Common misconceptions of ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs) and implications for global conservation targets

In 2022, nations committed to achieving a global target of protecting at least 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial and inland water areas and coastal and marine areas by 2030, as part of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Target 3 – the ‘30 × 30 protection target’ 1 ). This ambitious commitment has seen rapidly growing attention to ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs) as an additional means to protected areas to achieve the target. The OECM term was introduced into the Convention’s lexicon in 2010, but only formally defined in 2018 2 , with IUCN guidance published the following year 3 . There has been increased encouragement from the academic and conservation communities to use OECMs to contribute to global conservation targets 4 , 5 , 6 .