FEEDBACK ON THE
‘SPAMIs & SCIENCE’ SEMINAR
On the sidelines of the celebration of the Day of Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance, SPAMI Day 2024, SPA/RAC, APAL and its non-governmental partners co-managers of the three Tunisian SPAMIs: MAN (co-manager of La Galite), ASPEN Cap Bon (co-manager of Zembra and Zembretta) and ACG (co-manager of the Kneiss Islands) joined forces at a seminar entitled ‘SPAMIs and science’ to showcase the specificities of these exceptional marine areas and the scientific activities carried out as part of their management.
The seminar, held in Tunis on 8 May 2024, brought together around twenty marine researchers and students, and stimulated some enthusiastic exchanges between management and scientific stakeholders on the challenges of ecological monitoring and the scientific interest of Tunisian SPAMIs.
La Galite SPAMI (north-west Tunisia)
The managers of La Galite (APAL and MAN) presented their ecological monitoring activities focusing on 'target species', including Posidonia. The team has set up a monitoring system for the upper limit of the Posidonia meadow in the Bay of La Galite, including a monitoring point in accordance with the recommendations of the Barcelona Convention’s IMAP. Additionnaly, they have mapped shallow areas of the Bay of La Galite to complete the distribution map of benthic habitats.
The team is currently experimenting a new technique for capturing fish post-larvae (CARE® Light Trap device), which allows for the identification of fish species that use the SPAMI as a spawning ground.
Ecological monitoring at La Galite has revealed, among other things, several Mediterranean and invasive marine species with a warm thermal affinity, indicating signs of meridionalization and tropicalisation of this marine area.
Zembra & Zembretta archipelago SPAMI (north-east Tunisia)
The management team (APAL and ASPEN Cap Bon) presented the scientific monitoring of two pelagic bird species nesting in the archipelago: Calonectris diomedea and Puffinus yelkouan.
Both of these shearwater species are listed in Annex II of the SPA/BD Protocol and are subject to specific recommendations in the Action Plan for the Conservation of Marine and Coastal Birds in the Mediterranean.
The management team emphasized the crucial importance of the Zelbra and Zembretta islands for these two protected species. Indeed, the archipelago hosts the largest colony of Scopoli's Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) in the Mediterranean.
The colony of the endemic Yelkouan Shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan) has continued to thrive since the deratting of the island of Zembretta in 2009.
The Kneiss Islands SPAMI (south-east Tunisia)
The managers of the Kneiss islands (APAL and ACG) spoke about bird-watching activities on the Kneiss islands.
Birdwatching has identified:
- - 400 little egret (Egretta garzetta) nests on Bassila Island, in 2023, a density never recorded in the past;
- - 400 passenger terns, in a few days at Kneiss, on courtship, before resuming their journey to their breeding site in Libya;
- - a return to nesting of the black-headed gull (Larus genei) on the island of Kneiss, which has not been reported since 1963;
- - new nesters such as the little tern and the Hansel tern.
All these encouraging observations are, however, tarnished by the impact of climate change. At high tide, the sea rises to levels never seen before, taking egret and gull nests with it.
General recommendations
During the debates, it was recommended in particular to encourage collaboration between SPAMIs and external partners, especially for the monitoring of migratory species such as turtles and birds; to mobilise more resources for scientific monitoring, especially for the monitoring of habitats at great depths that are more difficult to access; and to consider more species in the monitoring.
