Thematic Vice Chair, Marine. Felipe Paredes is a marine biologist from Chile, with more than 20 years of experience in scientific research, education and marine conservation public policy. He is ...
IUCN COMMISSION GROUP
IUCN WCPA Marine Thematic Group
Overview and description
Description:
IUCN WCPA Marine Theme - the world’s premier network of Marine Protected Area (MPA) expertise.
Group leadership
Mr Felipe PAREDES
Vice-Chair
Thematic Vice Chair, Marine. Felipe Paredes is a marine biologist from Chile, with more than 20 years of experience in scientific research, education and marine conservation public policy. He is currently the National Coordinator of the Marine Protected Areas of the Chilean Ministry of Environment, a MPA systems that covers more than 43% of the Chilean oceans. He has extensive experience in marine protected areas, leading the designation, planning and implementation processes of MPAs in Rapa Nui, Juan Fernandez and Chilean Patagonia, among others, and coordinating the National MPA committee of Chile. He also leads a GEF project on marine and coastal ecosystems governance. In 2017 he organized the 4th International Marine Protected Areas Congress IMPAC4 in La Serena, Chile and today coordinates the CPPS Southeast Pacific MPA working group. In 2019 he coodinated the marine theme of IUCN´s 3rd Latin American and Caribbean Protected Areas Congress III CAPLAC in Lima, Perú. Felipe is a marine biologist from the University of Valparaiso, Master in Marine Affairs from the University of Rhode Island and PhD in Marine Biology from the University of Maine.
Dr Fabrice STEPHENSON
Vice-Chair
Thematic Vice Chair, Marine.
Fabrice Stephenson is a marine ecologist from France and the United Kingdom. He has primarily worked on understanding the distribution and ecology of organisms that live on or near the seafloor. Using statistical modelling approaches, he has developed science that aims to inform strategic policy approaches to managing the marine environment, in particular the development of marine spatial plans. Using a systematic conservation planning approach, he has contributed both as a researcher and then as the New Zealand Head of Delegation, to the science that informed the development of a marine spatial plan for deepwater fisheries in the South Pacific RFMO area while mitigating the impacts of bottom fisheries to Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs). From 2020 – 2023 he co-led an interdisciplinary research project ( Communicating risk and uncertainty to aid decision-making, University of Waikato, New Zealand) which aimed to develop decision-making practices that were more inclusive and multi-sectorial and that explicitly identify risk and knowledge uncertainty in a way that reduces risks to ecological, social, cultural and economic wellbeing. He is currently undertaking a 5-year interdisciplinary research fellowship at Newcastle University which aims to develop improved approaches for estimating spatial distributions of ecosystem services under a changing climate and how these data can inform coherent, efficient and equitable resource management.
Thematic Vice Chair, Marine.
Fabrice Stephenson is a marine ecologist from France and the United Kingdom. He has primarily worked on understanding the distribution and ecology of organisms that live on ...
Marine Programme Officer
Spencer Chaisson is a marine ecologist from Canada. He is currently a Senior Marine Biologist with Fisheries and Oceans where he leads marine spatial planning, regulatory establishment, and stakeholder engagement of MPAs in Canada’s Pacific Ocean. Prior to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Spencer worked on environmental policy at Canada’s largest marine port, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. He has a Masters in Biological Oceanography from the University of British Columbia and has held advisory roles with Ocean Wise, Rotary International, and the IMPAC5 Conference in Vancouver in 2023
Our role
To inspire, inform and enable people to protect Planet Ocean by promoting the establishment of a global, representative system of effectively managed and lasting networks of MPAs.
Our goals
To accelerate progress in achieving the global MPA agenda through tracking progress, quality assuring information, celebrating achievements, identifying priorities and spurring action
- Encourage, develop and share solutions on MPAs through setting of data and information standards, criteria, tools, best practice guidelines, and management effectiveness
- Increase visibility, understanding and awareness of MPAs through the application of innovative ideas, partnerships, approaches and the application of new technologies
We achieve this by:
- Convening, coordinating and networking, in order to help governments, agencies, organisations and individuals to plan, develop and implement MPAs, MPA networks, and the global system, and integrate them with all other sea and coastal uses and maritime sectors;
- Ensuring better application of the best science, technical and policy advice on MPAs, MPA networks, and the global system;
- Generating, synthesising and disseminating knowledge on MPAs, often in the form of best practice advice, to a diverse range of players;
- Developing enhanced capacity at different levels to address the variety of challenges that funding and implementing effectively managed MPAs can present; and
- Fostering innovation to come up with exciting new solutions and ideas to tackle current and futures challenges.
As part of the World Commission on Protected Areas we work in partnership with IUCN’s Global Programme on Protected Areas and IUCN’s Global Marine programme, and have members in many of the countries of the world that border an ocean or sea.