While the Pacific Ocean spans nearly half of the Earth’s ocean surface, only 0.11% of the global ocean is currently recognised as Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs), a conservation designation formally defined by IUCN in 2018. OECMs offer a way to acknowledge and support the biodiversity outcomes of areas that are not officially protected, including many culturally grounded, community-managed marine spaces. Recognising these areas allows us to learn from and uplift ancestral practices that have long sustained healthy ocean ecosystems.

OECMs: Recognizing What’s Already Protecting the Ocean

Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) are areas that deliver long-term biodiversity outcomes, even though they are not officially designated as protected areas. Recognised under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, OECMs contribute to Target 3—conserving 30% of land, freshwater, and marine areas by 2030—by valuing diverse forms of governance and management already sustaining ecosystems.

In the Pacific, community-led practices like tapu areas, bul, LMMAs, rāhui, mātaitai, and taiāpure have long safeguarded marine ecosystems through community governance and traditional knowledge.

Where communities choose to pursue OECM recognition, it can offer a pathway to honour Indigenous stewardship, support conservation at scale, and contribute to global goals like 30×30. When grounded in consent and local priorities, OECMs can help bridge traditional knowledge and modern policy—creating more inclusive, effective, and culturally relevant approaches to ocean protection.

Regional collaboration plays a significant role

To provide guidance to the OECMs framework and contribute to problem-solving, 25 Pacific island states created a “guardian of the sea” movement: Tiaki Moana to adapt and integrate traditional marine conservation practices into the global framework of OECMs. 

“Our society often treats only the symptoms, not the root causes. While regular restrictions like MPAs address biodiversity erosion, OECMs offer a way to consider all the underlying problems that contribute to that erosion”.

 —Ihirau Piton, Young Pacific Leader, French Polynesia.

This intergenerational, inter-island movement’s mission is to elevate traditional ocean stewardship practices — such as tapu areas, bul, LMMAs, rāhui, mātaitai, and taiāpure — as valid and effective tools under global frameworks like OECMs. 

If a  OECMs are consented and sought, some of the community key recommendations and action include:

• Centre Local Communities and Indigenous Leadership in OECM Governance
• Build Genuine, Participatory Community Engagement and Trust
• Recognize and Legally Support Indigenous-led Marine Management Systems
• Develop and Implement Pacific-Specific OECM Tools and Innovations
• Ensure Inclusive, Transparent, and Culturally Grounded Governance Structures
• Reframe OECMs Through a Pacific Lens Affirming Sovereignty and Cultural Identity
• Secure Sustainable and Innovative Financing Mechanisms
• Foster Regional and International Collaboration and Policy Engagement

As the world looks toward achieving the global 30×30 target — protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 — Tiaki Moana is a call to recognize what Pacific communities have long known: that true conservation is rooted in kinship with the ocean, not just numbers on a map.

“The Pacific Ocean sustains our ways of life — it connects cultures, feeds communities, and holds the stories of generations. Tiaki Moana brings together knowledge, science, and lived experience to imagine new ways forward, together.”
—James Nikitine, founder & CEO, Blue Cradle Foundation