OECMs – the acronym for „Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures“ – are a valuable policy tool in the new global biodiversity agreement, along with the establishment of protected areas. Scientists from the field of nature conservation, as well as practitioners and policy experts, call on the member governments of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) to consider OECMs as an important tool to advance equitable and effective conservation, as argued in a commentary published in the high-ranking journal Nature. The Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) is involved in the study.