2022 ). We start by providing a description of relevant international and EU legislations on PETS (including cetaceans) conservation in the North-East Atlantic.…”

“…In the European Union (EU), current legislation requires Member States (MS) to undertake systematic monitoring programme for reliable data collection to estimate the magnitude of removals of, as well as their impacts on PETS populations ( European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment, 2021 ). Despite high ambitions, current mortality monitoring of PETS in the EU (and in North-East Atlantic more broadly) remains largely inadequate to meet these expectations and assess the magnitude of PETS by-catch in fisheries ( ICES, 2022 ; Murphy, Borges & Tasker, 2022 ; Girard et al, 2022 ).…”

Testing indicators for trend assessment of range and habitat of low-density cetacean species in the Mediterranean Sea

“…However, relevant indicators or threshold values for assessing species range and habitat have not yet been developed (Palialexis et al, 2019), and some recommendations were only recently provided through an international scientific cooperation to define indicators, assessment methods, and data requirements for the assessment of marine turtles under the MSFD (Girard et al, 2022). Moreover, despite an increasing research effort, a limited number of studies attempted so far to infer temporal changes in cetacean distributional range or habitat use, and the 'trend' criterion for these parameters/criteria is still considered 'unknown' for almost all cetacean species in the Mediterranean Sea (last HD report 2013(last HD report -2018, likely due to the lack of comparable data and standard methodological approaches.…”