In October 2019, a multidisciplinary team began working on the challenge of studying, visualising, and understanding the critical aspects of marine governance, with the goal of generating knowledge that is useful for citizens' learning and decision-making.

Our team is composed of ecologists, oceanographers, mathematicians, and economists, and has been supported by the collaboration of legal experts, marine biologists, and computer programmers. Over the last three years, we have worked with information gathered from reports, interviews, surveys, workshops, and specialised literature to provide users with a tool that improves decision-making in marine protected areas.

The Marine Governance Observatory puts the evaluation of governance in a protected marine area into your hands. By simply answering some questions, the information you already have, and your perception are transformed into knowledge that allows for better decision-making, accelerating the learning capacity and understanding of spaces directly related to your life and work.

What is the use of ogmar.org? We believe it can be significant if you have political responsibility, if you are a technician, if you are a fisherman or diver, if you belong to a fishermen's guild, or a diving association, if you are a member of an environmental NGO..., these are just a few examples of how this open platform can benefit you.

Governance refers to how decisions are made in a specific place, who participates and how they decide on matters that affect them. Therefore, governance is a key issue in achieving a good environmental status. We can define marine governance as the processes, structures, and rules through which the activities of people and sectors are regulated concerning the management of a particular natural space, such as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). Good marine governance is not only effective in conserving resources but is also fair, adaptive, and robust. There is no one-size-fits-all governance model that can be applied to all locations, as governance is diverse and must be defined in relation to the social and ecological characteristics of each context and place.