The week of 8-11 March 2021, the Ocean Governance project hosted 3 webinars (in English, French and Spanish) on the topic of marine turtles. The webinars covered two main topics: the progress of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC Marine) Turtle Specialist Group on the development of global and standardised criteria for Important Marine Turtle Areas (IMTA); and the results of the Study on Marine Turtles and Regional Seas Convention implemented by the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB).
The webinars were co-hosted by the French Office for Biodiversity and Mediterranean Protected Areas Network (MedPAN), with the support of the members of the IUCN SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group. The event started with an introduction to the Ocean Governance Project and its objectives (given by its Team Leader, Puri Canals), including this activity which responds to the role of MPAs networks of managers in addressing marine turtles, and their habitats, conservation and management with MPAs. Presentations were given by Susan Gallon and Fréderic Ducarme from MedPAN (on conservation of marine turtles in the Mediterranean region and the development of an IMTA), Bryan Wallace and Roderic Mast from the IUCN-SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group on the development of IMTAs, and Phénia Marras and Dimitri Medetian from OFB on marine turtles in Regional Seas Conventions.
With around 100 people in total attending the 3 webinars, one curiosity of the discussion was that Q&A topics were noticeably different in each of the 3 language webinars, due partly to the particularities of each region. The webinars are available here in English, Spanish and French.
