Other Effective Area–based Conservation Measures – Identification, Use and Performance Assessment

With threats to global biodiversity growing, it is increasingly necessary to examine the frameworks we employ to ensure conservation is successful and effective. Conservation of the ocean and its biodiversity can thus take many forms and area-based fisheries management has been used for centuries to improve the performance of fisheries and reduce their ecological impact. Such measures have also developed and in 2010 the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognized the importance of protected areas and Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) in reversing biodiversity loss. Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) are thus geographically defined sites outside of protected areas that can achieve the sustained long-term conservation of biodiversity and they can be managed by government organisations, indigenous peoples or local communities. The book is an updated version of a report prepared by members of the IUCN Fisheries Expert Group in 2021, following their close involvement in the elaboration and adoption of the concept of OECMs, and subsequent developments at international and national levels. This book focuses on OECMs as applied in marine capture fisheries, referred to as "fishery-OECMs". Included in the book are: A detailed description of this new instrument for managing fisheries and conservation. A complete account of the background and development of the OECM concept. Identification of how OECMs can be used to further economic and conservation goals. This book describes the OECM concept in the context of marine capture fisheries to inform those working, interested or involved in fisheries, conservation and the environment. It also reviews the opportunities and challenges presented when identifying, using and maintaining effective long-term fishery-OECMs, thus ensuring the effective management of fisheries and the conservation of marine biodiversity.

Dr Serge Michel Garcia is French, born in Algeria in 1945. He holds a D.Sc. (Biological Oceanography) from the University of Marseille (France, 1976) and initially specialized in shrimp population dynamics and tropical fisheries management. He worked in West Africa from 1968 to 1979 for the French Institute of Research for Development, IRD (formerly ORSTOM), after which he joined the FAO Fisheries Department where he was successively responsible for West African fisheries resources and global shrimp fisheries, Technical Secretary of the Fishery Committee for the Easter Central Atlantic (CECAF), Chief of the Marine Resources Service, and Director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Management Division. At FAO, Serge contributed, inter alia, to the conception and development of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF), promoted the adoption and implementation of the precautionary and the ecosystem approaches to fisheries (EAF), and led the development of the UN Atlas of the Oceans. Dr Garcia has also been a member of the Scientific Steering Committees of the Census of Marine Life (CoML) and of the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER), and member of the boards of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), WorldFish (formerly ICLARM), and the European Bureau for Conservation and Development (EBCD). After retiring from FAO, in 2007, he co-founded and served as first chair of the Fisheries Expert Group of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (IUCN-CEM-FEG).

Dr Jake Rice is retired from his position as Chief Scientist for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada, a role he took in 2004. Prior to that he was Director of Peer Review and Science Advice in Headquarters,, and had held senior positions in Pacific Region and Newfoundland Region. He has held faculty positions at Memorial University, Arizona State University, and University of Copenhagen. He received his B Sc. from Cornell (1970 - Conservation) and Ph. D. from University of Toronto (1974 - Ornithology). Jake has more than 250 publications in the scientific and technical literature, covering many aspects of what is now considered the ecosystem approach to integrated management, and the interface between science and policy. This work has included investigation of objective methods for choosing informative ecosystem indicators, setting ecologically based reference levels on indicators, strategies for conducting ecosystem assessments, and developing advisory products that are integrated across industry sector; ecological, social, and economic aspects of policy and management; and using information from multiple knowledge systems.. He still frequently serves as science advisor to planning and negotiations of international marine policy at UN Working Groups, FAO, CBD, and related bodies. He has been Lead Author, Chapter Lead, Co-Chair, or Steering Committee member for multiple assessments by the IPCC, IPBES, UNEP, and UN-DOALOS. . He has chaired the ICES Science Committee, more than a dozen major DFO science planning or review committees, served on the NOAA Science Advisory Board, and participated in and often chaired expert groups for ICES, PICES, FAO, IOC, CBD, MSC, and other intergovernmental bodies, and formerly was Vice-Chair of the IUCN-CEM Fisheries Expert Group.

Dr. Anthony Charles holds the Chair in Environment and Sustainability at Saint Mary's University (Canada), and is a professor in both the university's Sobey School of Business and its Department of Environmental Science. Dr. Charles is an inherently interdisciplinary researcher, linking natural, social and management sciences, notably applied to fisheries and marine social-ecological systems. His diverse contributions address fishery and marine management, ocean governance, climate change, human dimensions of ecosystem-based management and spatial management, marine environmental stewardship and biodiversity conservation, small-scale fisheries, coastal communities and community-based management. Internationally, Dr. Charles has received a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation and a Gulf of Maine Visionary Award, as well as election as President of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade. He is currently Director of the Community Conservation Research Network, Co-Lead of the Arramat project's Sustainable Use pathway, and Vice-Chair of the Fisheries Expert Group in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Dr. Charles is the author or co-author of well over a hundred publications, including several books, notably the recently-published Sustainable Fishery Systems. Other books include: "Environmental Stewardship by Small-Scale Fisheries", "Communities, Conservation and Livelihoods", "Governing the Coastal Commons: Communities, Resilience and Transformation", and "Governance of Marine Fisheries and Biodiversity Conservation".

Daniela Diz is a Bicentennial Associate Professor at the Lyell Centre, Heriot-Watt University. Daniela has over 20 years of experience in the field of environmental law and oceans governance. Her main research area focuses on marine biodiversity law and policy at multiple governance scales. She is involved in international processes related to the law of the sea, marine biodiversity and fisheries, and often conducts studies on these themes for UN agencies, governments, and civil society. She has developed a step-wise guide for the implementation of international legal and policy instruments related to deep-sea fisheries and biodiversity conservation in the areas beyond national jurisdiction with FAO with a view to facilitate the incorporation of relevant international policy and law into national legislation. She has been involved in the negotiations of the BBNJ Agreement, and has been contributing to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) decisions on marine and coastal biodiversity, ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSA), Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by providing expert advice, including through background reports and papers to UN bodies, States and observers. Daniela has been involved with the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization since 2010, and has been contributing as an expert to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) on issues such as vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). She is a member of the IUCN-Fisheries Expert Group and the IUCN-World Commission on Environmental Law, and a member of the CBD EBSA Informal Advisory Group.