A. Initially, the submission to the Task Force of “preliminary Areas of Interest” (pAoI) in any particular region is broadly advertised and solicited within the scientific and conservation practitioners’ communities, and submissions are accepted from any person or institution. If they qualify based on criteria and robustness of data, pAoI are then considered and elaborated as “candidate IMMAs” (cIMMAs) during regional expert workshops. Having undergone independent peer review after the regional workshop, if successful and if the criteria have been met, cIMMAs formally become IMMAs and are posted on a dedicated e-Atlas and searchable database. After review, a cIMMA that has not reached a sufficient level of robustness but only needs minor adjustments to become an IMMA (adjustments that can be made without resubmission to a successive workshop) maintains its status as a cIMMA and is shown as such on the e-Atlas; by contrast, cIMMAs that need substantial additional knowledge and a reassessment including new collective scrutiny through a workshop and review, are posted on the e-Atlas as AoI.