Protected Areas and Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECM)

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROTECTED AREAS AND OECMs?

The Collaboration focuses on protected areas, but also includes OECMs in the focus of our capacity building efforts. The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas in November 2019 released guidelines for ‘recognising and reporting other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs) at the 24th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice in Montreal. The CBD has defined ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’, in these terms:

A geographically defined area other than a Protected Area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values.  (CBD Decision 14/8)

In November 2018, Parties to the CBD adopted this definition of OECMs, as well as guiding principles, common characteristics and criteria for their identification.

While protected areas must have a primary conservation objective, this is not necessary for OECMs. OECMs may be managed for many different objectives but they must deliver effective conservation. They may be managed with conservation as a primary or secondary objective or long-term conservation may simply be the ancillary result of management activities.

WHAT ABOUT PRIVATE AND COMMUNITY WORK?

The data and protected area statistics described have been compiled in the World Data Base on Protected Areas (WDPA) that is managed by UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge and includes protected areas of all IUCN governance types.

In addition to government protected areas it includes hundreds of community-managed, co-managed and private protected areas (including vast areas in Brazil and Australia). However, it is not complete, as the majority of such non-government protected areas are not formally recognised or reported by governments for various reasons. An indicative appraisal of the larger (non-recorded) extent of Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs) has been completed (Kothari et al. 2012).

The number of ICCAs may have equaled or exceeded the number and extent of WDPA recognised protected areas.

Protected areas are recognised as an effective tool for conserving biodiversity and specifically many endangered species at a time of global change (Butchart et al. 2012).

This is at a time when the sixth great extinction event on Earth is forecast, caused primarily by human activity (UNEP 2007).

The aspirational target for 2020 reservation for nations established by the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Strategic Plan 2011–20 (CBD 2011) is 17 per cent for their terrestrial area and 10 per cent for marine areas. The target calls on the areas to be important for biodiversity conservation such as key biodiversity areas. All IUCN protected area categories are important for biodiversity conservation, although some key biodiversity areas may need special protection to ensure species remain extant. Such management may be best established under the objectives and management guidance for Category I–IV protected areas, although Categories V and VI also play a valuable role in contributing to such biodiversity conservation.

(Worboys 2014 pp 21,22) ‘Concept, purpose and challenges’, in G. L. Worboys, M. Lockwood, A. Kothari, S. Feary and I. Pulsford (eds) Protected Area Governance and Management, pp. xx–yy, ANU Press, Canberra.