Ligurian Sea Cetacean Sanctuary the main feeding ground for Fin Whales in the Mediterranean basin. The sanctuary was established on 25 November 1999 and is the first (and currently the only) international / High Seas MPA in the world covering areas of the Mediterranean seas of France, Italy, and the Principality of Monaco. To underline the importance of the sanctuary, it has been added to the Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMI) list of the 1999 Barcelona Convention. Ligurian Sea Cetacean Sanctuary Originally called the International Ligurian Sea Cetacean Sanctuary (Ligurian Sea Sanctuary), what is now known as the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean
Ligurian language (ancient) the Ligurian place-name "Genua" (modern Genoa, located near a river mouth) is claimed by Delamarre to derive from PIE *"ǵenu-", "chin(bone)". Many Indo-European languages use 'mouth' to mean the part of a river which meets the sea or a lake, but it is only in Celtic for which reflexes of PIE *"ǵenu-" mean 'mouth'. Besides Genua, which is considered Ligurian (Delamarre 2003, p. 177), this is found also in "Genava" (modern Geneva), which may be Gaulish. However, "Genua" and "Genava" may well derive from another PIE root with the form *"ǵonu-", which means "knee" (so in Pokorny, IEW). Delamarre's second