Background

The Marine Turtle Interactive Mapping System (or Marine Turtle IMapS) has been developed to provide user-friendly, public access to reliable and current information on marine turtles.

The Marine Turtle IMapS is being developed by UNEP-WCMC on behalf of the Convention on Migratory Species. The system is global in scope, while being developed on a regional basis, and is concerned with all species of marine turtles. It is designed as an interactive facility to enable the exchange of data, while enabling contributors to retain ownership and credit for their work.

The system is designed to facilitate the integration of public-domain field data, such as distribution, abundance, migration, trends, status, photographs, and information on index beaches, together with habitat information such as presence and extent of sea grasses, coral reefs, mangroves, priority areas such as Internationally and Nationally Protected Areas, and physical background parameters.

The system enables the user to combine and print the various available data and layers on demand. It provides a zoom-in/zoom-out function to reduce or amplify the area under analysis and provides links to specialised sites on the internet.

The Marine Turtle IMapS in the Indian Ocean and Australasian Region has been developed in support of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation and Management of Marine Turtles and their Habitats of the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia (IOSEA MoU).

This region constitutes the first phase of the global Marine Turtle IMapS and provides initially a web-based interface to the Marine Turtle Database already developed by Dr Colin Limpus, of the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service and an IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle specialist.

The approach being used here is to develop a working model for the Indian Ocean and Australasian region using quality assured data, the latest technology for GIS and web presentation, and existing environmental data at UNEP-WCMC relevant to turtle management programmes. The system includes information on the Flatback (Natator depressus), Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea), Loggerhead (Caretta caretta), Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) and Green turtle (Chelonia mydas).
Click on the icon to enter the IMAPS for the Indian Ocean and Australasian region.