Accelerating community-led solutions to 30X30

Five actions that governments, funders, and other organizations can take  

Five hundred million coastal people worldwide depend on small-scale fisheries for food security and livelihoods. These communities are on the frontlines of climate change, facing warming and rising waters, decreasing fish populations, and increasingly dangerous storms that threaten people, infrastructure, and marine biodiversity. Yet they are also key to protecting 30% of the planet's land and water by 2030 — a global target known as 30x30. 

With just five years left to achieve this ambitious goal, we must face a hard truth: if we continue as usual, we will not hit these global targets. In fact, according to the Bloomberg Ocean Fund, global progress has stalled, with only a .8% increase in protected oceans since 2022. 

There is a tool that has yet to be leveraged at scale for ocean conservation. The key to achieving 30x30 while conserving the planet’s most vital waters is for stakeholders to unlock the potential of community-led ocean conservation. While 30x30 commitments may be negotiated at the national and international levels, they will ultimately be implemented locally. We cannot achieve global change without investing in local leadership and effective coastal governance. Even protecting waters farther offshore will be hindered unless nearby communities share and receive the conservation benefits. 

Rare believes and invests in the potential of local leaders and their communities to drive change. Here are five actions that governments, funders, and other organizations can take to accelerate community-led solutions to 30x30: 

1. Include a diverse representation of community members in the 30x30 processes  

Governments, funders, and civil society must acknowledge and prioritize the vital role that all community members play in protecting and conserving their natural resources. This includes all marginalized groups within communities, such as Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, women, youth, and individuals living with disabilities. Everyone can safeguard nature and ensure that protected and conserved areas focus on protecting biodiversity and human rights. We must ensure that communities not only benefit from policy design but also actively shape it and lead its implementation.  

For example, the Rare-supported Mothers of the Mangrove in Brazil are a network of over 600 women across 37 communities with 12 RESEXES (marine extractive reserves) dedicated to protecting mangrove ecosystems vital to their lives and livelihoods. Rare aims to elevate their roles as guardians of the Amazonian mangroves and leaders in their communities. Similarly, Editrudith Lukanga’s work with the African Women Fish Processors and Traders Network (AWFISHNET) empowers women working in the small-scale fishing sector.   

2. Strengthen legal frameworks for local governance 

National governments must strengthen legal frameworks for local management rights over coastal resources. By doing so, frontline communities can actively contribute to achieving global goals and targets, accelerating progress toward national 30x30 goals suitable to their coastal conditions. This is especially important for rural coastal cities and municipalities, where effective ocean management protects frontline communities, ensures food security and sovereignty, and builds social and economic resilience in a changing climate.  

Rare increasingly invests in policy. Locally, we pay attention to the needs of local fishers and their communities. Nationally, we aim to help secure community rights to access and manage their territorial seas. For example, in Honduras, local advocacy led to establishing  a new Marine Protected Area (MPA) co-managed by communities, extending protections 12 nautical miles offshore. This will be the fourth such area in Colón, completing the departmental network of protected areas on the coast — a major step forward in participatory marine governance that will soon encompass the country’s entire north coast. 

3. Direct finance resources to local governments and frontline communities 

Despite the ocean’s importance, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Below Water receives the least long-term funding of any SDG. According to a 2022 report by the World Economic Forum, $175 billion per year is needed to achieve SDG14 by 2030, but from 2015 to 2019, less than $10 billion was invested.  

What is even more worrisome is how little funding actually reaches frontline communities; according to the Social Sciences Research Institute (SSIR), less than five percent of overall international humanitarian funding makes its way to local organizations. 

Frontline communities working to safeguard their marine resources need to be able to see funding flowing directly to them to meet their goals. If we have hope to protect more of the ocean, we must increase and diversify the financing streams available to local governments and communities and invest in strengthening their capacity to access, absorb, and utilize these funds. To achieve this, funding sources must be transparent, predictable, and diverse. Blue Venture’s Frontline Communities Fund and the Tenure Facility’s new Turning Tides Initiative are two efforts that ensure funding goes directly to the community-based organizations that need it most.  

4. Launch partnerships to accelerate impact

Collaboration amplifies impact. Some of the proudest moments in my career have occurred when we set aside organizational identities and focused on the core issues. To truly unlock the potential of community-led conservation for 30x30, we need many more inclusive partnerships among organizations, funders, and governments to mobilize resources and harness the power of collective action. 

I am proud to support several partnerships of which Rare is a core member or leads. Networks like Coastal 500 unite local leaders from coastal communities to share best practices and lessons learned worldwide. Our Coastal 500 members partner with organizations such as the  Global Mangrove Alliance, uniting local leaders and other key stakeholders to protect the world’s mangroves. Rare’s participation in global coalitions such as Together for the Ocean and Revive Our Ocean exemplifies the power of partnerships in mobilizing resources and collective action.

5. Seize the political moment to advance community-led conservation.  

It’s time to seriously consider the other tools that exist in the conservation toolbox, particularly in coastal waters, where high biodiversity intersects with human needs. 

The 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) committed countries to conserve 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, “recognizing and respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, including over their traditional territories.”  With just five years left, only 8% of the ocean is currently under protection. Creating traditional MPAs has been too slow and fragmented to meet the 30x30 goal. Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) are a solution.  

However, this must be done appropriately at the national and local levels. While OECMs are beginning to receive the global attention they deserve, many countries lack the basic policies, regulatory frameworks, and processes to include them in their 30x30 goals.  

Rare has worked over a decade to advance people-centered conservation in the Community Seas, the nearshore waters home to most of the world’s small-scale fisheries and over half of all marine biodiversity. We work with coastal communities and local governments to design and implement OECMs that are community first, ensuring preferential rights to nearshore waters for local fishers while also establishing complementary no-take marine reserves within or adjacent to the fishing areas to support rebuilding fisheries. 

Governments have long underinvested in and marginalized small-scale fishing communities. There is perhaps no human population more vulnerable to climate change and the global biodiversity crisis than those inhabiting the world’s coastlines. 

To achieve the 30x30 goal, we must prioritize inclusive strategies that empower these frontline communities. We have an opportunity to harness the current global political momentum for 30x30 to do this work. The approach cannot be uniform everywhere, but within each region, country, and province, there are opportunities to assist communities, their local governments, local organizations, and the advocates best positioned to conserve our vast ocean and the hundreds of millions who rely on it daily.