Because UNEP's partner FAO deals with fisheries, UNEP has concentrated on marine species and ecosystems not commercially exploited.

Many of the Regional Seas have recognized particular threats to their marine mammals and sea turtles. Habitat destruction is one of the most important. Destruction of seagrass beds removes shelter and food sources of the green turtle Chelonia mydas, the West Indian manatee Trichechus manatus and the dugong Dugong dugon.

Marine mammals

To a great extent, marine mammal conservation is a global problem requiring a global approach such as the UNEP/FAO Global Action Plan for the conservation and rational utilization of marine mammals. Some regions, however, host particular species currently under threat. These include the monk seals of the Mediterranean and Hawaii, the river dolphins of South and East Asia and the Upper South-West Atlantic, the sirenians of several regions, including the Caribbean, East Africa, the Kuwait region, East Asia and the North-West Pacific. Habitat destruction (dam-building and coastal construction), deliberate killing, and declining food are some of the factors.

In its comparative assessment of marine biodiversity, WCMC determined the three of the Regional Seas with the most threatened cetaceans and pinnipeds: the South Pacific, South-East Pacific and North-East Pacific.*

Sea turtles

Marine reptiles are also particularly threatened throughout the Regional Seas. In the Caribbean marine turtle populations have slumped in the past 10 years. Some 40,000 hatched on the Gulf of Mexico in 1974; two years later only 700 were found, and in 1977 just 450. Beach development is destroying the nesting areas of sea turtles around the globe, and damage to seagrass beds affects the sources of food and shelter of some species.

*The Diversity of the Seas: a regional approach. Groombridge, B. and Jenkins, M.D. (Eds.) World Conservation Press, Cambridge, UK. 132 pp.