National frameworks for marine conservation - A hierarchical geophysical approach

1. Development of environmental protected areas has been driven 'more by op portunity than design, scenery rather than science' (Hackman A. 1993. Prefa ce. A protected areas gap analysis methodology: planning for the conservati on of biodiversity. World Wildlife Fund Canada Discussion Paper: i-ii). If marine environments are to be protected from the adverse effects of human a ctivities, then identification of types of marine habitats and delineation of their boundaries in a consistent classification is required. Without suc h a classification system, the extent and significance of representative or distinctive habitats cannot be recognized. Such recognition is a fundament al prerequisite to the determination of location and size of marine areas t o be protected. 2. A hierarchical classification has been developed based on enduring/recur rent geophysical (oceanographic and physiographic) features of the marine e nvironment, which identifies habitat types that reflect changes in biologic al composition. Important oceanographic features include temperature, strat ification and exposure; physiographic features include bottom relief and su bstrate type. 3. Classifications based only on biological data are generally prohibited a t larger scales, due to lack of information. Therefore, We are generally ob liged to classify habitat types as surrogates for community types. The data necessary for this classification are available from mapped sources and fr om remote sensing. It is believed they can be used to identify representati ve and distinctive marine habitats supporting different communities. and wi ll provide an ecological framework for marine conservation planning at the national level. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.