From 24-27th March 2025, Te Fare Natura in Mo’orea, French Polynesia, served as a hub that brought people together from across the Pacific islands region for the Tiaki Moana Summit.
The summit was centred around the ocean and its governance, the interconnectedness of our Pacific people through the ocean and our voyaging tupuna, stewardship by local communities for sustainable livelihoods, and being good ancestors in training.
The aim of the week-long program was to enable discussions and talanoa on various area-based management approaches, including traditional marine conservation methods such as ra’ui, and to explore the potential of marine OECMs in the Pacific.
An Other Effective area-based Conservation Measure (OECM) offers opportunity to recognize, promote and support areas with effective long-term conservation taking place outside of designated protected areas, but still in places of high importance to biodiversity. A good example of a potential OECM includes watersheds that are managed for water resource management, that also result in biodiversity benefits. The term OECM was created by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010 at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the CBD. However, it wasn’t until 2018, when the term ‘OECMs’ was officially defined*. In 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted, which is a set of 4 goals and 23 ambitious targets to halt biodiversity loss by 2030. One of the targets, Target 3, is about protecting 30% of terrestrial, inland, marine and coastal areas. This is where OECMs come in, as they can contribute towards achieving the 30% protection by 2023 goal, also known as 30×30.
The Tiaki Moana Summit was the first time a Pacific regional meeting was convened to improve understanding about, and potentially advance, marine OECMs in the Pacific islands. Key thematic areas that were woven into the program included; defining and identifying marine OECMS; indigenous and traditional knowledge and how it can shape sustainable management practices; existing marine management tools; innovative and sustainable approaches to foster a more respectful and sustainable relationship with nature; and the importance of robust governance and ensuring the future generations are included into decision-making processes.
Two representatives from the Cook Islands were invited to speak at panels during this pivotal week. NES Biodiversity Coordinator, Jessie Nicholson, was invited to speak on a panel at the Tiaki Moana Summit, to explain the OECM recognition process led by the NES on behalf of the Takitumu Conservation Area (TCA) community. Nicholson shared the journey undertaken from the national OECM workshop in 2023, through to the TCA community consultations, formation of a working group, and finally, obtaining consent and launching the TCA as an OECM on Biodiversity Day 2024. “As the first OECM in the Pacific islands region, this was an opportunity to showcase how we navigated the OECM process for the TCA, from inception right until launch. I am sure it helped to provide some guidance, or at least invoke questions for further discussion on the concept of OECMs and benefits that it could provide to local communities”, Nicholson said.
Kelvin Passfield of Te Ipukarea Society was also invited to speak on a panel at a side event by the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy. “It was an honour to be asked to be a part of the Te Reo o te Moana panel discussing the establishment of the Marae Moana. In particular, our experience around convincing the Cook Islands Government to agree to 50 nautical mile protection zones around each of our 15 islands, where no industrial fishing or deep seabed mining can take place. We hope that this will prove useful for the local communities from the Marquesas and the Austral Islands in getting similar protection zones around the islands of their island groups. A big thank you to the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy for supporting my participation”, Passfield said.
By the end of the week, uncertainty remained around the idea of OECMs and advancing them in the Pacific. However, Tiaki Moana reaffirmed that Pacific-led conservation is not about creating new models but about recognizing and empowering traditional practices that have long protected the region’s natural and cultural heritage. More work to enhance understanding of marine OECMs will be conducted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in the future.
Key messages from the Tiaki Moana Summit will be carried forward by Blue Cradle Foundation NZ, to the United Nations Oceans Conference scheduled this year in June in Nice, France.
For more information about Tiaki Moana, see website here: https://www.tiakimoana.org/
*An OECM is “a geographically defined area other than a Protected Area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values.”
