Recognising What Already Works: OECMs and Community Conservation

OECMs Workshops in 2025 with Nigel Dudley and Sue Stolton of Equilibrium Research

A mountain ridge in Armenia is an unusual place to find municipal officials, government representatives, conservationists and local villagers gathered, standing side by side, scanning the distant mountain slopes. When a small group of Bezoar goats emerged between the rocks, excitement, curiosity and even pride replaced the quiet, almost formal atmosphere. For some, like the government officials visiting from city offices, it was the first time seeing this animal in the wild. For others, like the locals of the region, it’s a more common sight. Still, the moment captured something larger and illustrated exactly why the group was gathered there – for the protection and preservation of Armenia's landscapes and wildlife.  Amongst the group of excited spectators were two long-time conservation practitioners and professional consultants. Nigel Dudley and Sue Stolton of Equilibrium Research travelled to the Caucasus in May, July and again in November 2025 to deliver a series of workshops on Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) across the three countries where the Eco-Corridors Fund for the Caucasus (ECF) operates: Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Their role was not to introduce new nature conservation methods, but rather to help connect communities' existing efforts to an emerging international framework that recognises and strengthens them.

In May 2025, Nigel travelled with ECF Chief Technical Advisor Jernej Stritih to Upper Adigeni in Georgia, visiting villages including Mokhe, Naminauri, and Kikibo. Those field visits offered direct insight into how communities were already managing their landscapes, including grazing strategies, traditional governance, and local stewardship practices that sustain biodiversity.

In July, Nigel and Sue, together with the ECF team, held a workshop on Other Effective Conservation Measures (OECMs) in Areni, Armenia, where the introductory image from visiting the Arpa Conservation Area was taken. In the  autumn, from November 5-7 and 13-14, 2025, Nigel and Sue returned to present similar  workshops in Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Georgian workshop took place in  Goderdzi, Adjara, and the Azerbaijan workshop in Guba.

 As part of the Goderdzi workshop programme, participants visited the Satsikhuri Community Conservation Area, including the summer pastures of Didachara and Alma. Field discussions unfolded not in conference rooms but on the land itself, where OECMs were no longer an abstract concept but living examples that already existed thanks to the hard work of locals involved in the ECF.

During the Guba workshop, the participants visited the Gonaghkend Conservation Area, where they could see the connectivity between the conservation area and the Shahdag National Park at the landscape level. With the local representatives, the participants discussed the positive experiences and challenges of combining conservation work with support for local sustainable development. 

Georgia | 5–7 November 2025

What Is an OECM? But what exactly are OECMs, and how do they differ from traditional protected areas? Nigel explains: “They’re areas that are important for biodiversity, but where conservation might not be the primary aim – or even an explicit aim at all. They support biodiversity either by accident or as a secondary objective. One of the defining points is that they’re not designated protected areas.”

Protected areas have been part of the conservation landscape for more than a century. OECMs are a more recent addition and have recently been formally recognised under global biodiversity frameworks. Basically, they offer another path to biodiversity conservation. Rather than designating new parks from the top down, OECMs recognise places where biodiversity is already being sustained through local management, traditional use, or community stewardship.

“OECMs are recognised, whereas protected areas are designated,” Sue says. “They support and acknowledge the many efforts people are already making.”

In the Caucasus, this concept resonates strongly. Across mountain valleys and rural landscapes, communities involved in the ECF programme have managed land in ways that maintain habitats, wildlife corridors, and species populations while providing ecosystem services like climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yet many of these areas and efforts are often informal or under-recognised in national policy.

“In the Caucasus, there’s a lot of land management that fits very well into the OECM concept,” Nigel says. “Governments everywhere are becoming more reluctant to establish new protected areas, and OECMs offer a more people-centred way of managing landscapes by bringing people into the conversation rather than imposing decisions from above.”

Armenia | 1–3 July 2025 Bringing Government and Communities Together The workshops on Other Effective Conservation Measures, run by Nigel and Sue, were designed to bridge two distinct groups, bringing together government representatives, local communities, and municipal administrations. “For government participants, there was a policy element,” Nigel explains. “We wanted to get them fired up about the opportunities OECMs present.” At the same time, the sessions offered training and negotiation space for communities, yielding practical conversations about how OECMs work and how they could be integrated into national frameworks.

The settings in the three countries ranged from hotel meeting rooms in towns to open-air discussions high in the mountains.“One workshop was up in the mountains,” Sue recalls. “You could see the creep of modernity and traditions slowly seeping away. The discussions really fired up when we were outside, talking about real examples around us. People could point to specific places and say, ‘This is what’s happening here.'" This was in Georgia, at Satsikhuri, Didachara, and Alma, where pastoral practices and biodiversity conservation intersect visibly.

In Azerbaijan, lawyers joined the discussions, engaging directly in how OECMs could be reflected in legislation and linking local realities to national policy.

An Ever-Evolving Tool OECMs are still developing as a global instrument, and that evolution was part of the conversation. 

“We have to explain what OECMs are continuously,” Nigel admits. “We get questions we can’t always answer. It’s an evolving tool, which is exciting, but it also makes things more complex.”

Protected areas have had a hundred years to become familiar. OECMs are still finding their footing. In the Caucasus, that means adapting global language to local realities and translating policy into practice across multiple languages and governance systems. Public education resources in three languages are being developed to continue building understanding and clarity around the concept in the Caucasus.

Azerbaijan | 13–14 November 2025

The Bigger Picture Back on that Armenian hillside, the Bezoar goats provided not just a wildlife sighting but a shared reference point. “People were excited,” Nigel says.

“Sue and I were coming in at the end of a long process and are excited that OECMs offer a way to bring government representatives into what communities were already working on – and to bring some security to those approaches.”

For local participants, the workshops also helped situate their work within a broader frame. “It brought an understanding of how what they’re doing fits into the bigger national and international picture,” Nigel explains. “Not taking community projects over but integrating them into the political fabric of the country.”

Sue describes their workshops as “simply offering encouragement to continue what they’re doing and recognition that they are part of something innovative in the wider conservation world.” The atmosphere, she adds, reflected groundwork by the ECF programme. “We had the luxury of parachuting into a well-established project with trust and momentum. People were so welcoming. There was a real sense of openness.”

At its core, OECMs are about ensuring that conservation happens in ways that allow traditions to continue. In landscapes where pastoralism, community governance, and cultural identity are intertwined with biodiversity, that balance is essential.

Standing together on that ridge, watching Bezoar goats move across the rocks, the idea of an “Other Effective area-based Conservation Measure” felt less technical and more tangible. It was visible in the land itself, in centuries-old practices, in municipal plans, in the quiet pride of villagers pointing out wildlife to visiting officials. OECMs in the Caucasus are about creating something entirely new. It’s about strengthening and safeguarding what is already there. *