Many people are familiar with the idea of a protected area—land or water areas set aside and kept as natural as possible, such as national parks and nature reserves. Protected areas are one of the most well-established conservation tools, playing a crucial role in protecting biodiversity. However, they often require significant political will, funding, and enforcement and do not always account for lands and waters that are effectively conserved outside of formal protection.
Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM) are conservation tools that are gaining recognition. First introduced in 2010 by the Conference of the Parties, the decision-making body of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the approaches were not formally defined and adopted until 2018.
