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.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Feb 26, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, February 26, 2025. Presented by: Shanondora Billiot (United Houma Nation Citizen), Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University; Yolanda López-Maldonado (Yucatan, Mexico), Human Ecologist and Geographer; and Mr. Dune Lankard (Eyak Athabaskan), President and Founder of Native Conservancy. Description: Current demands on freshwater, driven by climate change and population growth, have led municipalities, water stewards, and academics to focus on conserving scarce freshwater resources. This shift has spotlighted the concept of a circular water economy—a system that emphasizes conserving and reusing freshwater instead of conventional methods of limited treatment and discharge. While circularity may seem novel from a modern, Western perspective, Indigenous cultures have practiced it for millennia, embedding it into their ways of life and environmental stewardship. This webinar will explore these enduring cultural practices and their modern implications for conservation, policy, and ecology. Participants will gain insight into the foundational principles of circularity and the essential role Indigenous peoples play in sustaining these practices. This session, featuring Indigenous scholars Dr. Shanondora Billiot (United Houma Nation Citizen), Dr. Yolanda López-Maldonado (Yucatan, Mexico), and Mr. Dune Lankard (Eyak Athabaskan) alongside other experts in policy and water rights, will highlight how traditional knowledge can guide contemporary water management approaches.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Feb 20, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, February 20, 2025. Presented by: Dr. Emily Darling, Director of Coral Reef Conservation and Co-Founder of MERMAID, Wildlife Conservation Society; Dr. Rita Bento, Research Associate, NYU Abu Dhabi; and Dr. Angelique Brathwaite, Science Director, Blue Alliance Marine Protected Areas. Description: Did you know that less than 15% of the world’s coral reefs have been monitored? This data gap makes it difficult to track changes and protect these critical ecosystems. Join us for an engaging webinar to explore MERMAID, a global platform for coral reef monitoring. Launched in 2018, MERMAID is now empowering over 2,000 scientists from 70+ organizations across 46 countries to collect, analyze, and act on coral reef data. By simplifying field data collection and analysis, MERMAID enhances workflow efficiency and enables rapid assessment of reef health. In this webinar, we’ll provide an overview of the MERMAID platform and highlight its application in two unique contexts: 1) Centralizing coral reef data from the Arabian/Persian Gulf for global reporting and 2) Monitoring small-scale Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Philippines. This webinar will offer valuable insights into how MERMAID is driving impactful coral reef conservation efforts worldwide and how as a manager it can help you improve your monitoring workflow.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Feb 12, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, February 13, 2025. Presented by: Christopher Stone and Jennifer Liu of Blue Nature Alliance and John Bohorquez of Blue Economy Solutions Lab and the Conservation Finance Alliance. Description: As countries look to implement their 30×30 ambitions, developing MPA finance plans can be essential to an MPA’s success. However, this process can be challenging and costly due to knowledge and capacity constraints. To assist countries and practitioners across the globe in MPA financial planning, the Blue Nature Alliance in partnership with the Conservation Finance Alliance and IUCN WCPA Sustainable Finance Specialist Group is launching a Global MPA Finance Survey (https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90793206/Blue-Nature-Alliance-Global-MPA-Finance-Survey). This in-depth analysis of MPA finances globally will expand knowledge and access to tools for MPA finance. The data collected in this survey will be used to develop an MPA cost model and other tools that will be shared publicly. Participating sites will receive early access to tools, as well as customized benchmark reports that will allow you to compare your MPA’s financial performance to an anonymous group of peers. The target audience of this initiative is MPA practitioners, government leaders, NGOs and civil society, conservation trust funds, and others who are involved in the financial planning for MPAs or can share this survey with a broader network of MPAs. This webinar will include educational components and a tutorial on the survey. The educational portion will highlight why this global analysis of MPA finances is needed, including the current landscape of marine financing tools and data. The tutorial will walk webinar participants through the questions and data the survey will collect and address any questions participants have. If helpful, webinar participants are encouraged to fill out the survey along with the webinar tutorial. All practitioners involved in financial planning for MPAs are encouraged to access the survey at https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90793206/Blue-Nature-Alliance-Global-MPA-Finance-Survey.
