Webinars

Wednesday, April 16, Noon US EDT/9 am US PDT/4 pm UTC/5 pm BST/6 pm CEST. 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.

Thursday, April 24, 11 am US EDT/8 am US PDT/3 pm UTC/4 pm BST/5 pm CEST. 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.

Wednesday, May 14, 1 pm US EDT/10 am US PDT/5 pm UTC. 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.