Webinars
Upcoming Webinars
Social Aspects of Marine Protected Area Management – Building Effective and Equitable Ocean Conservation
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.
New WCPA practice guidance for protected and conserved area finance
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.
What if we fished MPAs sometimes? A synthesis of research on temporary marine protection
Thursday, November 20, 3 pm US EST/Noon US PST/8 pm UTC. Presented by: Anastasia Quintana of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Eréndira Aceves Bueno of the University of Washington, and Jean Wencélius of the Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l’Environnement (CRIOBE).
Description: International conservation efforts, including “30×30” – the goal to protect 30% of the land and sea by 2030 – have focused largely on permanent or long-term protection. This is based partly on studies that link marine protected area (MPA) effectiveness to longevity, and partly on pragmatic policy concerns. However, coastal communities often rely on fisheries for their livelihoods and need ways to balance conservation and livelihood outcomes. Many forms of spatial fisheries management, especially traditional and indigenous management, rely on impermanence, including periodic and rotational fisheries closures. So how should conservation practitioners think about temporary protection? The international “TEMPO” project, a 5-year partnership between four universities, two research institutes, and two community partner organizations in Mexico and French Polynesia, brings together several lines of evidence to address this question. In this webinar, the TEMPO team will present novel results from social-ecological analysis at multiple scales, including a systematic review of temporary protection globally and in-depth results from case studies in Mexico and French Polynesia. The four main takeaways are: (1) there are diverse ways to include time in spatial management; (2) adding time to marine spatial management increases climate-adaptive policy options and potential for institutional fit; (3) temporary closures probably increase equity and justice; and (4) periodic harvest tends to deplete ecological benefits that have accrued but support long-term buy-in into ecological care.
Involving local communities in marine conservation and management: Community Marine Conservation Groups (CMCGs) in Malaysia
Tuesday, December 2, 10 am MYT/Monday, December 1, 9 pm US EST/Monday, December 1, 6 pm US PST/Tuesday, December 2, 2 pm UTC. Description: Traditionally, MPAs in Malaysia have been managed in a top-down approach with little involvement of local community. In 2014, Reef Check Malaysia started working with local islanders on Tioman Island to provide advanced-level diver certification and a variety of trainings – including reef monitoring and rehabilitation, predator management, mooring buoy replacement, and ghost net removal. In 2015, Reef Check Malaysia established its first community-based conservation group – the Tioman Marine Conservation Group (TMCG) – in response to demand from local islanders who were keen to participate in management and conservation of their island’s marine resources and work for the local MPA Tioman Marine Reserve. Today, the TMCG has over 85 trained volunteers – all local islanders – who regularly participate in conservation activities. In 2019, the group was officially recognized by the Malaysian Department of Fisheries as a strategic partner under its Reef Care Smart Partnership program, which shares responsibility for coral reef management with suitable local community groups. Recognizing the effectiveness of this approach, Reef Check Malaysia has now expanded the Community Marine Conservation Groups model across 4 states and 11 islands. Collectively, these CMCGs are leading the way in showing how the involvement of local communities in marine ecosystem management can have significant conservation outcomes, as well as mainstreaming environmental protection at community level.
Past Webinars
2025 Ocean Innovator Awards
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, May 29, 2025. Presented by: Patrick Nichols of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Elizabeth Farquhar of North Carolina State University, and Jessi Florendo of the Puget Sound Restoration Fund. Description: Join us to hear from the winners of the 2025 Ocean Innovator Award opportunity, which recognizes and promotes innovative ocean-related research and applied solutions. Early career professionals from around the globe submitted creative presentations about their innovative projects related to coastal, ocean, and estuarine environments. The three winners were selected by a team of expert reviewers across several dimensions of the ocean and coastal career field. Winners include: 1st Place: Patrick Nichols, “Harnessing Environmental DNA to Track a Cryptogenic Nuisance Alga (Chondria tumulosa) that is Threatening Pacific Coral Reefs”; 2nd Place: Elizabeth Farquhar, “Developing a Low-Cost, IoT Device for Estimating Air–Water ΔpCO2 in Coastal Environments”; and 3rd Place: Jessi Florendo, “Bull Kelp Restoration through Kelp Community Gardening”. The next award cycle will open in February, 2026. To learn more about the Ocean Innovators Award, please visit www.sea-shoresolutions.com/oia.
30 x30? What about the other 70%? Cumulative analysis of place-based marine regulations for a more holistic marine protection picture
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. Presented by: Claire Colegrove and Alex Driedger of ProtectedSeas. Description: While hundreds of nations have committed to the global 30×30 target, much work remains to reach that goal and sustainably manage the remaining 70%. Regulatory protections are crucial for marine management efficacy, and accurate data on in-place management measures are essential for assessing existing marine protections and informing the creation of new areas. However, collecting and interpreting marine regulations can be challenging due to often unavailable or difficult-to-access legal instruments. Overlapping measures and siloed management add further complexities. ProtectedSeas Navigator contains data on worldwide regulations for MPAs, fishery management areas, and other place-based marine managed areas (MMAs) and considers restrictions cumulatively across overlapping areas using spatial aggregation techniques to provide insights into overall protection. This cumulative analysis of regulations in overlapping marine managed areas offers insights into overall uses and protection across ocean spaces, enabling better protection assessments, planning, and management. As an example, initial analysis in California revealed several ocean spaces where individual MMA protections were minimal, yet when combined with protections from other overlapping MMAs, resulted in more highly regulated spaces with enhanced protection.
Ecological considerations for managing fisheries within conserved areas: Introducing a new task force
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, April 24, 2025. 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.
The Global MPA Workforce – Building the Backbone of 30×30
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. 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.
Exploring effective enforcement practices and technology in priority marine areas
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.
Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs): Giving marine mammals a seat at the negotiating table
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.
Assessing the alignment of ecosystem-based management principles in marine spatial planning
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.
Indigenous Roots of Circularity and How Traditional Knowledge Can Guide Water Management
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.
Transforming Coral Reef Monitoring with MERMAID
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.
MPA Financing: What We Know and the Launch of a New Global MPA Finance Survey
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.