OECM Case studies: potential other-effective area-based conservation measures in North Africa

Advancing conservation for the 21st century

Project summary

Aichi Target 11 states that “By 2020, at least 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.”

So far, biodiversity conservation has relied on protected areas (PAs) while other types of effective measures (OECM) have been left aside.  With new post-2020 biodiversity targets in the horizon, Contracting Parties to the CBD are realizing the potential of OECM to help them achieve effective conservation and meet globally agreed targets.

To update AT11 results in six countries (Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia) and assess how potential OECMs could help achieve these and oncoming protection targets, we worked on the identification of potential OECM categories and sites in Northern Africa and the Middle East. The possibilities offered by this category of sites were explained to the countries’ representatives during an international workshop led by IUCN in Tunis in February 2020, and so contribute to the identification of other potential candidate areas at country level.

Our role

We undertook the AT11 progress assessment in the region under 3 different scenarios: 1) With existing PAs; 2) With existing and proposed PAs; and 3) With all sorts of PAs plus potential OECMs.

Furthermore, ETC-UMA helped identify potential cases (individual sites) in those countries to be proposed as OECMs.

Main outputs

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Identifying, advancing and reporting OECMs. Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations. Tunis, 10th-11th of February 2020.

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Potential contribution of “other-effective area-based conservation measures” to achieving Aichi Target 11 in Northern Africa and the Middle East

Consultancy Report prepared by the European Topic Centre-University of Malaga on behalf of the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation.

More about it

David Rodríguez Rodríguez

Thematic expertise

davidrr@uma.es

David Rodríguez Rodríguez holds a European-mention PhD in Conservation Biology, an MSc in Ecological Restoration, two BScs: in Biology and in Environmental Sciences, and one University Specialist Degree in GIS and Remote Sensing...

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Antonio Sánchez

GIS analyses

a_sanchez@uma.es

Antonio Sánchez has developed his career focused on Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing tools, especially in the management and processing of data to calculate indicators and generate illustrative maps of environmental problems of all kind...
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