Abstract template, European MPA symposium 2007 Marine Important Bird Areas (IBAs): towards the effective protection of seabirds at sea José Manuel Arcos 1 , Juan Bécares 1 , Beneharo Rodríguez 1 , Asunción Ruiz 1 , Iván Ramírez 2 , Patricia Amorim 3 , Pedro Geraldes 2 , Ana Meirinho 2 , Vitor Paiva 2 , Carlota Viada 1 , Maite Louzao 4 & K. David Hyrenbach 5 1 – SEO/BirdLife - C/Murcia 2-8, local 13, 08026 Barcelona, Spain 2 – SPEA - Avenida da Liberdade, nº 105, 2ºesq, 1250-140 Lisboa 3 – DOP - Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas, Universidade dos Açores, Casi de Santa Cruz 9900-862 Horta, Faial , Açores, Portugal. 4 – Departamento de Biología de Organismos y Sistemas, Universidad de Oviedo, C/Catedrático Rodrigo Uría s/n, Oviedo 33071, Spain 5 - Duke University Marine Laboratory, Beaufort, NC 28516, USA Corresponding author: jmarcos@seo.org Keywords: BirdLife, MPA, Natura 2000, SPA, telemetry, top predators Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have traditionally targeted the protection of benthic habitats and their inhabitants (i.e. sessile and sedentary taxa), rather than wide-ranging organisms such as seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles and large pelagic fish. Marine top predators have been particularly left aside given their high mobility, which in principle would require large areas to ensure their protection. Moreover, these organisms often associate with dynamic habitat features, such as oceanographic fronts and eddies, thus creating the impression that their distributions and aggregations at sea are highly variable over time. Yet, conservation actions are urgently needed, given the wide array of large-scale anthropogenic threats that marine top predators face at sea (bycatch, overexploitation of fish stocks, pollution, habitat degradation) (Boersma et al. 2004, Lewison et al. 2004). Implementing effective management measures is in most cases unfeasible at a basin-wide scale, given the sheer size of the oceans. This has led to rethink in the MPA approach regarding these organisms, which seems now far more feasible that could have been expected (cf. Hyrenbach et al. 2000). Indeed, there is increasing evidence that marine top predators often assemble at specific marine areas (i.e., hot-spots) that are reasonably predictable, at least at mesoscale spatial scales (10s km). Conservation efforts that focus on habitat hot-spots (foraging and breeding aggregations, migration routes) may be therefore more effective. In particular, protective measures targeting these smaller-scale foraging / migration areas will be more easily enforceable and monitored than large-scale diffuse conservation initiatives. BirdLife International is now extending its Important Bird Area (IBA) Program to the marine environment, as a first step in creating a potential network of protected areas for seabirds, which would also benefit other marine top predators and their underlying ecosystem. To this end, two BirdLife Partner organisations, SEO/BirdLife (Spain) and SPEA (Portugal), are leading the initiative of marine IBA identification, under the auspices of EC Life-Natura funding (2004-2008). These projects seek to develop the conceptual framework and analytical methodology needed to designate IBAs in the marine environment, paying particular attention to oceanic waters, with the ultimate aim of assembling a marine IBA inventory for Spain and Portugal. In the European context, marine IBAs are expected to contribute the Natura 2000 at-sea network by being taken as a reference list in the designation process of Special Protection Areas (SPAs).