by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Sep 17, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. Presented by: Lucía Prieto Fustes of the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation and MEET Network. Description: Accurately measuring the environmental and social impact of tourism in protected areas is essential for preserving these sensitive ecosystems, but it remains a significant challenge. To support protected and conserved area managers in assessing and managing these impacts and creating the enabling conditions for ecotourism to thrive, the Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN-Med), as Secretariat of the MEET Network association, has developed a comprehensive set of tools and indicators based on the MEET standard. These tools are integrated into an online Ecotourism Indicator Monitoring Platform, which comprises four key components: 1) The ecological footprint calculator evaluates the environmental impact of tourism services in an itinerary across four categories: accommodation, food and drinks, mobility, and activities and services. It helps stakeholders analyse the ecological footprint of ecotourism experiences within protected areas. 2) The social impact assessment of ecotourism suppliers quantifies the social impact generated by ecotourism service providers, suppliers, and facilities within an itinerary, focusing on the perspectives of workers, local communities, value chains, and visitors. 3) The enabling conditions assessment of the destination introduces a set of criteria for establishing sustainable tourism practices, aiming to protect natural resources, support local communities, and promote responsible ecotourism. This tool incorporates a simplified version of the IUCN Green List global standard for protected areas. 4) The product quality assessment of an ecotourism itinerary evaluates critical aspects related to product and itinerary design, safety protocols, supplier selection, and more.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Sep 11, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, September 11, 2024. Presented by: Jenna Sullivan-Stack of Oregon State University, Steven Mana‘oakamai Johnson of Cornell University, Sylvaine Giakoumi of Sicily Marine Centre, and Beth Pike of Marine Conservation Institute. Description: In this webinar, experts from around the world will share insights from assessments of MPAs using The MPA Guide. The MPA Guide is a science-based, policy relevant framework that provides a common language about the expected biodiversity outcomes of MPAs based on their Stage of Establishment and Level of Protection considering key Enabling Conditions. Users from managers to decision-makers to researchers have applied The MPA Guide across more than 10 countries and territories to date. In this webinar, leaders from some of these assessments will share lessons learned and key needs for MPAs in these contexts, including the largest 100 MPAs globally.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Jul 11, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Presented by: Catarina Frazão Santos of the University of Lisbon. Description: Climate-smart marine spatial planning (MSP) is an idea whose time has come. Yet, it has not been implemented properly in national waters (with dynamic and forward-looking practices) and not at all on the high seas. A new five-year project (PLAnT) will explore how to plan for sustainable ocean use and conservation in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean under global change, using it as a testbed for climate-smart MSP for the high seas and national waters globally. This webinar will present key components of climate-smart MSP, together with the upcoming work to be developed under PLAnT. Work to be developed under PLAnT includes: 1) identifying existing conditions for ocean uses and resources; 2) imagining multiple futures using a mixed-methods approach; 3) identifying climate actions to be supported through MSP and ways to ensure dynamic and flexible governance and management approaches; 4) unravelling the political, social, and economic factors that influence (and limit) MSP development and implementation in Antarctica; and 5) exploring lessons learned to be applied to other regions on both climate-smart MSP and MSP in international waters.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Jul 10, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Presented by: Presented by: Mitchelle De Leon and Jason Seiple of SkyTruth. Description: The 30×30 Progress Tracker developed by SkyTruth with support from the Bloomberg Ocean Initiative is the first free, user-friendly platform geared toward democratizing 30×30 monitoring data so that more people can track progress on the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30×30 target. Users can see maps of currently protected areas with overlaid expert assessments of their effectiveness and recommendations on how these areas can be expanded for the greatest amount of biodiversity protection. The tool has several components. The Progress Tracker is a high-level, interactive map and dashboard communicating baselines and progress at global and national scales. The Conservation Builder is a lightweight, interactive scenario building and visualization tool for evaluating conservation and protection scenarios that can provide potential pathways to achieving 30×30 goals. It enables users to view existing protected areas, draw potential protected areas, dynamically illustrate the effects of proposed regions on progress toward 30×30, and quickly generate information about the proposed protected area from disparate data sources, including 30×30 research-based recommendations for areas to protect and the location of key habitats. The Knowledge Hub makes it easier for stakeholders to discover resources for monitoring, planning, and decision making. The 30×30 Progress Tracker is intended to be used by: civil society campaigns to track country-by-country participation and hold governments accountable; government agencies and policymakers to increase their capacity to monitor progress toward 30×30 and assess their country’s contribution in comparison to peer groups; and anyone who wants to advocate for new protections and develop their own conservation scenarios, especially those who are directly impacted by these emerging conservation initiatives. While the marine tracker is available now, SkyTruth plans to launch the terrestrial component in October 2024. Access the tool at https://30×30.skytruth.org.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Jun 20, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired Thursday, June 20, 2024. Presented by: Gillian Ainsworth and Sebastian Villasante of the University of Santiago de Compostela. Description: Marine protected areas (MPAs) are key management tools that contribute to the conservation of marine ecosystems worldwide, increasing the ecosystem services that nature provides to people. These ecosystem services include the release of oxygen, leisure opportunities, cultural inspiration, and the provision of food and medicines that improve the health and well-being of millions of people. In this talk we explain how natural processes and components in MPAs are valued by different groups of people and how we can maximize their effectiveness and avoid negative socio-economic effects such as social conflicts and inequitable distribution of benefits. We recommend that the MPA creation and management decision-making include the collection and integration of interdisciplinary data. This data can be used to develop pluralistic methods of valuation and foster social equity by involving local stakeholders.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Jun 18, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Presented by: Sylvain Pioch of University Montpellier 3 and Jessica Salaün of CRIOBE/EPHE University Perpignan. Description: Many types of structures – ranging from intentionally designed concrete modules with nature-inspired designs to decommissioned ships and petroleum platforms – have been deployed in marine water to create artificial reefs. Initially, the artificial reefs were deployed to enhance fishery production, but they can also protect areas against prohibited trawling, provide eco-mooring sites, substitute for natural reefs for diving activities, and help restore habitats or protect species. Increasingly, artificial reefs are being deployed to rehabilitate marine ecosystems and their functionalities (e.g., nursery, feeding, or reproductive) and to mitigate the effects of anthropogenic impacts. In the future, scientifically-informed deployment of artificial reefs could provide corridors for larval dispersal and the juvenile and adult migrations of marine organisms. This webinar will provide an overview of historic and current reasons for the deployment of artificial reefs, recent studies of why and how artificial reefs have met these goals socially and ecologically, estimates of the how much of the global seabed is covered with artificial reefs, and the risks and management needed for deploying artificial reefs successfully in the future.
