Source: The Conversation – Canada
With World Oceans Day coming up on June 8, policymakers and researchers will be thinking about the state of the ocean and efforts to protect marine environments. There is no shortage of global objectives and targets to drive those conversations.
The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-30) has advanced 10 challenges to drive action. One of them aims to protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity. Another UN effort, the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework, aims to ensure at least 30 per cent of marine and coastal areas (as well as terrestrial and inland waters) are effectively conserved and managed by 2030.
Such targets — whether for funding, conservation or to measure economic impacts — are a crucial element of ongoing efforts to support ocean conservation. But a focus on targets can hide what matters most in any ocean conservation effort — the people who steward those resources and ecosystems.
Six years ago, as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework was being drafted, we argued that communities must be at the heart of efforts to conserve wildlife, plants and ecosystems, and that global biodiversity targets would only succeed if conservation placed coastal communities at its core.
We pointed specifically to the importance of building trust-based networks of people to collaborate for conservation, as well as the need to respect and revitalize local and customary rules and practices for meaningful conservation decision-making.
As we pass the mid-way point of the UN’s Ocean Decade, that message needs to be amplified. The evidence shows that what really matters in conservation efforts are positive relationships between people and organizations that lead to equitable stewardship and conservation outcomes.
How progress is measured Progress is often measured in area-based targets, but the effectiveness of ocean conservation ultimately depends on local communities and the environments that sustain them. That means renewed emphasis on place-based approaches to conservation, and a commitment to design efforts alongside communities.
It also means acting on calls for transdisciplinary science partnerships that link communities, industry, government and researchers from local to global scales. Along with colleagues, we have published two recent papers that offer our insights into the crucial role of relationships in efforts to protect our oceans.
The first focuses on the challenges facing small-scale fisheries in Africa and Asia. It points to the relational ties — shared geographical location, membership in particular organizations, common values and objectives — that are the foundation of effective governance networks and the source of collective action.
A key lesson here is that governance networks and partnerships built around a shared sense of community lead to positive stewardship and efforts to foster transformative change. Our paper also centres the importance of working with communities in fostering action and develop strategies that are tailored to unique social-ecological situations.
The lessons here specifically draw attention to how knowledge co-production processes must help equalise relationships of power between people and organizations to foster the collaborative partnerships needed for shared learning.
Transformative ocean science Progress is often measured in area-based targets, but the effectiveness of ocean conservation ultimately depends on local communities and the environments that sustain them. (Unsplash/Francesco Ungaro) Another recent paper of ours synthesizes the work of the Integrated Marine Biosphere Research, a large-scale global research project aimed at fostering ocean sustainability and the importance of relationships.
The outcomes of this global project are to foster ocean sustainability for the benefit of society by encouraging people to partner and work across disciplines and geographies. A key lesson is that transformative ocean science is more likely to emerge where diverse communities — including the research community — are involved in ocean stewardship.
This is a lesson also at the core of another ongoing initiative using participatory and arts-based methods to better understand tenure transitions in coastal areas facing rapid change in the Western Indian Ocean. Achieving the ambition of the UN Ocean Decade and 2030 biodiversity targets will require the best available science.
Without a focus on the relationships that are at the heart of good science and equitable action, however, even the most well-developed targets will remain out of reach.
The future of our shared ocean will depend not only on what we choose to protect, but on how we choose to relate to one another and to the living world that sustains us.
Derek Armitage receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Ella-Kari Muhl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/04/ocean-conservation-needs-strong-relationships-not-just-targets/