Speaker: Dr. Stephen J. Woodley, Vice Chair for Science and Biodiversity of IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas 

Dr. Stephen Woodley is an ecologist. He has worked as the first Chief Scientist for Parks Canada. The focus of the work is to understand the role of protected and conserved areas as solutions to the current global conservation challenges. 

Introduction: 

Decision 14/8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established the definition of other effective area-based conservation methods (OECMs). At the request of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, IUCN has conducted relevant research and developed OECM standards and guidelines. So far, IUCN has released two guidelines: Recognising and reporting OECMs, and Site-level tool for identifying OECMs: First Edition. The latter lists 3 major steps and 8 criteria for identifying OECM. 

This video focuses on analyzing how to apply Criterion 4: ‘The site is confirmed to support important biodiversity values’, Criterion 5: ‘Institutions or mechanisms exist to govern and manage the site’, and Criterion 6: ‘Governance and management of the site achieve or are expected to achieve the in situ conservation of important biodiversity values’ in the process of identifying OECM, and lists marine areas that meet and do not meet the OECM criteria. The video also discusses three common questions: Do conservation measures for a single species comply with OECM criteria? Should existing management areas be recognized as OECMs, or should new OECMs be established in areas where management measures do not exist? Does the marine vertical zoning comply with OECM criteria?