Webinars

Wednesday, February 26, 1 pm US EST/10 am US PST/6 pm UTC. Presented by: Shanondora Billiot (United Houma Nation Citizen), Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, and Yolanda López-Maldonado (Yucatan, Mexico), Human Ecologist and Geographer. 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) and Dr. Yolanda López-Maldonado (Yucatan, Mexico) alongside other experts in policy and water rights, will highlight how traditional knowledge can guide contemporary water management approaches.

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.