Webinars
Upcoming Webinars
Assessing and Improving Social Equity in Marine Conservation: Introducing a New IUCN Guidebook
Tuesday, October 28, 10 am US EDT/7 am US PDT/2 pm UTC/3 pm CET. 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.
Distinguishing Marine Spatial Planning and Marine Protected Area planning to advance conservation
Thursday, October 30, 11 am US EDT/8 am US PDT/3 pm UTC/3 pm WET/3 pm GMT/4 pm CET. 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.
Ecocentric Governance for Marine Ecosystems: Advancing Coral Reef Rights
Wednesday, November 5, 1 pm US EST/10 am US PST/6 pm UTC. Presented by: Grant Wilson and Lucy Ward of the Earth Law Center. Description: Coral reefs are under serious threat worldwide—up to 50% have already been lost, and as much as 90% could disappear by 2050. Earth-centered laws that recognize Nature’s intrinsic value and rights are increasingly being applied to address global challenges in a holistic and grounded way. In this webinar, representatives from the Earth Law Center (ELC) will explore how these legal frameworks can be used to protect marine ecosystems, with a particular focus on leveraging Rights of Nature laws to support the protection and restoration of coral reefs. Presenters will provide an in-depth look at the toolkit “A Voice for Coral Reef Ecosystems Through the Rights of Nature and Ecocentric Law”, recently released in partnership with over 30 collaborators and endorsers working globally on reef protection and Rights of Nature initiatives. This webinar will provide a deeper understanding of how community-led projects can be supported by ecocentric legal frameworks, and how these frameworks can help shape policy and management strategies that promote locally-led, holistic solutions.
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
Strengthening Blue Carbon Solutions in US Ocean Policy
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, July 26, 2023. Presented by: Anne Christianson of the Center for American Progress. Description: The ocean is gaining prominence in climate change policy circles as a tool for addressing the climate crisis. Blue carbon, the carbon captured and stored by marine and coastal ecosystems and species, offers potential as a “nature-based solution” to climate change. However, some blue carbon interventions may not be suitable as a climate mitigation response. This presentation will present results from a recent paper that gives context to numerous blue carbon sequestration pathways, quantifying their potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and comparing these sequestration pathways to point-source emissions reductions. The applicability of blue carbon will be discussed in terms of multiple international policy frameworks, to help individuals and institutions utilize the appropriate framework to reach ocean conservation and climate mitigation goals.
Developing Offshore Wind in US Waters Part 1: The Planning and Regulatory Framework
This webinar originally aired Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Presented by: Brian Hooker of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Office of Renewable Energy Programs, Betsy Nicholson of the NOAA Office for Coastal Management, and Joy Page of the US Department of Energy Wind Energy Technology Office. Description: The deployment of offshore wind energy facilities in US waters has tremendous potential to help the country deliver on its climate change commitments and clean energy goals. It is also a reality beginning to take shape with the first commercial-scale facilities beginning construction in 2023 in the Northeast US. In Part 1 of our webinar series on ocean wind energy in US waters, we will explore the historical and policy background and framing behind the US wind energy transition, including an introduction to the planning and regulation processes and the players involved. This webinar will set the groundwork for future discussions exploring offshore wind energy, its future in US waters, and its compatibility and interactions with marine protected areas and other ocean uses.
Managing for Climate Change in MPAs: Stories and Tools from National Marine Sanctuaries and the National MPA Center
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, April 27, 2023. Presented by: Lauren Wenzel of the NOAA National Marine Protected Areas Center, Zac Cannizzo of the NOAA National Marine Protected Areas Center and Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, Sara Hutto of the Greater Farallones Association and Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries, and Jillian Neuberger of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and National Marine Protected Areas Center. Description: U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries and the National Marine Protected Areas Center are leaders in MPA management in a changing ocean. By leveraging the diversity of ecosystems, geographies, cultures, and experiences represented in the National Marine Sanctuary System, they have developed a suite of products that can help other MPA managers advance and accelerate climate-smart management of their MPAs. This webinar will highlight climate monitoring, assessment, and adaptation experiences from the National Marine Sanctuary System and share a number of new products and tools from the National MPA Center, including an MPA Climate Vulnerability Assessment Guide and Climate Adaptation Story Map, designed to help MPA managers accelerate and enhance climate monitoring, assessment, and adaptation within their own MPAs.
Assessing MPA Resilience: An introduction to R-SAT, the Resilience Self-Assessment Tool for MPAs
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, April 13, 2023. Presented by: Jean-Jacques Goussard of the Ocean Governance Project. Description: The online MPA Resilience Assessment Platform has been developed within the Resilience Partnership, a component of the EU-funded Ocean Governance Project. The platform addresses the ability of MPAs to deal with the environmental, social, economic, cultural, institutional, political, and technical aspects of rapid changes. A key component of the platform – R-SAT, the Resilience Self-Assessment Tool – is a rapid and accessible self-assessment tool that provides clear results and practical guidelines and recommendations that can help MPAs develop skills to deal with rapid changes internally and in the surrounding region. The tool also stimulates discussion that builds a common knowledge base and understanding among managers and other stakeholders and provides important input to management plans. MPA managers from 16 countries around the world are already using R-SAT. New developments with the tool will enable it to be used for prospective MPAs, over a wider geographic area, with more stakeholders, and account for 30×30 objectives.
A New Toolkit for Engaging Youth in Ocean Health and Conservation
This webinar originally aired on Wednesday, March 15, 2023. Presented by: Ajay Sawant of Apollo College of Veterinary Medicine, Julia Lara Navarrete of Autonomous University of Baja California, Rebecca Allen of Western Washington University, Serag Heiba of Chinese University of Hong Kong, Summer Snell of Brookes University, and Frances Lang of The Ocean Foundation. Description: With support from The Ocean Foundation and National Geographic Society, a group of young writers between the ages of 18-25 are creating a “youth ocean action toolkit” focused on the ocean literacy principles and marine protected areas (MPAs). This toolkit – written by youth for youth – provides community examples of how youth can take action to conserve their ocean; demonstrates the benefit of MPAs for ocean conservation; includes links to resources and multimedia content; and features a strong social media component. The toolkit will be available this summer in English and Spanish. This webinar featuring some of the toolkit’s youth authors will provide an overview of the content and techniques to engage and empower young people around the world.
What should we eat? Mapping the environmental footprint of food from the ocean and land
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Presented by: Ben Halpern of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Description: Feeding humanity puts enormous environmental pressure on our planet. These pressures are unequally distributed, yet we have piecemeal knowledge of how they accumulate across marine, freshwater, and terrestrial systems. This webinar will present global geospatial analyses detailing greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater use, habitat disturbance and nutrient pollution generated by 99% of total reported production of aquatic and terrestrial foods in 2017. These results have also been rescaled and combined to map the estimated cumulative pressure, or ‘footprint’, of food production. On land, five countries contribute nearly half of food’s cumulative footprint, and just 10% of the planet contributes 93% of this footprint. The pressures that drive these footprints vary substantially by food and country. Importantly, the cumulative pressure per unit of food production (efficiency) varies spatially for each food type such that rankings of foods by efficiency differ sharply among countries. These disparities provide the foundation for efforts to steer consumption towards lower-impact foods and ultimately the system-wide restructuring essential for sustainably feeding humanity.
Ocean-based carbon dioxide removal: Landscape of approaches and governance considerations
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, February 23, 2023. Presented by: Katie Lebling of World Resources Institute. Description: The ocean is already a major carbon sink and plays a crucial role in global climate regulation. At the same time, as the urgency of the climate crisis worsens, attention is turning to the ocean for its potential to play an even bigger role in addressing this. Part of this could be through ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR), which is receiving increasing attention and investment. However, most approaches are still in the early stages of development, have a high degree of uncertainty about their efficacy and impacts, and lack sufficient governance to ensure responsible deployment.
This webinar will present key findings from a recent WRI report on ocean CDR, including a summary of prominent ocean CDR approaches (coastal blue carbon restoration, seaweed cultivation, ocean fertilization, alkalinity enhancement, electrochemical approaches, artificial upwelling, and artificial downwelling), an overview of the governance landscape, and recommendations for a pathway forward that balances the urgent need for emission reductions with a precautionary approach to avoid further harm to ocean systems, ecosystems, and coastal communities.
Do MPAs matter for climate change mitigation and adaptation?
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. Presented by: Joachim Claudet of the French National Center for Scientific Research. Description: Marine protected areas (MPAs) are increasingly being promoted as an ocean-based climate solution. These claims are controversial, however, because the literature on the climate benefits of MPAs is diffuse and poorly synthesized. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a systematic literature review of 22,403 publications spanning 241 MPAs and analyzed these across 16 ecological and social pathways through which MPAs could contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Our meta-analysis found that marine conservation can significantly enhance carbon sequestration, coastal protection, biodiversity, and the reproductive capacity of marine organisms as well as fishers’ catch and income. Most of these benefits are only achieved in fully or highly protected areas and increase with MPA age. This webinar will present these results and discuss the extent to which MPAs can be a useful tool for mitigating climate change and adapting social-ecological systems.
Ocean Tech for MPAs: A Look Forward to IMPAC5
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, December 13, 2022. Panelists: Julie Angus, CEO of Open Ocean Robotics; Emily Charry Tissier, CEO and Founder of WhaleSeeker; and Anna Sanders, Product Development Director for Global Fishing Watch. Description: Existing and emerging ocean technology have tremendous potential for helping global MPAs address critical management needs. In this webinar, experts from three leading ocean technology organizations – Open Ocean Robotics, Whale Seeeker, and Global Fishing Watch – will share how their technology products can help MPAs and address questions from webinar participants. In addition, webinar participants will be encouraged to share their own experiences with ocean tech for MPA management via the webinar chat, enabling knowledge and experience sharing across global MPAs.
A new toolkit for building climate-resilient fisheries
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, December 8, 2022. Presented by: Jeff Young of EDF. Description: Climate change and overfishing are increasingly straining fisheries and the marine ecosystems that support them, putting marine biodiversity, the nutrition of people in coastal communities, and the global food supply at greater risk. To help address these critical issues, EDF’s Fishery Solutions Center has worked closely with hundreds of stakeholders, researchers, and practitioners from around the world to synthesize their collective expertise into user-friendly tools. The resulting Climate-Resilient Fisheries Toolkit features over 30 tools and resources can help assess conditions and prioritize interventions; examine governance gaps, climate impacts, ecosystem threats, and food and nutrition security needs; integrate available data and knowledge into management action; and design and implement fishery solutions. Tools are designed for use by fishers, researchers, managers, NGOs, communities, and local officials and can help make informed fisheries decisions even in limited data situations. This webinar will introduce participants to the tools in the toolkit and invite input on how the toolkit can be strengthened and improved over time.