Dr. Anthony Chatwin, Vice President of Science and Impact at Rare, explains what Other Effective Conservation Measures (OECMs) are and how Rare’s small-scale fishing communities promote sustainable use with marine protection.
Full transcript
In your experience, what are the biggest challenges facing fishing communities around the world?
The ocean is a very dynamic place and it’s changing. And so if they depend on it, they need to understand what the potential changes are and see how that’s gonna affect their livelihoods. The other challenge with the ocean is that it doesn’t really belong to anyone where anybody could go out and get whatever fish they wanted. That’s why I’m so excited about the Rare approach is that you have to work with the communities. You have to help them help themselves in a sense where we help them understand fisheries management, fishery science at a high level. And why protecting fish and making sure that others can’t come in and take it while you’re protecting it, is what’s gonna give you, a more sustainable future.
What are OECMs, and how is Rare contributing to global OECM goals?
OECMs, are other effective conservation measures. Right now, we humanity the globe is experiencing a dual environmental crisis. It’s a climate crisis and a biodiversity crisis. Historically for biodiversity, the solutions had been thought of as protected areas and protecting areas that are still in good shape, where you have the different critters living. OECMs are a recognition that there’s a lot of good conservation work that is needed that happens outside of those protected areas, and that’s why they’re called other effective conservation measures. We at Rare talk about OECMs a lot because what we do are other effective conservation measures. Conservation measures have to be place-based, they have to be anchored in community, and they have to be effective. The intent of the OECM is to recognize really important work that’s happening and our work is really important and it meets all the criteria that they, identify as an OECM.
What does Rare’s data from OECMs show?
We’ve looked at the, the fish, the data that shows how much fish there are out there and we call it biomass, which is a measure of abundance. And, we look in the areas with no fishing is allowed and the areas in which fishing is managed. And we see that the abundance of fish, the biomass of fish is growing in both of those areas, albeit at different rates. Our data is showing that even though fishing continues in those areas, because it’s managed, the biomass is able to still grow, not shrink because it’s all being caught. Because it’s from the growth that you’re gonna be able to sustain the fishery into the future.
What do Rare’s coastal communities have in common with one another?
We work in coral related fisheries and the habitat for coral is a band around the equator and so many of the countries are in within that band. I think the next level is why coastal communities and fish, because those are the communities that currently are most directly dependent on the state of the environment. If we crack the nut of how to improve conditions for those coastal communities in some of these places, that is highly applicable around the globe.