Many areas outside national and regional protected area networks also contribute to the effective in-situ conservation of biodiversity. Appropriately recognising, reporting and supporting such areas is increasingly important in the context of biodiversity loss and climate change. Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognised early in the CBD’s Strategic Plan (2011-2020) that ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs) offer a significant opportunity to achieve this aim. As Parties to the Convention deliberate the post-2020 Biodiversity Framework, these guidelines will continue to make an important contribution towards ensuring that OECMs are appropriately recognised and contribute to both coverage targets and ecological representation through ‘systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conserved measures’.
