Protected Areas Aren't Enough. What Comes Next?
Q&A with an expert who demystifies the alternatives known as OECMs
The regular Global Nature Beat newsletter will come out later this week, but I first want to share a Q&A with an expert on the increasingly important alternatives to protected areas known as OECMs (other effective area-based conservation measures).
When the Earth Journalism Network recently asked me to write a guide to OECMs, one of the experts I consulted was Carly Cook, an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, Australia.
She said so many interesting things that I decided to reproduce our Q&A in full, below. Following it are links to some of the research Carly has published on this topic.
The full interview is longer than my usual posts, so if this is not what you expected in your inbox, please forgive the intrusion and wait for the regular newsletter to arrive. If you have never heard of OECMs, please read on. I found what Carly had to say fascinating.
Q&A
I started by asking Carly: what’s so great about OECMs?
“While protected areas have been our primary conservation tool there are still major gaps in protection for biodiversity. Significant biodiversity exists outside protected areas. Many of these areas will never become protected areas and yet have been managed in ways that have enabled biodiversity to persist there.
OECMs are a way for us to recognize and support these areas to ensure biodiversity continues to persist there.
One of the best things about OECMs is that they put the emphasis on effective biodiversity outcomes. This is a key difference from protected areas, which are often in places that are not important for biodiversity (‘residual reserves’) and have no requirement to achieve positive outcomes for biodiversity (‘paper parks’).”
Can you give me some examples of the types of sites that could be OECMs? I’m looking for examples that will be widely understood by journalists and their audiences, rather than more obscure types or technical designations.
“An easy one to explain is a reservoir and associated vegetation that is set aside to provide clean drinking water. These areas are generally in very good condition and restrict human activities that could impact on the condition of the vegetation or water quality. There are lots of examples where these areas contain important biodiversity, have clear management objectives to protect that biodiversity and have a longevity of protection because they are needed into the future.
Another example that might interest your readers is that of offshore wind farms. Once the infrastructure is in place, the base of the turbines provides a form of artificial reef and there are large exclusion zones around these areas which act as strictly protected marine areas. The offshore wind in the North Sea is being credited with supporting the recovery of cod fisheries because cod are laying their eggs on the footings at the base of the turbines and adults are protected from fishing by the exclusion zone.”
Could a golf course become an OECM, or a farm or a city park?
“Core to the definition of an OECM is that they must contain important biodiversity, and they must be governed and managed in ways that support positive outcomes for that biodiversity. So, in theory, sections of all three examples you give here could be OECMs, if they met those requirements.
In practice, I think it would be hard for a golf course, because these areas are so manicured. But if sections of mature trees along the edges of the course provided important habitat for arboreal species, then those sections could in theory be OECMs, if the owners of the golf course committed to managing these areas to support those species.
The situation is similar for a farm. In Australia, there are many properties that are working farms but have patches of important biodiversity. In some cases, landholders commit to setting those areas aside for conservation and manage them accordingly. If they place a binding covenant on the land, it would become a protected area — which would preclude it from being an OECM. But the landholders could instead opt to have that area recognized as an OECM and make a commitment to manage and monitor the area to demonstrate it achieves positive outcomes.
Bushland reserves managed by local councils could likewise be OECMs if they have important biodiversity. But a traditional city park, with manicured lawns and sports field would be unlikely to qualify.”
How do we know that OECMs really benefit biodiversity? I’m thinking here about your paper that showed that only 5% of OECMs registered in the World Database of OECMs provide supporting information and that 2.2% of these sites do not even meet the definition of an OECM.
“This is the difference between theory and practice. In theory, OECMs must meet the criteria set out by the Convention on Biological Diversity, and areas would not qualify as OECMs if they did not benefit biodiversity. And site managers need to continue to demonstrate those outcomes over time, which would require monitoring. In practice, there is no check on whether sites have been screened against the OECM criteria nor is there a requirement to demonstrate they are conserving important biodiversity.
The World Database is forced to accept any sites reported by countries on face value. After my study was published, they have introduced additional fields that ask countries to report the criteria against which sites were judged. But these fields are optional. I am leading an effort to get Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to agree to a verification system for OECMs.
The verification process would first ensure all countries are applying an equivalent standard, and then involve a transparent and independent process to verify that sites meet the criteria. I think this is the only way to ensure OECMs are credible and should be counted towards global targets. At the moment the concept of OECMs is not being applied as we would hope.”
I’ve seen some OECMs in the World Database list that are identified as “nature reserve” or “conservation concession” — this suggests that their primary purpose is conservation. Are these the kind of sites that you think do not qualify?
“This is a common misconception about OECMs. There is no reason why OECMs cannot have biodiversity as the primary management objective. In reality, there may be no difference between an OECM and a protected area other than that a landholder does not consent to it being a protected area but does consent to it being recognized as an OECM. This is the case in large parts of the world where the concept of protected areas still suffers from their legacy of dispossessing local people.
In the World Database, the vast majority of OECMs list biodiversity as their primary objective. This means that, at present, we have not managed to achieve the promise of OECMs to bring in areas that have important biodiversity but where biodiversity is not the primary management objective. I believe this is the result of a lack of financial support for OECMs.
It is very easy to show you meet the criteria if you are already managing for, and possibly also monitoring, biodiversity. Where biodiversity is a secondary management objective, landholders may need to conduct surveys of the site to document the important biodiversity values and their condition. Then they will need to conduct regular monitoring to demonstrate that those outcomes are sustained. Who is going to pay for this?
If the cost is put on the landholder with no clear incentive, then being an OECM is an unattractive proposition. Until governments that want to count these areas agree to support them, I feel we are not going to make great progress, nor will we realise the potential of OECMs.”
Assuming that every OECM is indeed good for biodiversity, what is the conservation benefit of recognizing them if they are doing it anyway? Other than contributing to the 30x30 target, recognition would not ‘add’ more conservation, as it already exists, right?
“This is an ongoing debate in the conservation community. There could well be benefits to biodiversity in recognizing these areas by securing the longevity of protection for these areas, particularly where there are resources to support their ongoing management.
We have already seen local communities use the OECM status of an area to garner public support when the Canadian Government opened up an OECM to oil and gas exploration. So OECM recognition could help prevent outside interests from steamrolling areas that would otherwise have no capacity to push back.
What I am advocating for is that the process of screening potential OECMs be used to identify sites that are doing well but not yet achieving the required standard to be an OECM. This would then provide them with an understanding of how their management needs to be improved, and could enable them to attract grants or other resources to help them improve the site.
Some of the work we are doing documenting case studies of OECM recognition have shown that the screening process has led the site to improve some aspects of their management planning and the processes they have in place to monitor and address threats to the site. So that is a gain for biodiversity that would otherwise not have been made.
If we shift our thinking from recognizing OECMs to supporting sites to reach the required standard of positive and sustained outcomes for biodiversity, then there are true conservation gains to be made. And if we support excellent sites to maintain conservation outcomes then these too are genuine gains.”
What other benefits are there to recognizing and registering OECMs, and who would benefit from this?
“At the moment, OECM recognition is largely a downside for sites that do not already have the necessary data to demonstrate their value to biodiversity and would not already be doing the necessary monitoring.
But some countries are taking an industry-based approach to OECMs. The Maldives is working with tourist resorts that would benefit from global recognition of their conservation practices. Japan has been working with companies, who can use their ‘Certified’ status in their corporate reporting.
There are also efforts to link OECM status to schemes like offsets and carbon credits. But likewise, I don’t have any examples of this being a successful strategy for sites. Some sites have managed to garner philanthropic funding to support them. But generally, I would say we have not worked out the value proposition for sites to become OECMs. The benefits accrue to the countries, who can report these areas against their global commitments, but the costs are imposed on the sites.”
To what extent does cost limit OECM recognition? I imagine that many of the hundreds of community forests across a country like Indonesia could qualify but would not have the financial resources needed to go through the process.
“I think my responses above point to this a big limitation at the moment. I would like to see the conversation within countries turn to what it would cost them to purchase 30 percent of their lands and compensate industry to protect 30 percent of their waters. If seen through this lens, covering the costs for sites to go through the recognition process, and supporting on-going monitoring and review, would be a fraction of this cost. At the moment I think countries see OECMs as getting something for nothing.”
Do you have a view on what proportion of the 30x30 target OECMs could (or should) make up?
“We have some good global analyses of where the protected area network falls short — for example, threatened species with no protection or with very little of their habitat in protected areas. And we also have a sense of where important biodiversity exists outside of protected areas. So there is not going to be a single proportion. But what I would say is that you could achieve 30 percent protection and fail to protect important biodiversity. So we should be thinking strategically about where OECMs can complement and support existing protected areas.”
How awful is OECM as a jargon term? Is there a less wordy alternative?
“I couldn’t agree more that OECM is a terrible term. I think this may be the only thing the conservation community agrees on about OECMs. Australia has adopted the term ‘conserved area’, which is sort of intuitive because it aligns with protected area. But it is also used in a wide range of other ways and so creates confusion with other forms of area-based conservation. Korea uses the term ‘nature co-existence areas’, which I like because it captures that biodiversity can exist in places we might not think about as conservation areas.”
What are some important things for journalists to consider when reporting on OECMs?
“There are a lot of misconceptions about OECMs, many of which I see perpetuated in the peer-reviewed literature. For example, the ideas that OECMs cannot have biodiversity as their primary objective. Another example of a misconception is that OECMs are a weaker mechanism than a protected area. They may not require legal protection but in theory they set a higher bar than protected areas, which have many well-established problems.
I think another thing to be aware of is that the concept of OECMs, and the guidance around them, raise more questions than they answer. As such, it is not surprising that countries (and the conservation community more generally) are struggling with implementation.
There are also some pretty substantial rifts in the conservation community around OECMs, and as a result the debate can be quite polarized. So don’t be surprised if you hear quite different things depending on who you talk to.”
Is there anything important that you think I have missed?
“People who were present when the term OECM was first included in the Aichi Targets [a set of targets agreed in 2010 by Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity] noted that initially there was huge concern within the International Union for the Conservation of Nature that this term created a huge loophole that would be detrimental to biodiversity conservation.
The assumption was that countries would declare huge areas as OECMs just to meet the target. This means that a lot of the subsequent guidance set an incredibly high bar for OECM recognition in order to prevent the concept being misused. But in my view setting the bar so high has been counterproductive.
Many great areas that we should want to be OECMs cannot meet such a high standard. And a high bar creates the temptation to duck under the bar and recognize areas that don’t align with the spirit of OECMs. Rather than a model of distrust, scepticism and gate keeping — that has been unsuccessful so far — I would rather see an approach based around ‘trust but verify’. I think that a well-structured verification system would be a much more productive approach to making conservation gains through OECMs.”
Read more
Read the guide I wrote for the Earth Journalism Network:
Read Carly Cook’s research on OECMs:
Cook, C.N. 2024. Diverse approaches to protecting biodiversity: the different conservation measures discussed as possible other effective area‐based conservation measures. Conservation Letters 17: e13027. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13027
Cook, C.N. 2024. Progress developing the concept of other effective area-based conservation measures. Conservation Biology 38: e14106. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14106
Cook, C.N. et al. 2025. What will count? — Evidence for the global recognition of Other Effective area–based Conservation Measures. Conservation Letters 18: e13150. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13150
Cook, C.N. et al. 2026. Lessons learned from screening potential other effective area-based conservation measures. Conservation Biology 40: e70148. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70148
Hi Mike, I once looked into OECMs for an article I wrote about rewilding in Japan. The government put a special focus on OECMs - highlighting the potential and something that would allow them to achieve 30by30. But while they put such emphasis on it, it was miniscule in impact toward achieving 30by30.
Is it the good ole 'what gets measured gets done'? Because obviously there are plenty of places and people on nature-positive paths that are not registered or monitored in any way. Guess we have to wait for Big Brother Skynet total planetary surveillance so that AI can tell us exactly where which place is performing consistently in nature-positive ways!
great interview, thanks for sharing! I lauged at 'the only thing conservation communties agree on'