Protecting marine habitats: Spatial conservation measures for seabirds at sea

Protecting marine habitats for biodiversity is essential to ensure the long-term viability of these ecosystems, globally. Seabirds rely on healthy marine ecosystems and these relationships can span multiple jurisdictions in a single year, even within a single breeding season. The ecosystem dependency and political complexity requires a seabird practitioner to be aware of, understand and access a variety of approaches and spatial conservation tools to achieve seabird viability goals. These approaches include spatial planning, protected areas and other effective conservation measures as well as other tools, policy and legal instruments. In this chapter, marine spatial conservation measures are described, explored and contrasted in order to provide a solid foundation of theory and practice. The most commonly applied concepts and perspectives that are used currently are introduced as well as specific examples that have advanced the protection of seabirds in different parts of the world.