Bringing whale superhighways to life
Accurate at time of publication: 3 June 2025
The issue
Migratory superhighways connect whales to critical breeding, feeding, and social habitats across ocean basins—routes essential not only for whale survival but for the health of marine ecosystems. But these lifelines are under increasing threat. Despite decades of conservation work, seven of the 14 great whale species remain endangered or vulnerable, facing growing risks from ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, underwater noise, plastic pollution, and accelerating climate impacts.
The Solution
In a major advance for marine conservation, WWF and a global coalition of leading scientists, civil society, governments, and tech innovators have launched BlueCorridors.org—a dynamic new platform that brings together three decades of whale tracking data with information on overlapping marine threats and conservation solutions.
The platform visualizes satellite tracking data from over 50 global research groups, including Oregon State University, the University of California Santa Cruz, the University of Southampton, and many others.
Result
For the first time, the migratory “blue corridors” used by great whales are now digitally mapped and made publicly accessible to inform science, policy, and ocean protection efforts worldwide.
Launched ahead of World Oceans Day (8 June) and the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France (9-13 June 2025), the platform advances international goals to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030, as set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, underscores the importance of ratifying the UN High Seas Treaty (BBNJ Agreement), and contributes to the ambitions of the UN Decade of Ocean Science. The Blue Corridors platform not only emphasizes the need for collaborative action to achieve all these global goals and policy frameworks - and especially the 30x30 goal, but also provides practical, actionable guidance on how to achieve that.