INSEAD Annual Report 2023-20143 test - Flipbook - Page 36
34
Bertarelli Foundation
The Marine Science programme
prioritises conducting science
that has direct applications for
management. Here we provide an
example to demonstrate how our
research is relevant and used for
improved marine management.
Management
Impact
Important Bird and
Biodiversity Areas
Seabirds are declining globally and are one of the
most threatened group of birds. The western Indian
Ocean supports ~19 million breeding seabirds of
30 species, making it one of the most significant
tropical seabird assemblages in the world.
The Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA)
programme is a method of identifying the most
important places for birds based on globally agreed
standardised criteria and thresholds.
The Chagos Archipelago has around 280,000 pairs
of breeding seabirds from 18 species per year.
Four species breed in IBA qualifying numbers:
tropical shearwater, red-footed booby, sooty tern
(Onychoprion fuscatus) and lesser noddy (Anous
tenuirostris). Data from 1975 and 1996 were used to
designate 10 islands as terrestrial IBAs. In 2020, based
on more recent data, programme scientists (Carr et
al., 2020) redefined the IBAs into four island clusters:
Eastern Diego Garcia island group, eastern Peros
Banhos island group, Nelson Island, and Western
Great Chagos Bank island group (figure 1). They
recommended that IBA monitoring should be done
every four years, with two breeding seabird censuses
of all islands undertaken six months apart, one in
January/February and the other in July/August.
