The Great Blue Wall is a Western Indian Ocean (WIO)-led, African driven initiative to achieve a nature positive world by 2030. It aims at unlocking unprecedented nature-based recovery efforts through the establishment of a transformational movement. Its goal is to dramatically accelerate and upscale ocean conservation actions while enhancing socio-ecological resilience and the development of a regenerative blue economy by catalysing political leadership and financial support.

Aligned with its goal to accelerate and upscale ocean conservation action, this event will present the ambition of the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region to expand ocean conservation through locally-managed marine areas (LMMAs), Seascapes and Transfrontier Marine Conservation Areas (TFCAs) for improved ocean health and socio resilience of coastal communities. The ambition is anchored under national commitments across multiple targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Global Biodiversity Framework (Targets 3, 5, 9, 10) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 14.2, 14.5). Marine conservation in the WIO is currently largely led by government-led marine protection efforts covering some 555,000 km2 of ocean area spread across nine countries of the WIO, equivalent to seven percent coverage of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) area.

By contrast, the contribution of locally-led conservation, through marine other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs), comprising LMMAs, Seascapes and TFCAs is unclear due to different legal and support regimes among countries. Application or adaptation of global frameworks such as OECMs has not been initiated, and countries show varied progress in supporting locally-led conservation.

In the side event, various speakers will summarize the current context and potential for upscaling locally-led marine conservation and sustainable small scale fisheries through ‘shared ocean’ approaches (Obura et al. 2021, Locke et al. 2020) and leveraging emerging campaigns around nature positive (Locke et al. 2021) and people-centered approaches for conservation in the 21st century. Second, a panel of practitioners from WIO countries will highlight and discuss key building blocks for successful locally-led marine conservation, and how these may support upscaling from local to national and regional scales. Moderated and audience questions to the panel and speakers will serve to connect among the issues presented, and culminate with a high level synthesis/wrap up that will strengthen the regional strategy to expand locally-led conservation efforts to complement government efforts by 2030.