This week, at the occasion of the 2nd Asia Parks Congress, Sabah, Malaysia, the Marine Mammal Twinning presented the Marine Mammals Management Toolkit across multiple sessions, highlighting the tool’s ability to support MPA managers for the effective management of marine mammals within the Asia region, and beyond.
The 2nd Asia Parks Congress is a gathering of Asia’s protected areas practitioners and other interested stakeholders. The Congress amassed leaders and decision-makers from government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business, and academia from Asia and around the world. Focusing on the theme “Parks for Nature and People,” the congress emphasised the relationship between nature and society.
The Marine Mammals Management Toolkit was presented during two live sessions by Francis Staub, the Marine Mammal Twinning Coordinator. The first, during Working Group 4: Effective Protected and Conserved Areas, on 26thMay 2022, Francis delivered a 10-minute high-level overview of the toolkit titled “The Marine Mammal Management Toolkit: A tool for MPA managers and policy makers”. Following this delivery, joined by two other speakers, Francis formed a panel discussion, inviting questions, to contextualise the toolkit for MPA managers and for effective marine mammal management alongside other tools for terrestrial spatial planning and management tracking in Papua-New Guinea marine systems.
Secondly, during the side event, “Effectively managing MPAs: new toolkits for resilience and marine mammal management”, co-hosted by the Marine Mammal Twinning and Resilience Twinning. The Marine Mammals Management Toolkit was showcased over a 60-minute period providing an overview of the Toolkit – focusing on each component (factsheets, good practices and MPA Self-Assessment Tool) to successfully design MPA management plans, highlight barriers, and successes, to effective management, and to address human-based threats to marine mammals. Through this format, the Twinning was able to provide a more focused introduction to MPA managers and policy makers, highlighting the ability of the Self-Assessment Tool to monitor, adapt and establish MPA management plans for the conservation of marine mammals.
Finally, the Twinning was permanently present throughout the congress through the development and showing of a dedicated poster. Giving an over of the Marine Mammals Management Toolkit, as well as a call for contribution from MPA managers, the poster was printed and on display, available to all attendees of the congress (download the poster).
