People from around the world who live in and are focused on marine protected areas (MPAs) are meeting in Chile for the 4th International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC4). Among the many issues being discussed is ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs) as they arise in the coastal and marine contexts. The term ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ appears in Target 11 of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. There is now an IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Task Force developing guidance on OECMs, which will finalize its work in mid-2018.
A recently published paper, which was co-authored by Harry Jonas and is being presented at IMAC4, focuses on the linkages between MPAs and OECMs. It helps illustrate that beyond protected areas there exist are a wide range of areas that are not dedicated to conservation but nevertheless promote the conservation of biodiversity.
The following IUCN blog provides an overview of the issues and illustrates them with work by Forever Sabah in Sabah, Malaysia. For a related paper on OECMs and community conservation, please see here.
