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25 Guidelines for Developing Protected Areas for Sirenians Helene Marsh and Benjamín Morales-Vela Why We Need Protected Areas for Sirenians The range of sirenians spans almost 90 subtropical and tropical countries and territories on five continents. Most of these countries are classified as less developed. The purpose of this chapter is to assist managers and scientists with their responsibilities in these countries to work with stakeholders to design protected areas that will reverse the declines in sirenian populations. Because of their high cultural value and political profile , sirenians can be of great value as flagship species for more broadly based conservation initiatives including protected areas that aim to conserve biodiversity in general rather than sirenians specifically. Flagship species are “charismatic species which serve as a symbol and rallying point to stimulate conservation awareness and action”1. In Japan, for example, a sirenian was used as a flagship species to prevent an offshore landing facility being built in dugong habitat2. Sirenians can also serve as umbrella species (“a species whose conservation confers protection on a large number of naturally occurring co-species”3). For example , the Chetumal Bay Manatee Protected Area in Mexico consists of 281,000 hectares, of which 101,000 hectares of wetlands, mangroves, savannas, and tropical forests protect many aquatic and terrestrial species in addition to manatees. The use of flagship or umbrella species as shortcuts to designing protected areas for biodiversity conservation is controversial4, and the overall conservation outcomes are likely to be stronger if sirenian conservation is nested into more broadly based biodiversity conservation initiatives. In the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, the UNESCO biosphere reserve of Sian Ka’an is a good model of biodiversity conservation that has strong community participation and support. This reserve protects aquatic mammals including manatees in Ascension and Espiritu Santo bays and is within Chetumal Bay, a natural wetland corridor in the south of Quintana Roo (box 25.1). Chetumal Bay Manatee Protected Area in Mexico Chetumal-Corozal Bay provides an example of the challenge of using protected areas to conserve sirenians in developing countries. This bay is the natural border between Mexico and Belize (see figure 4.1). It is an important area for manatee conservation (Morales-Vela et al. 2000), with the highest concentration of manatees in the Yucatán Peninsula (Morales-Vela et al. 2003). Chetumal Bay Manatee Protected Area (CHMPA) was created in 1996 by the state government of Quintana Roo, Mexico, as the first protected area dedicated to manatee conservation in the country. The CHMPA includes over 101,000 hectares of mangroves , wetland, savannas, and hydrological basins adjacent to the bay. Two years later, in 1998, the Belize government declared the southern part of the bay a manatee sanctuary. By the time of this writing, budgetary and management constraints have compromised the effectiveness of this conservation attempt. There are strong pressures to develop economic activities inside and around the CHMPA, and the few attempts to coordinate conservation activities between Belize and Mexico have failed. The government administrative arrangements limit both enforcement and the participation of local communities (Morales-Vela 2004). In addition, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) no longer have a local presence in the south of Quintana Roo. The Mexican federal academic and research institution ECOSUR and the NGO Sian Ka’an are currently interested in evaluating the potential of a co-management process for conservation with the state government of Quintana Roo. box 25.1 Guidelines for Developing Protected Areas for Sirenians 229 Although protected areas are certainly not the complete answer to sirenian conservation5, they are a significant tool in the conservation toolbox that has been adopted by many countries. In their reviews of dugong conservation, Marsh et al.6 documented protected areas with the potential to conserve dugongs in 14 countries plus plans for additional protected areas (and their list is not complete). Four countries had protected areas specifically designed for dugongs. Quintana-Rizzo and Reynolds7 documented at least 46 protected areas with the potential to conserve Antillean manatees in 13 countries in the Caribbean region. But not all of these protected areas are effective; too many are “paper parks”; protected areas that exist in name only, without having a measurable impact on conservation . Aquatic reserves are of limited value without the backup of firm management guidelines. As Hooker and Gerber8 have pointed out, scientists and managers need to become less accepting of having areas designated as sanctuaries without tangible protection. Types of Protected Areas The World Conservation Union’s Guidelines...

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