Good Practice Guidance on other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs)
Link to the document
While protected areas must have conservation as a primary objective, OECMs may be managed for many different objectives but must deliver effective conservation outcomes. OECMs may be managed with conservation as a primary or secondary objective, or long-term conservation may simply be the ancillary result of management activities.
Identifying, reporting, monitoring and strengthening OECMs offers a significant opportunity to promote and support de facto effective long-term conservation that is in addition to that provided by designated protected areas. Like protected areas, OECMs can occur under a range of governance regimes, including those of Indigenous peoples and local communities, the private sector and government agencies.
These guidelines are designed to promote good practices relating to identifying, reporting, monitoring and strengthening OECMs. They are intended for use by a wide range of rightsholders and stakeholders to promote understanding of whether a site meets the CBD criteria for identifying an OECM, how to report OECM data at the national and global levels, and how to monitor and strengthen OECMs.
Its sections are 1. Background and importance; 2. Definition and explanation of elements; 3. Introduction to Identifying, reporting, monitoring and strengthening OECMs in practice; 4. site-level identification tool (see description below for more recent information); 5. Three steps for identifying OECMs; 6. Reporting OECMs; 7. Monitoring; 8. Opportunities to strengthen OECMs.
Key Take Aways
- 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.
- Recognition of OECMs offers a significant opportunity to recognise de facto effective long-term conservation that is taking place outside currently designated protected areas under a range of governance and management regimes, implemented by a diverse set of actors, including by indigenous peoples and local communities, the private sector and government agencies.
- Recognition as an OECM may also provide additional incentives for conservation and sustainable management of areas of biodiversity significance outside protected areas, such as Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), Important Plant Areas (IPAs), Important Bird Areas (IBAs), Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs), and Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs), noting that such areas must meet the definition of an OECM to be included.
No. 36 in the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Good Practice Guidelines Series, this guide is currently available in English, with translations in preparation.
Site-level tool for identifying other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs): first edition:
Link to the Assessment Tool
Published in 2023, this tool guides an assessor through three steps to apply eight criteria which determine if a site qualifies as an OECM as set out under the Convention on Biological Diversity. For sites which do not currently meet all the criteria, the tool serves to highlight areas where further information or improvements in governance and management are required.
Examples given for reasons for identifying a site as an OECM include:
to recognise the site’s importance for biodiversity conservation, to recognise the conservation efforts of the governing authority (including indigenous territories), to involve stakeholders in protection and management, to leverage access to additional support for conservation, where it is available, and to fulfil national and international commitments, including under the CBD.
The tool has three steps: 1. Screening to determine if a site is a potential OECM; 2. Consent to proceed with the site considered a candidate OECM; and 3. Full assessment. The assessment uses 8 criteria, requiring responses of yes, no or uncertain/partially (abridged here): 1. The site is not a protected area; 2. Likely supports important biodiversity values; 3. Is a geographically defined area; 4. Confirmed to support important biodiversity values; 5. Mechanisms exist to govern and manage; 6. Achieve or expected to achieve in situ conservation; 7. That in situ conservation is expected to be for the long term; and 8. Governance and management arrangements address equity considerations.
Note that this new tool supersedes a section in the older technical report described above, section 3 on Identifying other effective area-based conservation measures in practice.
Key Take Aways
- Identification and reporting of an OECM is voluntary, and should be done by, or with the consent of, the governing authority, any Indigenous peoples and local communities whose self-identified territory overlaps with the site, and, where relevant, other rights- holders and stakeholders.
- The assessment of a site as an OECM may be carried out by the site’s governing authority (which may be government, Indigenous peoples and local communities, private entities, or a combination of these groups) or by another rights-holder or stakeholder with the governing authority’s consent.
- Sites that qualify as OECMs should be reported to UNEP-WCMC for inclusion in the World Database on OECMs (WD-OECM). OECMs reported by government are automatically added to the database, while reports from other entities are verified before being added.
Translations into French, Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish, forthcoming.