Webinars

This webinar originally aired on Thursday, October 30, 2025. Presented by: Catarina Frazão Santos of the University of Lisbon and Tundi Agardy of Sound Seas. Description: Marine spatial planning (MSP) and marine protected area (MPA) planning are two distinct area-based processes used worldwide to support sustainable ocean use and conservation. While MSP and MPA planning share similarities, they target different goals and objectives, and use different methodologies, tools, and practitioner skillsets. In this seminar we present our view of the differences and why they matter, emphasizing that using both can maximally advance conservation, especially in the face of climate change. We discuss how the conflation of MSP with MPA planning can create or fortify siloes, impeding holistic and effective management and lessening chances for broad support for conservation and sustainable use. As the world moves to incorporate climate change considerations into planning, the lack of clarity around these distinct approaches can lead to further confusion and limits our pathways to sustainable solutions. To avoid this, we encourage dialogue about scope and objectives of the tools used in planning and provide some lessons for practitioners to adopt ‘climate-smart’ approaches in MSP and MPA planning practices, optimizing synergies between the two wherever possible. We speak to several different ways to promote such synergies and build on progress being made in each arena, including how in certain circumstances OECM planning could bridge MPA planning and MSP and how climate-smart MSP in Antarctica could catalyze both conservation and sustainable use.

This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, October 28, 2025. Presented by: Nathan Bennett of WWF and the IUCN People and Ocean Specialist Group; Mark Andrachuk of Reconnect Consulting; Stacy Jupiter of the Wildlife Conservation Society; and Laure Katz of the Blue Nature Alliance. Description: To date, there has been substantial work on effectiveness of marine conservation initiatives. However, there has been less attention to how to evaluate and improve equity – and there is a lack of clear guidance that is specific for marine conservation interventions, including MPAs, OECMs, LMMAs. To help fill this gap, an international group of conservation researchers and practitioners collaboratively developed and tested several approaches for assessing social equity in marine conservation. In this webinar, we will present the resultant International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) “Guidebook for Assessing and Improving Social Equity in Marine Conservation”. During the webinar we will provide an overview of the main elements of the guidebook and the rapid, stakeholder, and customized assessment approaches that it contains. This will be followed by a panel discussion on where and how these might be used. The guide and webinar will be of interest to managers, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government at different levels.

This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, October 15, 2025. Presented by: Emily Ogier of the University of Tasmania. Description: Novel marine-climate interventions – such as ocean alkalinity enhancement, assisted evolution of marine species, assisted migration of marine species, regrowing targeted species, restoring habitat, and aquaculture for carbon sequestration – are being rapidly implemented to address both the causes and consequences of warming oceans. A recent survey revealed five types and 17 sub-types of interventions proposed or deployed in 37 marine systems globally. There is low consensus in climate goals being pursued by these interventions, however, and there is limited assessment and management of the broader ecological, cultural and social risks and benefits. This webinar will present the types of novel interventions being developed or deployed, their geographic distribution and stage of development (i.e., pilot or full deployment at regional scale), types of climate goals and benefits pursued, and current arrangements (if any) for responsible governance. Recommendations for responsibly governing these interventions at both pilot and upscaled deployment – such as robust evaluation of opportunity cost of alternative actions, bioethical and cumulative impact assessment at pilot scales, and building in triggers for downscaling or exits based on community monitoring – will also be discussed.

This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, September 16, 2025. 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.

This webinar originally aired on Thursday, August 21, 2025. Presented by: Eric Teller and Christian Thomas of SkyTruth. Description: SkyTruth is working to make the hidden crisis of chronic, repeat oil pollution in the world’s ocean visible, measurable, and actionable. Cerulean, the world’s first free, global oil pollution detection platform, has made great strides since its 2023 beta launch. With increasingly advanced AI and more data at its disposal, the world is closer than ever to reliably detecting intentional oil pollution events from both vessels and oil and gas infrastructure, and to holding those polluters accountable. In April, SkyTruth published the names and locations of the world’s most polluting offshore oil and gas infrastructure, enabled by significant improvements to Cerulean’s source detection algorithm. Now, Cerulean includes new features like dark vessel source identification and source profiles that enable users to access more information than ever before about marine oil slicks and their likely sources. These new insights and tools are being used by advocacy organizations, government agencies, journalists, and more to address this persistent form of pollution.

This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, August 20, 2025. 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.

This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, July 8, 2025. 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.

This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, June 18, 2025. Presented by: Nick Wise of OceanMind. Description: OceanMind uses satellites, artificial intelligence (AI), and extensive marine enforcement expertise to help authorities monitor and enforce their MPAs; detect, deter, and prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; and support Port State Measure Agreement implementation. OceanMind also provides tailored capacity building and enforcement training for fisheries authorities. This webinar will provide an overview of how advanced technology can be used for effective enforcement of marine regulation, including case studies from the UK’s network of MPAs that cover almost 4.5 million square kilometres in some of the most remote locations on the planet, drawing comparisons to the enforcement needs of high seas MPAs.

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.