The last half-century has seen a growing awareness of the impacts that human society has had, and continues to have, upon the environment and the wildlife that live in it. The damage to wildlife from pesticide use and widespread rain forest destruction in the terrestrial environment, over-exploitation of fish stocks, and the decline of the great whales from whaling in the marine environment, were some of the more notable issues recognized over this period. ‘Save the Whale’ campaigns started in the 1960s by environmental groups around the world. This public pressure led to an international moratorium on whaling recommended in 1972 by the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, and eventually adopted by the International Whaling Commission 10 years later. In the last three decades of the 20th century, various global conventions for environmental protection were established, including the MARPOL Agreement (1973/78) for control of marine pollution; UNCLOS (1982) – the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea; and the Earth Summit (1992) – the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Rio de Janeiro.

In Europe, specific regional agreements were established, including (1) OSPAR – The Oslo Paris Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (1992); (2) HELCOM – The Helsinki Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment in the Baltic Sea Area (1992); (3) The Barcelona Convention for the Protection of Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean (1995); and (4) The Bucharest Convention for the Protection of the Black Sea (1992). Specifically for cetaceans, the ‘Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Sea’ (ASCOBANS) (1992), and the ‘Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area’ (ACCOBAMS) (1996), within the Bonn Convention – the Convention on Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979) are the most important. In February 2008, an extension of the ASCOBANS agreement area came into force, resulting in a change of name to ‘Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas’.

The cornerstone of nature conservation in Europe is the EU Habitats (& Species) Directive (1992). It is built around two pillars: a strict system for species protection and the Natura 2000 network of protected sites. All cetaceans occurring in Europe are listed in Annex IV of the Directive, requiring strict protection. Two species, the harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena and bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus, are additionally listed in Annex II, requiring the development of Special Areas of Conservation, where appropriate, as part of the Natura 2000 network. More recently, in 2008, the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) was adopted by the European Union. The MSFD requires Member States to put in place measures to achieve or maintain Good Environmental Status (GES) by 2020 through the development of national Marine Strategies. In order to achieve GES in a coherent and strategic manner, the MSFD has established four European Marine Regions, based on geographic and environmental criteria. The North-East Atlantic Marine Region is divided into four subregions. Each Member State is required to develop a marine strategy for its waters, in coordination with other countries within the same marine region or subregion. This coordination is to be achieved through the Regional Seas Conventions (HELCOM, OSPAR, Barcelona Convention, Black Sea Convention).

The MSFD does not state a specific programme of measures that Member States should adopt to achieve GES, except for the establishment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). It does, however, outline 11 high level descriptors of GES in Annex I of the Directive. Several of these descriptors are relevant to marine mammals, the most obvious ones being Descriptor 1 (biological diversity), Descriptor 3 (food webs), Descriptor 8 (contaminants), Descriptor 10 (marine litter) and Descriptor 11 (noise). Common Indicators have also been established. Those of greatest relevance here include abundance at the relevant temporal and spatial scale of seal and cetacean species regularly present, distributional range and pattern of seal and cetacean species regularly present, harbour seal Phoca vitulina and grey seal Halichoerus grypus pup production, and number of individuals within species being by-caught in relation to the population.

Growing out of concern for the apparent declining status across Europe of the harbour porpoise, the European Cetacean Society (ECS) was formed in 1987, with the aim of promoting research and conservation of all marine mammals in European seas. Since the last JMBA Special Issue on marine mammals, the ECS has held two international conferences. The 28th annual conference took place on 5–9 April 2014 in Liège, Belgium on the theme ‘Marine mammals as sentinels of a changing environment’; and the 29th annual conference took place on 23–25 March 2015 in St Julians, Malta, on the theme ‘Marine mammal conservation – from local to global’. In the three decades since its inception, probably the most important contribution the society has made to marine mammal research and conservation is to bring together enthusiasts across Europe, promoting a wide range of collaborative projects. This has seen an exponential growth in papers on different aspects of marine mammal research – abundance surveys and monitoring of trends, behavioural and ecological studies, national stranding schemes and post-mortem studies, investigations into genetics, anatomy, physiology and diet, as well as much emphasis upon the impacts of human activities upon different species.

Has all this attention to marine mammals resulted in the world becoming a safer place for them, or have we been unable to keep pace with human pressures? The answer is rather mixed. On the positive side, there is much greater awareness of the issues involved, and some better understanding of impacts; direct exploitation of marine mammals has largely ceased; and surveys and monitoring are becoming more routine. Some populations appear to be holding their own or even increasing (see, for example, Hammond et al., Reference Hammond, MacLeod, Berggren, Borchers, Burt, Cañadas, Desportes, Donovan, Gilles, Gillespie, Gordon, Hiby, Kuklik, Leaper, Lehnert, Leopold, Lovell, Øien, Paxton, Ridoux, Rogan, Samarra, Scheidat, Sequeira, Siebert, Skov, Swift, Tasker, Teilmann, Van Canneyt and Vázquez2013). On the other hand, one species, the baiji or Yangtze River dolphin Lipotes vexillifer, appears to be extinct (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Zhou, Wang, Reeves, Barlow, Taylor and Pitman2008) and another, the vaquita Phocoena sinus, confined to the Gulf of California, is nearing extinction (Rojas-Bracho et al., Reference Rojas-Bracho, Reeves, Jaramillo-Legorreta and Taylor2008). And many of the threats that marine mammals face, are still present if not increasing. Vessels are getting faster, increasing the dangers of ship strike (Laist et al., Reference Laist, Knowlton, Mead, Collet and Podesta2001; Pesante et al., Reference Pesante, Panigada and Zanardelli2002; Evans, Reference Evans2003; Vanderlaan & Taggart, Reference Vanderlaan and Taggart2007; Vanderlaan et al., Reference Vanderlaan, Taggart, Serdynska, Kenney and Brown2008; Evans et al., Reference Evans, Baines and Anderwald2010). Ambient noise levels in the ocean are increasing (NOAA, 2005; Andrew et al., Reference Andrew, Howe and Mercer2011; Tyack et al., Reference Tyack, Frisk, Boyd, Urban and Seeyave2015), with shipping, seismic exploration, pile driving and active sonar all identified as having potential negative impacts (Evans, Reference Evans2015). By-catch remains a global issue affecting almost every marine mammal species on earth, and in Europe continues to be a significant issue for species such as harbour porpoise, common dolphin Delphinus delphis and striped dolphin Stenella coeruleoalba, as well as for baleen whales such as minke Balaenoptera acutorostrata and humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae (Northridge, Reference Northridge1984, Reference Northridge1991; Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Salvador, Kenney, Robbins, Kraus, Landry and Clapham2005; Northridge et al., Reference Northridge, Cargill, Coram, Mandleberg, Calderan and Reid2010; Reeves et al., Reference Reeves, McClellan and Werner2013; ICES WGBYC, 2015). Despite bans on the production of a number of harmful contaminants such as PCBs, many of these still circulate in the environment, resulting in comparatively high loads in a number of species such as harbour porpoise, bottlenose dolphin and killer whale Orcinus orca (O'Shea, Reference O'Shea, Reynolds and Rommel1999; Reijnders et al., Reference Reijnders, Aguilar and Donovan1999; Evans, Reference Evans2014; Jepson et al., Reference Jepson, Deaville, Barber, Aguilar, Borrell, Murphy, Barry, Brownlow, Barnett, Berrow, Cunningham, Davison, ten Doeschate, Esteban, Ferreira, Foote, Genov, Giménez, Loveridge, Llavona, Martin, Maxwell, Papachlimitzou, Penrose, Perkins, Smith, de Stephanis, Tregenza, Verborgh, Fernandez and Law2016). And most recently, attention has turned to the implications of climate change for marine mammals, with arctic species such as polar bear Ursus maritimus, ringed seal Pusa hispida and narwhal Monodon monoceros identified as particularly vulnerable (Tynan & DeMaster, Reference Tynan and DeMaster1997; Würsig et al., Reference Würsig, Reeves, Ortega-Ortiz, Evans and Raga2002; Learmonth et al., Reference Learmonth, Macleod, Santos, Pierce, Crick and Robinson2006; Huntington & Moore, Reference Huntington and Moore2008; Kovacs & Lyderson, Reference Kovacs and Lyderson2008; Kaschner et al., Reference Kaschner, Tittensor, Ready, Gerrodette and Worm2011; Evans & Bjørge, Reference Evans and Bjørge2013).

In many cases we have the knowledge to tackle these conservation issues. It remains to be seen whether society has the will and resources to do so.