Webinars

Upcoming Webinars

Recent developments in the sustainable management of marine resources

Tuesday, July 8, 11 am US EDT/8 am US PDT/3 pm UTC/4 pm BST/5 pm CEST. Presented by: Mike Elliott of International Estuarine & Coastal Specialists (IECS) Ltd., and the School of Environmental and Life Sciences, The University of Hull (Emeritus Professor). Description: This webinar will present and explain cause-consequence-response frameworks and the way these relate to managing marine, coastal and estuarine areas. It will then show the importance of determining the footprints of activities, pressures, and natural and human effects and assessing cumulative effects. Following this, it will consider the footprints of management responses and will demonstrate horizontal management across sectors and vertical management from the local to the global and vice versa. It will look at the importance of transboundary implications of marine management, considering connectivity, coherence, and equivalence. Finally, it will consider the way in which success in marine management is measured, including indicators of success. Examples from Europe and North America will be used, but the topics are relevant to marine areas worldwide.

Identifying and Prioritizing a Portfolio of Marine and Coastal Conservation Finance Solutions

Wednesday, August 20, 1 pm US EDT/10 am US PDT/5 pm UTC. Presenters: David Meyers of the Conservation Finance Alliance, John Bohorquez of the Blue Economy Solutions Lab and the Conservation Finance Alliance, and Jos Hill of the Conservation Finance Alliance Marine & Coastal Working Group. Description: Coastal and marine ecosystem management and governance institutions face a wide array of choices when it comes to conservation finance mechanisms. A new tool provides a systematic method for brainstorming, defining, and prioritizing suitable finance solutions. This approach is rooted in the definition of conservation finance as “mechanisms and strategies that generate, manage, and deploy financial resources and align incentives to achieve nature conservation outcomes.” In most cases, consistent and adequate funding is a critical but insufficient component of a project’s conservation finance portfolio. This approach seeks to take the practitioner through a range of perspectives to generate ideas on how to solve their conservation challenges and respond to opportunities. The idea generation phase is followed by a prioritization approach adapted from the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN). This webinar will walk attendees through the tool approach and its use.

Changing human behavior to secure conservation outcomes

Tuesday, September 16, 10 am US EDT/7 am US PDT/2 pm UTC/3 pm BST/4 pm CEST. Presented by: Laura Perry of Castlerock Conservation and the IUCN SSC CEC Behavior Change Task Force. Description: Conservation behavior change is a nascent discipline, but one which has great applicability to many of today’s conservation challenges. By using lessons drawn from social psychology, behavioral economics, and healthcare interventions, this approach has huge potential to shape human behavior and ultimately secure conservation outcomes. In this talk, we will explore the fundamentals of behavior change and how an array of techniques can be used to change human behavior. Touching on examples from across conservation, we will discuss how these approaches can add value to a conservation program, how practitioners can go about involving behavior change in their work, and the relevance of behavior change approaches to conservation translocations.

Past Webinars

Exploring MPAs around the world with case studies using The MPA Guide

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.

Taking climate-smart ocean planning and governance to the high seas

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.

30×30 Progress Tracker: Scenarios and visualization for achieving 30×30 goals

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.

The role of marine protected areas in providing ecosystem services to improve ocean and human health

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.

Assessing the ecological and social performance of artificial reefs

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.

Barriers, Opportunities, and Emerging Solutions in Applying Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: IUU Fishing and Transnational Crime

This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, May 28, 2024. Presented by: Stuart J. Green of Blue-Green Advisors and Farid Maruf of USAID-SUFIA-TS, Tetra Tech. Description: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Advanced Analytics (AA), and Machine Learning (ML) can be transformational in promoting fair, legal, and sustainable fisheries management across the Indo-Pacific region. This webinar will delve into the key findings of the recent USAID report “Applying AI/AA/ML in Promoting Fair, Legal and Sustainable Regional Fisheries Management in the Indo-Pacific Region.” This webinar will explore emerging technological solutions that show potential in overcoming barriers to sustainable fisheries management and enhancing monitoring, analysis, and enforcement mechanisms. These innovative technologies have the potential to revolutionize fisheries management, ensuring ecological sustainability and economic viability for coastal communities.

Designing and delivering carbon and biodiversity credit schemes to benefit MPA managers, indigenous peoples and local communities

This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. Presented by: Julian Clifton of the University of Lincoln. Description: Carbon and biodiversity credit schemes (often collectively referred to as ‘nature-based solutions’) are increasingly highlighted as a means to deliver on global biodiversity and climate change targets. The total size of the nature-based solutions market is projected to reach around $200 billion by 2050, representing a significant means to address the growing gap in conservation financing in protected areas worldwide. It is imperative, however, to ensure that the design and delivery of monetary or non-monetary benefits (termed co-benefits) arising from such credit schemes involve relevant resource users, including indigenous peoples, on an equitable and just basis. This webinar will introduce the current landscape of biodiversity and credit schemes, identifying the main actors and processes involved. The webinar will identify a suite of principles and criteria which provide a framework for managers and communities within protected areas to evaluate the impacts of credit schemes on local resource users and ensure that co-benefits are tailored to the local social, cultural, political and environmental context. The role of MPA managers as intermediaries in scheme design and implementation will also be highlighted. It is hoped that this webinar will enable MPA managers to work alongside resource users in the co-design and implementation of nature-based solutions schemes to facilitate the long term delivery of appropriate co-benefits to MPAs and their resident communities.

Bringing local communities and sustainable growth opportunities together for sea turtle conservation

This webinar originally aired on Thursday, May 2, 2024. Presented by: Kirsten Fairweather of Project Biodiversity. Description: Project Biodiversity (Projeto Biodiversidade) is a Cabo Verdean NGO that unites local conservation efforts with opportunities for sustainable growth through programs that benefit Cabo Verde’s unique ecosystems and its people. At the heart of Project Biodiversity’s work is the protection and conservation of the loggerhead sea turtle. The archipelago supports one of the world’s largest nesting aggregations of loggerhead sea turtles and the only major nesting area for loggerhead turtles along the eastern Atlantic. Project Biodiversity runs a wide range of programs to protect nesting turtle populations – including running night patrols and drone monitoring of turtle nesting beaches to prevent poaching; providing educational programs to local communities, youth, and tourists; designating Tourist Friendly Hotels; and relocating nests to hatcheries. Join this webinar to learn about the wide range of measures taken to protect Cabo Verde’s sea turtle nesting aggregations, what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and how Project Biodiversity has created sustainable growth opportunities for local communities with this work.

Counting whales from space with SPACEWHALE

This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Presented by: Julika Voss of BioConsult SH. Description: BioConsult’s new service SPACEWHALE counts whales and other wildlife species from space using satellite imagery. These images are screened and evaluated in a semi-automatic process combining state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and quality assurance by marine mammal experts. SPACEWHALE can answer key questions about how many whales of which species inhabit a sea area of interest and when they occur. This allows study of previously unexplored areas and can help accelerate the designation of Important Marine Mammal Areas and Marine Protected Areas, provide environmental impact assessments for offshore wind farm operators, and offer an efficient tool for mandatory baseline monitoring of whale populations. This webinar will provide an overview of SPACEWHALE as well as discuss past projects – including a study in New Zealand comparing the results of SPACEWHALE with those of a boat-based survey – and current projects – including data collection in the Indian Ocean where SPACEWHALE will provide baseline data for the implementation of Important Marine Mammal Areas and Marine Protected Areas. Learn more at https://www.spacewhales.de.

Vida Manglar Project: Certifying conservation actions to reduce carbon emissions and benefit local communities

This webinar originally aired Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Presented by: Paula Cristina Sierra Correa and Anny Paola Zamora Bornachera of INVEMAR. Description: Vida Manglar Project is a joint initiative of local communities and institutions to reduce the effects of climate change and conserve the mangrove ecosystems of the Columbian Caribbean. The project seeks the certification of actions that reduce carbon emissions from the loss of mangrove forests. It has achieved certifications from Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) Standards, allowing it to enter the carbon credit market. Some of the project’s activities include establishing conservation and restoration agreements with local communities and ranchers and creating alternative livelihoods – such as ecotourism; beekeeping; and participatory monitoring of manatee, caiman, river otters, and birds – for local communities. Project activities benefit 12.000 inhabitants that rely on mangrove forest ecosystem services, 435 families, and 14 mangrove community organizations. As a whole, the project to date has avoided the emission of about 69.000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and aims to avoid the emission of about 930.000 tons CO2 over the next 20 years.