GUIDELINES AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING PLANS OF THE POTENTIAL SPECIAL AREA OF CONSERVATION OF BANCO DE LA CONCEPCIÓN

Abstract

The monitoring plan of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) is a fundamental element within its management plan, being designed for meeting the requirements of the site, as well as controlling and informing about the processes affecting the system analysed. Despite its importance, several deficiencies have been found in the monitoring and management plans of the Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) of the Macaronesian Region within Natura 2000 network. One of these shortfalls deals with the indicators selected. Taking advantage of the need of producing a management plan for upgrading the Banco de La Concepción to a SAC, a methodology able to deal with this issue and to generate the necessary guidelines and recommendations on which the management plan can be based, has been set up. Banco de La Concepción is an offshore seamount located in the Macaronesian biogeographical region, characterized by being a spot of high productivity and biodiversity within a more oligotrophic environment. Among the communities and species existing there we can highlight the presence of reef communities considered a priority habitat and included in the Annex I of the European Habitats Directive as sensitive habitat, as well as the presence of the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) and the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), both sensitive species included in the Annex II of the same directive. The methods used have been various including: i) the development of a driver-pressure-state-impacts-response (DPSIR) conceptual model, with the aim of determining the elements affecting the MPA for selecting a suitable list of indicators, ii) the Delphi method for incorporating the experts’ opinion, and iii) the implementation of a Multicriteria-Decision-Analysis (MCDA) approach, specifically the Analytical-Hierarchy-Process (AHP) for determining the suitability of the indicators for the evaluated system, thus generating a novel methodological combination used for the first time in a Spain for MPA evaluation. The results obtained highlight the suitability of 18 indicators from 144 initially detected, divided within four groups considered (driving forces, pressures, state/impact and responses). Among them “Fishing effort”, “Catch per unit effort”, “Extent of Habitats/Communities” and “Existence and adoption of a monitoring plan” stand out as the more appropriate for each group regarding the Banco de La Concepción monitoring. Finally, the advices given by the project INDEMARES have been followed and an alternative methodology able to perform in a transparent way the selection of indicators for the Spanish marine SACs management plans, which they currently lack, has been developed