Guidelines for the Establishment and Management of Marine Protected Areas for Cetaceans

These guidelines are meant to:

• Take into account the criteria of selection of Specially Protected Areas elaborated by ACCOBAMS and discussed by the ACCOBAMS Scientific Committee during its 4th Meeting, Monaco 5-8 November 2006;
• Provide basic information and training material to support MPA managers in the process of establishing and/or managing MPAs containing cetacean habitat;
• Suggest concrete actions to promote the long-term conservation of cetaceans in the existing or future MPAs;
• Provide support to all those concerned with the policy and practice of marine and coastal protected areas for cetaceans, including practitioners, decision-makers at the various levels of government, NGOs, academics, and international agencies.

Guidelines for the Development of National Networks of Cetacean Strandings Monitoring

According to the decision of the First Meeting of the Parties to ACCOBAMS (Monaco, March 2002) this document is aimed to develop a Regional stranding networks including all the signatory countries of the «Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area». Furthermore The Barcelona Convention recommended to its Contracting Parties to take note of these guidelines at its 13th Ordinary Meeting (Catania, November 2003)

Guidelines for Commercial Cetacean-Watching Activities in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area

This document gathers two related and complementary works:

• the Guidelines for commercial whale  watching activities in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic Area. These guidelines were recommended to be taken into consideration by the Contracting Parties to ACCOBAMS when drafting or updating their domestic legislation on cetacean watching (2002) and were recommended for adoption by the Contracting Parties of the Barcelona Convention (2003) after a common review by ACCOBAMS and the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC/SPA);
• secondly, the document presents a much-needed Worldwide review document on existing whale watching codes of conduct, guidelines and regulations.

Cetacean Manual for MPA Managers

The cetacean manual for MPA managers, published in October 2013, provides a comprehensive overview of the main cetaceans species regularly present in the ACCOBAMS area  and reviews the following subjects:

• The monitoring of cetaceans  populations in MPAs,
• The existing data and networks for cetaceans,
• The administrative and scientific guidelines to deal with dead and live stranding,
• The sustainable whale watching and volunteering activities,
• other socio-economic aspects.