The IUCN Fisheries Expert Group co-authored, in collaboration with representatives from FAO and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the paper “OECMs in marine capture fisheries: Key implementation issues of governance, management, and biodiversity”.
The paper highlights that:
- The quality and performance of fishery-OECM governance depends on the existence of appropriate enabling legal, financial and policy frameworks, increasing capacity and facilitating cross-sectoral cooperation.
- Allowing industrial-scale fishing inside OECMs may not be advisable, but establishing well-enforced OECMs in industrial fishing grounds is necessary and possible with the full cooperation of the sector.
- It is essential that the CBD Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework provide sufficient opportunities for the fishery sector to report effectively on the outcomes of its efforts towards more sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity.
- For MPAs and OECMs used in fisheries, monitoring and demonstrating management effectiveness is central to the maintenance of the OECM status in the long term. Assessing objectively costs and benefits of OECMs will reduce the risk of “paper OECMs”.
- A key challenge for OECMs in the open ocean is the possibility to establish enforceable differentiated management measures within the water column (Vertical zoning).
Read the full paper here.
