UNEP-WCMC and World Commission on Protected Areas Database of Ecological Corridors

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has focused in recent years on protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). While these areas play a central role in future conservation efforts, it is also vital to recognise the importance of the expanses of land and water that connect them: ecological corridors. Ecological corridors are areas that are governed and managed over the long-term to maintain or restore ecological connectivity – the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.

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AEWA Guidelines on how to avoid, minimize or mitigate impact of infrastructural developments and related disturbance affecting waterbirds

Bonn, 23 March 2021 – The AEWA Action Plan requires the Secretariat and the Technical Committee (TC) to develop a series of Conservation Guidelines to help the Parties implement the Agreement. As part of this series, guidelines on how to avoid, minimise or mitigate the impact of infrastructure developments and related disturbance affecting waterbirds have been produced. They were endorsed by the 5th Meeting of the AEWA Standing Committee in June 2008 and approved by the 4th Session of the Meeting of the Parties (September 2008, Antananarivo, Madagascar).

Infrastructure developments can have a range of potentially significant impacts on waterbirds and their habitats. It is therefore recommended that each Party should take steps to avoid, minimize or mitigate such potential impacts by applying Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and project Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) as part of a robust and transparent system for planning and implementing sustainable development.

These guidelines are setting out two sets of steps that may need to be followed. Each country should apply the appropriate steps according to the planning stage that has been reached in the development process. However, the steps should be seen as components of a partly iterative process, such that if necessary steps are returned to and revised in response to new information and decisions. Consultations with stakeholders should also take place throughout the SEA and EIA processes as necessary.

The Guidelines, published as AEWA Technical Series No. 26, were produced by Ecological Solutions and Treweek Environmental Consultants and funded by The Agency for Nature and Forests, Ministry of the Flemish Community (ANF), Belgium.

WWF Protecting Blue Corridors on identifying, mapping and protecting migratory routes of whales

A new collaborative report from WWF and partners provides the first truly comprehensive look at whale migrations and the threats they face across all oceans, highlighting how the cumulative impacts from industrial fishing, ship strikes, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change are creating a hazardous and sometimes fatal obstacle course for the marine species.

Protecting Blue Corridors visualises the satellite tracks of over 1000 migratory whales worldwide. The report outlines how whales are encountering multiple and growing threats in their critical ocean habitats – areas where they feed, mate, give birth, and nurse their young – and along their migration superhighways, or ‘blue corridors’.

Soaring Bird Sensitivity Mapping Tool

CMS CAMI Infrastructure Atlas

CMS has strengthened its engagement in Central Asia to conserve migratory mammals, their habitats and the vital role they play in preserving intact ecosystems. The Central Asian Mammals Initiative (CAMI) (Resolution 11.24 (Rev.COP13)) and its associated Programme of Work were adopted by CMS Parties at the Eleventh Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) and revised at COP13 in Ghandinagar, India (February 2020). With an initiative to strengthen the conservation of Central Asian migratory mammals, CMS aims to provide a common framework to coordinate conservation activities in the region and to coherently address major threats to migratory species. It is based on activities focused on single species (including existing MOUs/Action Plans and those in development) and activities to address urgent and major threats faced by all or most of the species.

CMS provides an international policy framework to facilitate close collaboration amongst stakeholders. Priority areas for action under CMS include the removal of barriers to migration, the maintenance and restoration of transboundary ecological networks and the preservation of animal migrations in the Central Asian region as one of the last global “migration hotspots”. By developing an initiative for Central Asian mammals, the treaty is acting as a catalyst to foster collaboration between all stakeholders, with the aim of harmonizing and strengthening the implementation of CMS and its instruments targeting large mammals.

Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration

The Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration was created in 2020. The main aim of the initiative is to work collaboratively to: 1) create a Global Atlas of Ungulate Migration (an inventory) using tracking data and expert knowledge; and 2) stimulate research on drivers, mechanisms, threats and conservation solutions common to ungulate migration worldwide. Initiative participants include global experts representing the world’s major terrestrial regions and most if not all of its longest migrations (e.g., Serengeti wildebeest, arctic caribou, Mongolian saiga, white-eared kob, African elephants, among many others). We seek to spark conservation efforts worldwide by sharing and discussing new, ongoing, and proven approaches to maintain migration corridors across large landscapes.

International Whaling Commission Sanctuaries Conservation Management Plans (CMPs)

Conservation Management Plans (CMPs) are an important conservation initiative of the IWC. They provide a framework for countries within the range of vulnerable cetacean populations (known as range states) to work together, and in collaboration with other relevant stakeholders, to protect and rebuild those populations.

International Whaling Commission Sanctuaries

The International Whaling Commission – IWC

The IWC was established in 1946 as the global body responsible for management of whaling and conservation of whales. Today the IWC has 88 member countries. The mandate has not changed but many new conservation concerns exist and the IWC work programme now also includes bycatch & entanglement, ship strikes, ocean noise, pollution and debris, and sustainable whale watching.

IUCN Important Marine Mammals Areas (IMMAs)

Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) are defined as discrete portions of habitat important to marine mammal species that have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation. IMMAs consist of areas that may merit place-based protection and/or monitoring. IMMAs are identified through an independent, expert process.

International Finance Corporation (IFC) Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability

The IFC Performance Standards (PS) provide standardised guidance on identifying risks and impacts of major infrastructure and development projects. The standards are designed to help avoid, mitigate, and manage the risks and impacts of such projects in a sustainable way, including stakeholder engagement and disclosure obligations. Application of the IFC Performance Standards is required by many multilateral donors, such as the World Bank, for projects they are financing.

PS 6 covers Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Management of Living Natural Resources, PS 1 Assessment and Management of Environmental and Social Risks and Impacts, and PS 7 Indigenous Peoples.

The IFC Performance Standards are available in several languages.

2020

IUCN Guidelines for conserving connectivity through ecological networks and corridors

Connectivity conservation is essential for managing healthy ecosystems, conserving biodiversity and adapting to climate change across all biomes and spatial scales. Well-connected ecosystems support a diversity of ecological functions such as migration, hydrology, nutrient cycling, pollination, seed dispersal, food security, climate resilience and disease resistance. These Guidelines are based on the best available science and practice for maintaining, enhancing and restoring ecological connectivity among and between protected areas, other effective areas based conservation measures (OECMs) and other intact ecosystems. For the first time, this publication introduces a common definition and recommends formal recognition of ecological corridors to serve as critical building blocks of ecological networks in conjunction with protected areas and OECMs. Furthermore, these Guidelines also include 25 case studies that demonstrate current approaches to conserving ecological connectivity and ecological networks for different ecosystems and species, and at different spatial and temporal scales.

Ecological Corridor for the Reunion of Giant Pandas

The Qinling landscape supports a large population of Giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). In the 1970s National Road 108 was constructed through the previously intact forest, splitting the panda populations apart into distinct groups in the east and west. The eastern subgroup of pandas is at high risk of extinction. Habitat fragmentation like this limits resources and genetic movement for both groups of pandas. In 2000 a tunnel was built by the government to accommodate the new road and the opportunity to reconnect the panda population. The old roads, above ground, were closed so that habitat could be re-established. In 2003 the Shaanxi Guanyinshan Nature Reserve was legally established, and in 2005 the World Wildlife Fund together with the reserve launched the G108 Qinling vehicle tunnel corridor restoration project. The main activities of the project included baseline surveys of the panda population, bamboo plantings to improve habitat quality, local community engagement and wildlife monitoring.

Connectivity, ecosystem services and Nature-based Solutions in Land-use planning in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica, land management plans are a tool that local governments can use to generate regulations that complement protected areas and ecological corridors. These three elements are complementary and must be developed in an integrated fashion to achieve a systematic approach to planning. Management plans implement ecological corridors through tools such as the establishment of specific areas for focal species; the preservation of agricultural areas that function as biological, conservation and sustainable tourism corridors; the creation of buffer zones; and the zoning of aquifer recharge zones for the protection of water resources. Through the University of Costa Rica’s Sustainable Urban Development Research Program (UCR-ProDUS in Spanish), land management plans for more than a dozen municipalities have been developed, including the protected areas Corcovado National Park, Piedras Blancas National Park, Ballena Marine National Park, Juan Castro Blanco Water National Park and Carara National Park.