Conservation Beyond Parks: How OECMs Could Reshape the Global 30 by 30 Race

As governments prepare to convene in Yerevan, Armenia, for the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, running from 19 to 30 October, a team of researchers from the University of Exeter, the Jersey International Centre for Advanced Studies, the University of Kent, Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Gibraltar has published a sweeping review of a conservation idea that is quietly rewriting the rules of where nature can be protected. The concept is known as other effective area-based conservation measures, or OECMs, and its central premise is deceptively simple: some of the most valuable habitat on Earth lies outside national parks and formal reserves, sustained by people whose primary purpose is often something other than conservation. The review, published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources under the title Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) in Global Area-Based Conservation, arrives at a moment when the global community is scrambling to meet one of the most ambitious targets in environmental policy.

That target, agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, commits countries to conserving at least 30 percent of land, inland waters, coastal areas and oceans by 2030, a goal widely abbreviated as 30 by 30. For many governments, the arithmetic is daunting. Formally designating new protected areas is slow, expensive and politically fraught, particularly where land is privately owned or densely populated. OECMs offer a different pathway. Under the framework, an OECM is a geographically defined area that is not a protected area but which is governed and managed in a way that achieves sustained, long-term, in-situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services. In practice, this opens the door to recognising landscapes and waters managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, farmland, privately owned estates, sacred sites and even, in the review’s striking inventory, surf breaks, underground cave systems and hydrothermal vents.

Lead author Catherine Wensink, Executive Director of the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum and a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter and the Jersey International Centre for Advanced Studies, described how countries have moved ahead of the international debate. Countries have not waited for the global debate on OECMs to be settled; they have already started putting them into practice, she said. What has been fascinating about this research is tracing their development through a rapidly evolving global debate and down to the practical realities of a small, biodiverse Caribbean island. It shows how a global conservation idea can look very different in the places where it actually has to work. That observation captures the core tension the review explores: a policy instrument defined at the level of international agreements must ultimately succeed or fail in specific places, with specific people, under specific governance arrangements.

The technical criteria for OECM recognition are demanding, and the review is careful to emphasise that they are not a loophole. An area does not qualify simply because it contains wildlife or carries cultural significance. Recognition must be supported by effective governance and management that deliver sustained biodiversity outcomes over the long term. This means documenting that the area’s management regime is genuinely maintaining, or expected to maintain, the biological values present, and that those values would persist even though conservation is not the primary management objective. In practical terms, assessors must evaluate who holds decision-making authority, whether management is consistent and enforceable, and whether ecological monitoring can demonstrate that biodiversity is being sustained rather than merely tolerated as a by-product of other land uses.

Co-author Professor Julia E. Fa, of Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Gibraltar, framed the challenge in terms of translating recognition into lasting benefits. OECMs offer an opportunity to recognise conservation rooted in people’s everyday relationships with land and water, she said. But recognition must come with support for the people responsible for these places, respect for their rights, and evidence that biodiversity is being sustained. Their success will depend on what happens on the ground: who makes decisions, how livelihoods are supported, and whether management can adapt as conditions change. Her warning speaks to a recurring failure mode in conservation policy, where formal designations are announced with fanfare but lack the funding, legal backing and institutional capacity to change outcomes on the ground.

The review is explicit about this risk. Recognising an area as an OECM, the authors caution, is only a starting point. Without clear responsibilities, adequate support and evidence of ecological outcomes, recognition risks becoming a paper promise. This concern is amplified by the incentives created by the 30 by 30 target itself. Because countries are under pressure to report progress toward the 30 percent figure, there is a temptation to count areas on paper without verifying that biodiversity is actually being maintained. The review’s insistence on evidence of sustained ecological outcomes is, in effect, a quality-control mechanism for the entire area-based conservation agenda, and one that applies to protected areas and OECMs alike.

Several of the review’s themes carry particular weight as COP17 approaches. The first is governance. OECMs frequently sit on land or water governed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, farmers, pastoralists and private landowners, which means that effective implementation requires respecting existing rights and decision-making authority rather than imposing external management. The second is climate resilience. The authors highlight the importance of assessing whether conservation benefits can persist as climate change alters habitats and shifts the distribution of wildlife, a question that applies to any fixed geographic designation but is especially acute for areas whose biodiversity value was recognised under historical conditions. The third is technology, with the review examining the growing role of monitoring tools for tracking ecosystems and species, which could make it feasible to verify OECM outcomes at scales and costs that were previously impossible.

The geopolitical dimension of OECMs also receives attention, and it is easy to see why. Area-based conservation targets are reported nationally, but the ecosystems involved cross borders, and the communities managing them often have complicated relationships with national governments. In small island and overseas territory contexts, such as the Caribbean island case the review traces, conservation authority may be distributed across colonial legacies, local institutions and international frameworks. How OECMs are recognised and supported in these settings will shape not only biodiversity outcomes but also questions of sovereignty, equity and resource allocation. The review’s analysis suggests that OECMs could either strengthen local stewardship or, if implemented carelessly, become a mechanism for external actors to constrain local land-use decisions under the banner of global targets.

What emerges from the analysis is a practical, three-step logic for widening conservation efforts: identify places that are already sustaining biodiversity, understand the conditions that make this possible, and support the stewards who maintain them. This inverts the traditional conservation playbook, which typically begins with designation and then attempts to manage human activity within boundaries. The OECM approach begins with the observation that many human-modified landscapes, from orchards to pastoral lands to sacred grounds, already host significant biodiversity precisely because of the way they are managed, and asks what it would take to secure that outcome formally. Carefully implemented, the authors conclude, OECMs could help countries advance global conservation goals while strengthening the relationships between people and the places on which they depend. Whether that promise survives contact with the political and financial realities of the next five years will be one of the defining questions of the 30 by 30 era, and the delegates gathering in Yerevan will have a front-row seat to the answer.

Subject of Research: Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) and their role in global biodiversity policy

Article Title: Beyond national parks: Researchers explore a broader future for conservation

Article References: Beyond national parks: Researchers explore a broader future for conservation. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: OECMs, 30 by 30, biodiversity, COP17, Convention on Biological Diversity, conservation policy, protected areas, Indigenous Peoples, governance, climate change, University of Exeter, Annual Review of Environment and Resources