Biodiversity conservation requires efficient methods to be integrated into environmental management planning. The Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) approach has been recently developed for identifying sites of greatest conservation importance. They are regarded as priorities for management intervention and for identifying investment priorities. While the KBA approach has been extensively used to identify locations of high biodiversity significance in the terrestrial realm, this methodology is scarcely known by stakeholders in marine jurisdictions. Identification of a network of KBA sites should be regarded as a high priority in diverse and isolated areas, such as oceanic islands. In the Canary Islands (NE Atlantic Ocean), a number of KBA sites are here identified across the archipelago using irreplaceability and vulnerability criteria to safeguard populations of threatened marine species. If global standards associated with the IUCN Red List are considered, only nesting beaches and regular feeding grounds of sea turtles (Caretta caretta and Chelonia mydas) qualify as KBAs. However, this approach overlooks most of the biodiversity hotspots in the Canary archipelago that include representative ecosystems of volcanic islands (e.g. marine caves) or habitats with high conservation importance in terms of productivity, regional rarity and diversity (e.g. seagrass meadows and maërl seabeds), as well as presence of locally threatened species.

中文翻译：

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在多样化和孤立的海洋管辖区确定全球和本地关键生物多样性地区的困难

保护生物多样性需要将有效的方法纳入环境管理规划中。最近开发了关键生物多样性区（KBA）方法，以识别具有最大保护意义的地点。它们被视为管理干预和确定投资重点的重点。尽管KBA方法已被广泛用于识别陆地领域中具有高度生物多样性意义的位置，但海洋管辖区的利益相关者几乎不了解这种方法。在诸如海洋岛屿之类的不同而偏远地区，识别高宝基地的网络应被视为高度优先事项。在加那利群岛（东北大西洋），这里使用不可替代性和脆弱性标准在整个群岛上确定了许多高宝保护区，以保护濒危海洋物种的种群。如果考虑与IUCN红色名录相关的全球标准，则仅筑巢海滩和海龟的定期觅食场（Caretta caretta和Chelonia mydas）符合KBA的资格。但是，这种方法忽略了加那利群岛上的大多数生物多样性热点，包括具有代表性的火山岛生态系统（例如海蚀洞）或在生产力，区域稀有性和多样性方面具有高度保护重要性的栖息地（例如海草草甸和马尔海床），以及当地受威胁物种的存在。