From the Ground Up: Communities and Local Champions Advancing OECMs

The Coral Triangle, shared by Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste, is the global center of marine biodiversity. Its shared marine ecosystems face complex and transboundary threats that require coordinated conservation efforts across national borders. While the region hosts extensive networks of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), many effective conservation efforts remain outside formally designated MPAs and are driven by communities, Indigenous peoples, and local institutions.

Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) are increasingly recognized in the Coral Triangle as a complementary approach to MPAs, capturing places where long-term biodiversity conservation is achieved through diverse governance arrangements, including customary tenure systems, community-managed fishing grounds, and locally managed marine areas (LMMAs). These locally rooted approaches are particularly relevant in the Coral Triangle, where marine resource governance is often shared, decentralized, and deeply connected to livelihoods and cultural practices.

Despite growing interest, OECM identification, recognition, and reporting across Coral Triangle countries remain uneven, with varying levels of understanding, guidance, and institutional readiness. Strengthening regional coherence, while respecting local contexts, requires shared knowledge products, practical examples, and collaboration across communities, practitioners, and regional policy platforms.

In response, the Solutions for Marine and Coastal Resilience (SOMACORE) Programme’s Tales from the Triangle is featuring From the Ground Up: Communities and Local Champions Advancing OECMs that foregrounds community leadership and local champions, illustrating how OECMs are being advanced on the ground and how these experiences can inform national and regional efforts under the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security (CTI-CFF) framework.

SOMACORE is supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) through the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and is implemented by ten partner organizations working across the six Coral Triangle countries.