From recognition to stewardship: Asia advances a new regional roadmap for OECMs
Countries and conservation partners meeting in Tokyo conducted the Mid-Term Review of Asia Protected Areas Partnership OECM Roadmap, making a shift in regional cooperation from awareness and initial recognition towards practical implementation, measurable biodiversity outcomes and long-term stewardship.
Photo: (c) Olivier Chassot
Photo: (c) Olivier Chassot
Photo: (c) Olivier Chassot
Asia’s efforts to conserve biodiversity beyond protected areas entered a new phase at the Regional Workshop on Advancing Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) in Asia, held in Tokyo, Japan, from 9 to 11 July 2026.
Convened by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan (MoEJ) in collaboration with the Asia Protected Areas Partnership (APAP) and IUCN, the workshop brought together more than 40 experts representing government representatives, regional organisations, CBD Technical and Scientific Cooperation Support Centres, and academia. It also served as the Mid-Term Review of the APAP OECM Roadmap (2024-2030).
From understanding OECMs to implementing them
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defines an OECM (adopted under decision COP14/8) “as 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, socioeconomic, and other locally relevant values”.
Since APAP’s first regional OECM workshop in Tokyo in 2024, the regional conversation has changed considerably. Countries are moving beyond discussions of what OECMs are and why they matter towards the practical questions of how they should be identified, assessed, recognised, governed, monitored, financed, reported and sustained.
This transition is particularly timely as countries accelerate implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). Achieving Target 3 (30×30) will depend not only on expanding protected areas but also on the effective identification, recognition and long-term stewardship of OECMs, making them an essential component of equitable, representative and well-connected systems of protected and conserved areas.
Participating countries presented progress in developing national policies and guidelines, integrating OECMs into National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, establishing institutional coordination mechanisms, assessing candidate sites and creating national recognition and reporting processes. The workshop also demonstrated that there is no single implementation model for Asia. Countries are adapting global guidance to their legal, institutional, ecological and cultural circumstances while maintaining alignment with the definition adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
A central message from Tokyo was that OECMs often do not need to be created from scratch. Across Asia, biodiversity is already being conserved through the stewardship of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, farmers, fishers, private landowners, businesses, local governments, research institutions and civil society organisations. National OECM systems should identify, recognise, strengthen and document these existing best practice efforts while ensuring that recognition is supported by credible evidence of long-term biodiversity outcomes.
Quality and rights must guide recognition
Workshop participants consistently emphasised that OECM success should not be measured only by the number or total area of sites reported. Recognition is an important milestone, but long-term effectiveness depends on inclusive governance, monitoring, adaptive management, sustainable financing and continued support for those responsible for conserving the area.
OECM systems must therefore be rigorous enough to protect their credibility and prevent greenwashing, but sufficiently flexible and proportionate to avoid excessive administrative burdens. Participants also stressed that candidate areas should not be identified or mapped without the meaningful participation of those who hold rights, responsibilities and knowledge relating to them. Free, Prior and Informed Consent (also known as FPIC), respect for customary governance, secure tenure and recognition of traditional knowledge are fundamental where Indigenous Peoples and local communities are involved.
The discussions highlighted opportunities across terrestrial, inland-water, coastal and marine environments, including community-conserved areas, private and corporate lands, forests, wetlands, rivers, fisheries, tourism areas and socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes. A field visit to Hachioji Nagaike Park, an urban OECM site, demonstrated how biodiversity conservation, community participation, volunteer stewardship and local government collaboration can combine to produce lasting conservation outcomes.
Towards updating the APAP roadmap for 2026-2030
Drawing on the regional survey, national presentations and workshop discussions, participants reviewed the draft updated the APAP OECM Roadmap to support countries across the full OECM implementation continuum:
Identify → Assess → Recognise → Report → Monitor → Reassess → Sustain
This progression reflects a fundamental shift: formal recognition is not the endpoint of an OECM process. Sites must continue to demonstrate positive biodiversity outcomes through effective governance, monitoring, adaptive management and long-term stewardship.
The draft updated Roadmap is organised around four strategic pillars:
Building strong policy and institutional foundations
Scaling identification, recognition and reporting
Ensuring long-term quality and conservation effectiveness
Expanding partnerships and shared stewardship
Together, the pillars provide a regional framework for technical assistance, capacity development, peer learning, knowledge exchange and resource mobilisation. The Roadmap does not prescribe a uniform or linear process. Instead, it supports nationally appropriate pathways while maintaining the integrity of OECM recognition, and also emphasizes that these spaces are structurally connected across landscapes and seascapes, ecologically functional, and biologically significant.
Regional cooperation will increasingly focus on practical delivery, including readiness assessments, technical tools, national working groups, country-to-country exchanges, site-level assessment, support for reporting and monitoring, financing mechanisms and documentation of good practices.
APAP will continue to provide the regional partnership and peer-learning platform for this work, in collaboration with the CBD Technical and Scientific Cooperation Support Centres, IUCN expert networks, regional organisations, academia and development partners.
Finally, the workshop also strengthened collaboration with the IUCN Asia Regional Office's CBD Technical and Scientific Cooperation (TSC) Support Centre, highlighting its role in facilitating technical cooperation, capacity development, peer learning and knowledge exchange to support countries in implementing Target 3 and advancing OECMs across the region.
From isolated sites to connected conservation systems
Asia's diversity of ecosystems, cultures and governance systems makes the region especially important to the global OECM agenda. The second part of the OECM definition captures the enduring essence of the concept by recognising that sustained biodiversity outcomes are inseparable from the long-term maintenance of ecosystem functions and services and, where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio-economic and other locally relevant values. This is particularly significant because many potential OECMs lie outside protected areas and are governed or managed by Indigenous Peoples, local communities, private actors and other rights-holders and stakeholders. Their long-standing stewardship, traditional knowledge and governance systems have often sustained biodiversity while delivering multiple benefits to people. Recognising OECMs therefore not only strengthens biodiversity conservation but also acknowledges and supports the diverse governance systems and enduring people–nature relationships that have enabled these areas to thrive across generations.
The Tokyo Workshop showed that OECMs can help connect protected areas, community-conserved territories, production landscapes, rivers, wetlands and marine areas into more representative, connected and equitably governed conservation systems.
Discussions are increasingly shifting from how OECMs should be recognised to how they can be implemented effectively, equitably and sustainably, recognising them as ecological and biological functional units of the land and seascape. Through the process of updating APAP OECM Roadmap, countries and partners have established a shared regional direction: from guidance to implementation, from recognition to stewardship, and from individual sites to integrated systems of protected and conserved areas.
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