by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Nov 5, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, November 5, 2025. Presented by: Grant Wilson and Lucy Ward of the Earth Law Center. Description: Coral reefs are under serious threat worldwide—up to 50% have already been lost, and as much as 90% could disappear by 2050. Earth-centered laws that recognize Nature’s intrinsic value and rights are increasingly being applied to address global challenges in a holistic and grounded way. In this webinar, representatives from the Earth Law Center (ELC) will explore how these legal frameworks can be used to protect marine ecosystems, with a particular focus on leveraging Rights of Nature laws to support the protection and restoration of coral reefs. Presenters will provide an in-depth look at the toolkit “A Voice for Coral Reef Ecosystems Through the Rights of Nature and Ecocentric Law”, recently released in partnership with over 30 collaborators and endorsers working globally on reef protection and Rights of Nature initiatives. This webinar will provide a deeper understanding of how community-led projects can be supported by ecocentric legal frameworks, and how these frameworks can help shape policy and management strategies that promote locally-led, holistic solutions.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Oct 30, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, October 30, 2025. Presented by: Catarina Frazão Santos of the University of Lisbon and Tundi Agardy of Sound Seas. Description: Marine spatial planning (MSP) and marine protected area (MPA) planning are two distinct area-based processes used worldwide to support sustainable ocean use and conservation. While MSP and MPA planning share similarities, they target different goals and objectives, and use different methodologies, tools, and practitioner skillsets. In this seminar we present our view of the differences and why they matter, emphasizing that using both can maximally advance conservation, especially in the face of climate change. We discuss how the conflation of MSP with MPA planning can create or fortify siloes, impeding holistic and effective management and lessening chances for broad support for conservation and sustainable use. As the world moves to incorporate climate change considerations into planning, the lack of clarity around these distinct approaches can lead to further confusion and limits our pathways to sustainable solutions. To avoid this, we encourage dialogue about scope and objectives of the tools used in planning and provide some lessons for practitioners to adopt ‘climate-smart’ approaches in MSP and MPA planning practices, optimizing synergies between the two wherever possible. We speak to several different ways to promote such synergies and build on progress being made in each arena, including how in certain circumstances OECM planning could bridge MPA planning and MSP and how climate-smart MSP in Antarctica could catalyze both conservation and sustainable use.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Oct 24, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, October 28, 2025. Presented by: Nathan Bennett of WWF and the IUCN People and Ocean Specialist Group; Mark Andrachuk of Reconnect Consulting; Stacy Jupiter of the Wildlife Conservation Society; and Laure Katz of the Blue Nature Alliance. Description: To date, there has been substantial work on effectiveness of marine conservation initiatives. However, there has been less attention to how to evaluate and improve equity – and there is a lack of clear guidance that is specific for marine conservation interventions, including MPAs, OECMs, LMMAs. To help fill this gap, an international group of conservation researchers and practitioners collaboratively developed and tested several approaches for assessing social equity in marine conservation. In this webinar, we will present the resultant International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) “Guidebook for Assessing and Improving Social Equity in Marine Conservation”. During the webinar we will provide an overview of the main elements of the guidebook and the rapid, stakeholder, and customized assessment approaches that it contains. This will be followed by a panel discussion on where and how these might be used. The guide and webinar will be of interest to managers, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government at different levels.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Oct 24, 2025 | Upcoming Webinars, Webinars
Thursday, November 13, 2 pm US EST/11 am US PST/9 am HST/7 pm UTC. Presented by: Audrey Ramsey of the Center for Protected Area Management; Will Heyman of Sustainable Marine Solutions, LLC; Lihla Noori of the Blue Nature Alliance; and Kira Sullivan-Wiley of the Pew Charitable Trusts and co-author of Ocean Equity: From Assessment to Action. Description: People must be at the heart of effective marine conservation. Yet, as the world races to meet the 30×30 goals, there is heavy emphasis on increasing the percentage of ocean under protection, often without parallel investment in supporting and strengthening the capacity needed to manage these areas. As more areas are designated and existing areas are expanded, we need managers who are equipped not only to achieve ecological outcomes, but also to integrate social dimensions – ensuring that management is equitable, participatory, and responsive to the people who rely on these marine spaces. Without this support, MPAs risk falling short of their goals and could fail to function effectively as part of the broader social-ecological systems on which both people and nature depend. This webinar will explore what social aspects involve and why they are essential for equitable and effective MPA management and point to ways participants can deepen their understanding and practice through targeted capacity-building opportunities.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Oct 16, 2025 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, October 15, 2025. Presented by: Emily Ogier of the University of Tasmania. Description: Novel marine-climate interventions – such as ocean alkalinity enhancement, assisted evolution of marine species, assisted migration of marine species, regrowing targeted species, restoring habitat, and aquaculture for carbon sequestration – are being rapidly implemented to address both the causes and consequences of warming oceans. A recent survey revealed five types and 17 sub-types of interventions proposed or deployed in 37 marine systems globally. There is low consensus in climate goals being pursued by these interventions, however, and there is limited assessment and management of the broader ecological, cultural and social risks and benefits. This webinar will present the types of novel interventions being developed or deployed, their geographic distribution and stage of development (i.e., pilot or full deployment at regional scale), types of climate goals and benefits pursued, and current arrangements (if any) for responsible governance. Recommendations for responsibly governing these interventions at both pilot and upscaled deployment – such as robust evaluation of opportunity cost of alternative actions, bioethical and cumulative impact assessment at pilot scales, and building in triggers for downscaling or exits based on community monitoring – will also be discussed.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Oct 6, 2025 | Upcoming Webinars, Webinars
Tuesday, November 18, 10 am US EST/7 am US PST/3 pm UTC/4 pm CET. Presented by: David Meyers of the Conservation Finance Alliance and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Sustainable Finance Specialist Group. Description: New guidance provides detailed frameworks, descriptions, and insights into the use of conservation finance solutions to achieve protected and conserved area outcomes. The webinar will spotlight how protected and conserved areas (PCAs) generate significant values for society and the economy, why these high economic values are not enough to ensure PCAs are adequately funded and conserved, why financial needs for PCAs are growing, and why investing in PCAs generates significant returns. In addition, this webinar will cover critical guidelines for PCA finance – optimizing resource efficiencies, discouraging harmful actions, incentivizing position action, and increasing financial capital for conservation – for a variety of finance streams including donors and philanthropies, site-based finance, and private sector finance along with special considerations for indigenous group funding.
