AquaMaps are computer-generated predictions of natural occurrence of marine species, based on the environmental tolerance of a given species with respect to depth, salinity, temperature, primary productivity, and its association with sea ice or coastal areas. These 'environmental envelopes' are matched against an authority file which contains respective information for the Oceans of the World. Independent knowledge such as distribution by FAO areas or bounding boxes are used to avoid mapping species in areas that contain suitable habitat, but are not occupied by the species.
MACBIO is a project that supports sustainable economies and livelihoods of Pacific Island Countries by strengthening institutional and individual capacity, to manage and conserve biodiversity in marine and coastal ecosystems. The project was commissioned by BMUB to GIZ as part of IKI, jointly implemented by SPREP, IUCN and GIZ from 2013 to 2018.
This dataset holds all MACBIO-related resources pertaining to Tonga as one of the participating countries.