by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Apr 2, 2025 | Upcoming Webinars, Webinars
Wednesday, April 16, Noon US EDT/9 am US PDT/4 pm UTC/5 pm BST/6 pm CEST. Presented by: Christine Ward-Paige of eOceans and Mike Appleton of Re:Wild. Description: Protected areas don’t protect themselves—dedicated people do. On land, the protected area workforce, including rangers, plays a critical role in safeguarding biodiversity, yet for decades their contributions were undervalued, leading to job insecurity, lack of resources, and limited career pathways. A global terrestrial workforce study has shown that the workforce is too small to deliver global expectations and has helped lead the way in defining who rangers are, quantifying their contributions, and advocating for better support, training, and rights. Now, we’re expanding this effort to the ocean. To achieve 30×30 — estimated at 345,000 new MPAs — the world needs a massive scale-up of skilled, high-quality jobs to manage and enforce Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) effectively, especially in the face of diversifying ocean economies and accelerating ocean warming and acidification. But how many people currently work in MPAs? What do they do? What challenges do they face? How do they overcome these challenges? And what will it take to build a workforce capable of managing a truly global MPA network? Join us to explore what we know so far, what we hope to uncover, and how you can get involved. Your input can help shape the future of the MPA workforce—and, ultimately, the success of ocean conservation worldwide.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Apr 2, 2025 | Upcoming Webinars, Webinars
Thursday, April 24, 11 am US EDT/8 am US PDT/3 pm UTC/4 pm BST/5 pm CEST. Presented by: Fabrice Stephenson of Newcastle University UK, Jenna Sullivan-Stack of Oregon State University, Beth Pike of Marine Conservation Institute, and Estradivari of the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) – all of IUCN WCPA. Overview: This talk will explore the topic of fishing in different types of marine protected and conserved areas in the ocean, and introduce a new dedicated IUCN WCPA task force that will address knowledge gaps and advance best practices for management. Protected and conserved areas experience a spectrum of impacts from extraction, ranging from fully or strictly protected areas with no extraction to multiple-use zones that allow activities like fishing. Although biodiversity conservation outcomes are expected from all of these areas, uncertainties persist regarding which fisheries, at what scale and intensity, align with conservation objectives, including the definition of ‘industrial’ fishing. This presentation will discuss existing guidance (including the IUCN Protected Area Management Categories and the MPA Guide), explore remaining uncertainties, and share a vision for the role of the new task force in helping to resolve these uncertainties.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Mar 14, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Presented by: Bob Farrell, WildAid. Description: Enforcement is a critical, but often overlooked, component of properly managing priority marine areas. The cost of enforcement can also be of concern. We will discuss WildAid’s “BLUEPRINT for Marine Protection™” a highly effective tool designed to evaluate and focus capacity building effort for enforcement. We will also discuss the use of various technologies to enhance enforcement and mitigate cost. We will discuss the use of Skylight and Global Fishing Watch as potential sources of intelligence that are free to most users. We will also discuss our partnership with Open Ocean Robotics and the use of their on-water technology to support enforcement.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Mar 11, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. Presented by: Erich Hoyt, Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, Gill Braulik, and Simone Panigada of the IMMA Secretariat of the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force. Description: Important Marine Mammal Areas, or IMMAs, are making waves for conservation as a valuable science-based tool that highlights the most important areas and habitats for marine mammals globally. This webinar will provide an overview of the 10-year program to bring expert analysis and peer review to the identification of the habitats of whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, manatees, dugong, sea otters, and polar bears. To date, the global IMMA effort has examined 80% of the ocean and identified 321 IMMAs and 196 Areas of Interest. Governments are now using IMMA layers for marine spatial planning and designing MPAs, and conservation groups, shipping companies, and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) are using IMMAs to slow down or reroute vessels to reduce the risk of shipstrikes. This webinar will spotlight more than 40 new IMMAs for the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and Wider Caribbean; show how IMMAs can be used for many ocean planning and conservation initiatives; and discuss where IMMAs are going in 2025 and beyond.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Mar 5, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, March 5, 2025. Presented by: Natalia Montero and Ibon Galparsoro of AZTI. Description: Ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (EB-MSP) is a holistic approach to MSP. It embeds the principles of the ecosystem-based approach (EBA) into the planning process with the aim of jointly managing sustainable human activities and environmental health by accounting for ecosystem processes. However, despite the growing recognition of its benefits, EB-MSP is generally not fully implemented in management plans. The EB-MSP assessment tool is a comprehensive Decision Support System (DSS) which aligns each step of the EB-MSP implementation process to the required data, knowledge and tools. The DSS enable both strategic guidance and technical solutions based on best practices to deliver a comprehensive EB-MSP. The tool is available at https://aztidata.es/EB-MSP, and a new open access publication about the tool is available https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01975-7.
