Combining Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development

Thus, there are two keys to sustainable resource management: - Access to the ... conservation policies that date back to the nineteenth century. At that time ...
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Protected Areas: Combining Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development Foundations and Recommendations for a Development Cooperation Strategy on Protected Area Management

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Protected Areas: Combining Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development Foundations and Recommendations for a Development Cooperation Strategy on Protected Area Management

Institut français de la biodiversité 57, rue Cuvier, 75231 PARIS CEDEX 05 - France

Acknowledgements Survey and writing: Babin Didier, Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (Cirad) Steering and editing committee: Barbault Robert, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris - Bonneau L.aurent, ministère des Affaires étrangères - Bouamrane Mériem : Unesco - Constantin François, Université de Pau - Corbier Constance, Agence française de développement - Gerbe Philippe, ministère de l’Aménagement du Territoire et de l’Environnement - Gouin Rémi, Fonds français pour l’environnement mondial - Kleitz Gilles, ministère de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche - Leblanc Emmanuèle, ministère des Affaires étrangères - Robinet Olivier, ministère des Affaires étrangères - St Martin Gilles, ministère de la Recherche et de la Technologie - Vernet Philippe, ministère de la Recherche et de la Technologie - Weber Jacques, Institut Français de la Biodiversité Surveyed people: Barbault Robert, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris - Basserie Vincent, ministère des Affaires étrangères - Benoit M., ministère de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche - Blangy Sylvie, Société d’éco-aménagement (SECA) - Boisseaux Thierry, Office national des Forêts Bougeant Pierre, Conservatoire de l’espace littoral et des rivages lacustres - Bourgeot André, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales - Caplat Laurent, ministère de l’Aménagement du Territoire et de l’Environnement - Castel Frédéric, Les Amis de la Terre Corbier Constance, Agence française de développement - Cormier–Salem Marie-Christine, Institut de recherche pour le développement - De Visscher Marie-Noëlle, Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - Des Clercs Bertrand, Fondation internationale pour la sauvegarde de la faune - Doumenge Charles, Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - Etaix Corinne, ministère de l’Aménagement du Territoire et de l’Environnement - Fréquelin Aude, ministère de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche - Gerbe Philippe, ministère de l’Aménagement du Territoire et de l’Environnement - Gouin Rémi, Fonds français pour l’environnement mondial - Greth Arnaud, Fonds mondial pour la nature France (WWF) - Humbert Frank, ministère des Affaires Etrangères - Jardin Mireille, Unesco - Kalaora Bernard, Conservatoire de l’espace littoral et des rivages lacustres - Lavigne Delville Philippe, Groupe de recherche et d’échanges technologiques - Leblanc Emmanuèle, ministère des Affaires étrangères - Lefevre Christophe, Conservatoire de l’espace littoral et des rivages lacustres / UICN Lévêque Christian, Centre national de la recherche scientifique - Marchand Frédéric, ministère de l’Aménagement du Territoire et de l’Environnement - Ou-Rabah Tahar, ministère de l’Aménagement du Territoire et de l’Environnement - Planton Hubert, Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - Robertson Vernhes Jane, Unesco - Rogier Philippe, ministère de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche - Roussel Bernard, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle - Sadorge Jean-Luc, Fédération des parcs naturels régionaux de France - St Martin Gilles, ministère de la Recherche et de la Technologie - Thèvenin Emmanuel, Atelier technique des espaces naturels - Weber Jacques, Institut Français de la Biodiversité - Younés Talal, International Union of Biological Sciences This paper benefited from contributions by: Bergoeing Jean-Pierre - Berteau Jacques - Bertrand Alain - Borrini-Feyerabend Grazia - Bouceïf Mohamed Ould - Busson François Caron Patrick - Chardonnet Philippe - Chey Soeun - Cibien Catherine - Constantin François - Dubois Olivier - Fournier Anne Garreau Jean-Marc - Hénocque Yves - Humbert Genevière - Jacques Jean-Claude - Kleitz Gilles - Lavigne Delville Philippe Leblanc Emmanuèle - Léonard Sylvain - Mahé Erik - Mauvais Geoffroy - Nasi Robert - Newby John - Price Thomas - Robinet Olivier - Roland Marie-Claude - Thiébaut Luc - Valeix Jacques - Viguier Jean –Pierre - Weber Jacques - Worms Jean

The English translation of this document was made by the French ministry of Foreign Affairs

Contents

Contents

Contents

5

Foreword

7

Preface

9

Preamble

11

Executive summary

13

Recommandations

17

Changing definition and concept of protected areas

21

International agreements and protected areas

29

Implementation proposals for French development cooperation on protected areas

33

Further reading

47

Notes and references

49

Acronyms

51

Photographic copyrights

51

Protected Areas Strategy 5

Foreword

Foreword

As part of the preparations for the World Parks Congress to be held in Durban in 2003, and the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wished to hold discussions on sustainable management of protected areas and their living resources and its place in France’s international cooperation. For this purpose, it charged France’s Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (Cirad) with coordinating a multidisciplinary working group. The group conducted a literature review, established and managed an online discussion group and carried out a series of interviews with resource persons in various institutions. This work led to the drafting of recommendations for a strategy for development cooperation on protected area management, which will serve as the foundation for our policies in this area.

Reasons for Having a Strategy for Development Cooperation on Protected Areas The economies of the Southern countries are mostly based on exploiting renewable and non-renewable natural resources. This means that sustainable management of these resources is critical for development and the fight against poverty. There are often conflicts in such countries relating to competition for access to resources and sharing resources amongst members of the community. These problems have been compounded by the combined effects of population growth, migration, the need for economic development and the difficulties that governments sometimes encounter in defining and enforcing management rules. The result is massive depletion of resources and damage to ecosystems that is irreparable in some cases. In the specific instance of protected areas, particularly in Africa, the problems cited often relate to illegal human habitation in these areas, with the usual consequences, such as environmental damage and poaching. These problems lead to conflicts over the management of natural resources, which may be governed by very diverse and unclear laws and regulations. For a long time, the prevailing approach, particularly at the time when newly independent countries set up their national parks, aimed at protecting nature from man by putting it under a “bell jar”. Such policies meant that populations saw their rights to use resources in protected areas confiscated. As governments grew weaker in these countries, failure to enforce laws ended up creating increasingly free access to resources, which meant massive depletion of these resources by some individuals and conflicts over their use. A more innovative approach was taken with the move towards “participatory” projects established around protected areas. These projects involved the neighbouring communities by redistributing the benefits and establishing micro-development projects to compensate for the loss of access to protected resources. Development is still seen as a constraint rather than an opportunity for conservation, since communities do not have enough to say in the decision-making process. This means that the Government still plays a crucial role in managing protected areas. Article 3 of the Convention on Biological Diversity upholds the States’ sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies. This notion of sovereignty carries with it obligations, as well as rights. Even though it enables governments to apply such principles as the user-payer principle, it also requires them to establish a system for sharing the benefits created by the exploitation of these resources. Research has shown that there are often existing traditional resource management systems,

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which could be used as a basis for setting up decentralised management arrangements that involve all stakeholders, including the private sector, local communities and governments. These arrangements would be based on negotiation and arbitration. The fact that all stakeholders accept them would help maintain peace. It should be possible to create original and sustainable resource management and conflict-prevention systems at the intersection between traditional knowledge and legal and administrative rules. In his famous article, “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968), which really should be renamed “The Tragedy of Free Access”, Hardin advanced private ownership as the only way to guarantee efficient management of resources. However, somewhere between government ownership and private ownership, there are a diversity of forms of collective ownership, particularly in Africa, where jus soli is just one of many expressions of ownership and private property is a very special case. Thus, there are two keys to sustainable resource management: - Access to the resource needs to be regulated by rules and an enforcement system, rather than by providing compensation for the loss of access to the resource. - The nature of the decision-making process for arriving at the rules and the enforcement system is critical. The way they work is likely to be very different, depending on whether decisions are imposed by one stakeholder or negotiated and set down in a contract binding all stakeholders. The approach to land management should also be comprehensive, so as to facilitate dialogue between the different stakeholders (managers, users, owners), despite their diverging interests.

A Strategy in Keeping with France’s Development Cooperation Policies France’s development cooperation strategy is in line with international agreements, including multilateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as with the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s guidelines. The strategy should primarily consist of seeking ways to improve management of protected areas and their living resources in the countries that are France’s partners in development cooperation. The arguments and recommendations contained in this document were elaborated with the participation of the resource persons from various bodies (Ministries, government agencies, scientists, non-governmental organisations, consultants and protected area managers). This document should make a major contribution to the debates on the role of protected areas at the Durban World Parks Congress and at the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Mireille GUIGAZ Director of Development and Technical Cooperation Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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Preface

Preface

Protected areas, national parks, regional parks and other reserves are expressions of nature conservation policies that date back to the nineteenth century. At that time, isolating bits of Nature to protect wildlife seemed to be a simple, straightforward and necessarily effective strategy for conserving nature. It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that conservation was recognised as a science in its own right, with the foundation of the Society for Conservation Biology in 1985, nearly four decades after the foundation of the World Conservation Union in 1948. The science of conservation, which has embraced the misnomer “Conservation Biology”, is dominated by three major ideas: life on earth is evolving; this evolution occurs through an ecological dynamic dominated by the interactions between species and between species and their environment; and man is now omnipresent in the environment following the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Biologists developed the discipline, which focuses on biodiversity conservation and relies on the basic principles of ecology and genetics. Yet conservation biology also calls for a wider mobilisation of knowledge in natural sciences as well as human, economic and social sciences. Having said that, a look at the textbooks on the subject clearly shows that the field we are actually dealing with is scientific ecology. It is no exaggeration to say that conservation biology is a branch of ecology. Michael Soulé, one of the founding fathers, proclaimed that conservation biology was an activist science, thus making a thought-provoking break with past attitudes. Soulé said that it was not enough to record and analyse the phenomena of extinction and the processes leading up to them; we must anticipate them and counter them. The scientific training of teachers and researchers, with its comforting reference to the objectivity of science, has left them unprepared to respond to such a call to action. Conservation biology textbooks, more so that ecology textbooks, do stress that all extinction and declining biodiversity problems have scientific, economic and social aspects, which need to be given due consideration when proposing solutions. When Mark Mangel and his colleagues set out the seven principles of conservation biology, they stressed this point in the fifth principle, stating that the full range of skills and knowledge derived from the natural and social sciences should be mobilised to deal with conservation problems. Nevertheless, we call this science “conservation biology” and the people making these arguments are still biologists, ecologists and population geneticists. This creates a harmful bias, which leads to exclusion or closed-mindedness. The bias is all the more pernicious, as it is probably unconscious. This cultural bias is already impeding the implementation of a sustainable biodiversity management strategy in some developed countries. One example is France, where “Nature” is primarily made up of landscapes and areas where humans and wildlife are closely intermingled, as is the case everywhere in Europe. The bias is even stronger when we look at the situation in tropical countries, where certain observers catch a whiff of colonialist attitudes. This means a new approach is needed. This need had already been felt in the 1970s, spurring UNESCO to launch the Man and Biosphere programme, followed by the establishment of a network Biosphere Reserves, where conservation concerns were linked to development, training and education issues. Therefore, in order to conceive a strategy for development cooperation on protected areas, it was particularly important to avoid the misunderstandings and prejudices that the mention of “conservation biology”, “nature conservation” and “reserves” inevitably invoke by taking a social approach to the issues. Didier Babin sets out the problem in very clear terms, starting

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with the title of his paper: “Protected Areas: Combining Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development”. The body of his text is very consistent in scientific and strategic terms. As an ecologist and a citizen who is concerned about the implementation of a sustainable worldwide biodiversity conservation strategy, I welcome the relevance of this review. It lays the foundations and provides recommendations for a cooperation strategy for sustainable protected area management.

Professor Robert BARBAULT Department Head Ecology and Biodiversity Management Muséum national d’histoire naturelle Paris

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Preamble

Preamble

A New Direction for Development Cooperation France’s position on development has combined a drive for economic growth with concern for protecting the environment, fighting poverty and achieving social justice. Biodiversity management and sustainable development can contribute to these goals when they are based on a partnership between public sector players and civil society as part of a comprehensive and long-term approach to land-use planning. Protected areas are key sites for the implementation of such policies.

Guiding Principles for French Development Cooperation with regard to Protected Areas France’s development cooperation strategy for protected areas is based on its general cooperation principles. Regardless of the areas in which they apply, government policies on development cooperation are now in line with efforts to achieve social progress and human development by fighting poverty. Comprehensive biodiversity management is inconceivable without tackling the basic economic problems facing countries in difficulty1, or without supporting equity, social justice, education, health2 and sustainable management of the environment. The Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 held out the hope that a new model could emerge through the institutionalisation of sustainable development.

Sustainable Development Back in the 1950s, intellectual and social movements seeking a degree of symbiosis between people and nature or reacting to some of the negative environmental impact of economic growth started focusing on the links between economics and ecology. These discussions led to the use of new ideas in international forums. Maurice Strong, who was the Secretary General of the Stockholm Conference, introduced the concept of ecodevelopment in 1972 and this term emerged again in the Cocoyoc Declaration in 19743. It was replaced by the term “sustainable development” which became widespread after it was used in the “Bruntland Report”4. This report highlighted the need to ensure sustained economic growth that is compatible with careful management of natural resources and ensures intra- and inter-generational equity. At first, the term was used when speaking of the southern countries, especially with regard to agriculture and the environment. It is now used when speaking of northern countries’ policies and it is applied to all sectors of the economy. Yet the expression “sustainable development” can mean just as many things as the expression “protected area” does5. Applying such principles requires a development approach that combines ecological efficiency, economic efficiency and social progress.

Negotiation and Mediation Principles Both the Bruntland Report and the Tubiana Report6 point out that sustainable development cannot be achieved by decree; it must be negotiated. The choices to be made are collective choices that require “finding adequate mediations and appropriate forums for this democratic exercise”7. Implementing sustainable development therefore requires new governance procedures that go much further than merely giving players a say. The players concerned participate

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in the decision-making process as “stakeholders”. The asymmetry of power and information means that some of the stakeholders need support and that mediation is often critical in order to place them on an equal footing. Contracts assume that the parties to them are equal; otherwise they are merely instruments of the powers in place. These negotiations can contribute to the drafting of a new social contract for sustainable development and protected areas.

Inter-generational and intra-generational equity For a long time, the establishment of protected areas in Southern countries was justified as necessary to conserve areas with abundant wildlife, primarily in response to concerns expressed and upheld by the industrialised countries under the cover of protecting the common heritage of humanity. The demand of the Southern countries and their populations for development, as well as national sovereign rights over biological resources enshrined in the Convention on Biological Diversity, imply that conservation of resources for future generations8 must not be achieved at the expense of current generations.

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Executive Summary

Executive Summary Are Protected Areas Outmoded Concepts or Models for the Future?

about sweeping changes in how protected area management decisions are made. Local communities in and around the areas, international and local non-governmental organisations, along with elected officials or traditional leaders are often active participants in the decision-making process. New players, such as tourism industry operators or business operators, are gradually gaining a say in decision-making too.

For a long time, the elements that were cited to justify decisions to establish protected areas were based on notions of rarity and establishment of collections of living beings. Protected areas were primarily known for the “flagship” species found there, which are often endangered, or for their magnificent scenery. Knowledge and management efforts were therefore focused on conserving certain species and presumed natural balances.

Protected Areas Are Long-term Societal Projects Recent changes in the criteria for establishing and managing protected areas have been introduced with an eye to land-use planning. Other selection criteria have been put forward, but they enjoy less international support. These include ecological service criteria. France’s regional natural parks and its new biosphere reserves seem to be precursors for land-use planning aimed combining the opposing interests of biodiversity conservation and economic development, or even producing mutual benefits for both.

Results Were Often Disappointing In most cases the results of protected area management were disappointing with regard to the resources committed. Many donors feel that protected area management has not yet produced the expected results. Several major reasons for this are suggested: • Conservation objectives cannot be met through management of protected areas alone. Action is also needed outside of these areas or in conjunction with them. • In the past, protected area management had a negative impact on local development by restricting action, through evictions, arrest of local populations, conflicts of interest between the local population and the protected area managers, damage to crops caused by wildlife, etc. This negative impact was rarely offset by equivalent benefits. • The rationale of development projects, in which an initiative is promoted by creating the right conditions for generating self-funding, is not easy to apply in sectors that are not productive, such as protected areas. Self-financing protected areas are the exception rather than the rule.

International Agreements and Protected Areas The major international agreements show how governments’ concerns and focal points have evolved. Conventions on nature conservation primarily deal with conservation of species and areas, and then with biodiversity. Some fifty international agreements have been signed since the end of the Second World War. Half of them establish binding rules, obligations or incentives for creating or managing protected areas, but few of them provide for accompanying measures to support the protected areas. In line with the World Conservation Strategy drawn up by the World Conservation Union in 1980, the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity affirms that conservation of biological diversity is a common concern for humankind and thus establishes a degree of international solidarity. Even though the Convention reaffirms countries’ sovereign rights over their own biological resources,

Under New Management Protected areas were once almost exclusively managed by specialised government agencies. They are now under new, diverse forms of management. The emergence of new players on the international and local scene has brought

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several of its articles encourage cooperation on political, scientific and technical matters. Article 8 recognises in-situ conservation as the preferred conservation method, particularly through systems of protected areas. By ratifying the Convention on Biological Diversity, France committed itself to taking part in international cooperation on the Convention’s three objectives: conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of utilisation of genetic resources.

where its implementation requires a development approach that combines ecological efficiency, economic efficiency and social progress.

Adapting France’s Support for Protected Areas France’s development cooperation policy on managing protected areas and their living resources was very patchy up until the end of the 1970s. The 1980s saw a steady flow of assistance, concentrated mainly on technical management and training support for dealing with large wild animals, particularly in African countries with savannah regions. This policy was maintained in the 1990s, but diversified with regard to the topics and regions covered in response to international and local concerns. The political will to conserve and develop biological diversity gradually shifted the management of protected areas away from conservation of species towards more dynamic and comprehensive ecosystem management, which increasingly factored in humans and human activity. The creation of the French World Environment Fund in 1994 made it possible to coordinate the action of France’s development cooperation partners to support protected areas. The action of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the French World Environment Fund gradually expanded into developing biodiversity outside of protected areas and other issues relating to global climate change (monitoring, carbon sequestration, etc.) French development cooperation on managing protected areas and biological diversity distinguishes itself from that of other countries by its affirmation of the role that humans play in ecosystem management, the low level of participation by non-governmental organisations and the life sciences industry, and strong capacities for research and training.

The Overarching Principles of French Development Cooperation on Protected Areas The United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, institutionalised and linked the issues of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development at international level. Following the Conference, France affirmed its position on development cooperation by underpinning the focus on economic growth with concern for social progress and human development through the fight against poverty, support for equity, social justice, education, health and sustainable environmental management. Biodiversity conservation and sustainable development can contribute to these objectives when they are based on a partnership between public sector players and civil society as part of a comprehensive and long-term approach to land-use planning. Protected areas are key sites for implementation of such policies. The development cooperation strategy on protected areas management should be based on these general cooperation principles and on their implementation through the notion of sustainable development. This notion was explained in the 1987 “Bruntland Report” to the UNCTAD. It stresses the need to ensure sustained economic growth that is compatible with careful management of natural resources and that ensures intragenerational and inter-generational equity. For a long time the notion of sustainable development referred only to the Southern countries, especially with regard to agriculture and the environment. It is now used when speaking of Northern countries’ policies and it is applied to all sectors of the economy. Sustainable development has also become a challenge for international cooperation,

A New Planning and Action Framework Management of protected areas and biodiversity is inconceivable without a long-term outlook and due consideration of different scales of biological organisation, ranging from genetic change to landscape dynamics under the influence of local and global, man-made and climatic changes. Yet cooperation instruments are usually designed to deal with short-term and medium-term projects.

Protected Areas Strategy 14

Executive Summary

Therefore, these instruments need to be incorporated into a broader outlook and adapted to the specificities of protected area management. Cooperation strategy should be grounded in a consultative partnership approach at local and international level. The challenge facing us is to modernise and adapt cooperation instruments so that we can manage world public goods, such as biodiversity, and still maintain synergy with continuing and stronger economic development and the fight against poverty.

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Recommandations

Recommandations The recommendations of the cooperation strategy for protected area management express a doctrine for action based on the answers to simple questions: Where to act? With whom? How? And, with what resources?

between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. For this purpose, the priority for assistance actions could be countries where people are present in or near protected areas and where the processes enable these men and women to have a say in the management of their land. The potential for resource management and development by the local population is therefore just as important as quantitative data about biodiversity are. Action needs to focus primarily on capacity building and support for institutions. With this in mind, the initial choice of protected areas is just as critical as the accompanying measures and monitoring/assessment efforts relating to actions.

1. Focusing Action and Building Lasting Partnerships The geographical strategy of support for protected areas must be in line with the priorities of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French government and, more particularly, with the focus on the Priority Solidarity Zone and the Least Developed Countries. Priorities are often linked to general policy concerns regarding partnerships that need to be established or strengthened. Therefore, it would seem to be judicious to forge long-lasting cooperation links with some countries and partners. The choice of countries and partners could be determined by working with such countries to assess how well their current and future policies fit in with France’s development cooperation strategy for protected area management. Choices with regard to actions should be determined by identifying local initiatives, multilateral action strategies and synergies with other sectorspecific French development cooperation actions. The choice of actions should also be based on identification of areas of high biological and ecological value and/or endangered areas. The strategy could put the priority for action on areas designated by the Ecosystem Conservation Group, an international group for coordinating ecosystem conservation, while remaining aware of political and economic issues relating to information about biodiversity. The strategy could develop its own independent information systems, if necessary. The strategy shall be in synergy with the regional networks of protected areas. This approach should be incorporated into a biogeographical and temporal outlook to use these networks and protected areas to be designated in the future as biodiversity reserves to help cope with foreseeable climatic changes. The selection criteria increasingly need to favour actions aimed at achieving synergy

2. Factoring Protected Areas into Views on Land-use Planning and Sustainable Development Protected areas are components of a broader view of land-use planning and sustainable development. Protected areas need to be designated and managed in synergy and in coherence with overall management policies outside of the protected areas and they need to give due consideration to the outlook for social and economic change. Conserving biodiversity in the protected areas alone amounts to a tacit acceptance of its destruction outside those areas. Many other areas can also make equally important contributions to conserving and developing biodiversity. Therefore, the cooperation strategy should support land-use planning and sustainable development policies at national level by incorporating dynamic biodiversity management and the role of the protected areas into these policies. At international level, the strategy should ensure the synergy of protected areas with networks to cope with global changes.

3. Better Coordination of Cooperation Partners The interweaving of policies for managing protected areas, biodiversity and sustainable development makes coherence of official development assistance policies critical. It makes it necessary to

Protected Areas Strategy 17

5. Promoting Efforts to Assess and Capitalise Projects for Monitoring Oversight of Protected Areas and Compiling a Cooperation Memory Bank

strengthen coordination and transparency in order to minimise conflicts and reduce externalities. Official development assistance must reinforce or complement favourable actions. Acting on this recommendation will require integration of protected area management into cross-sector policies that may or may not relate directly to biodiversity and protected areas. This includes such policies as national sustainable development plans, biodiversity strategies, land-use plans, and tourism development. This would be facilitated by setting up technical committees to coordinate French development assistance on these subjects. Synergy needs to be improved between donors at international level, along with coordination within the multi-donor secretariats in the recipient countries.

Genuine assessment of innovations with regard to their implementation and their ecological, social and economic impact is critical for overseeing protected area management and to ensure that, ultimately, the conditions are right for making assistance unnecessary. Assessment is also needed when we consider how innovations can be transposed to other places and disseminated. This will require the development of a genuine monitoring/assessment and communication culture. Irreversible damage to biodiversity must be prevented. The precautionary approach is required for protected area management. We need to set up mechanisms for taking action and making assessments that enable us to adapt management to situations of relative uncertainty and informing the decision-making process as knowledge and contexts change. Expertise and research into the ecological and man-made dynamics of biodiversity inside and outside protected areas can underpin the decision-making process and the stakeholders can call upon them to inform their choices so that they can decide with a better understanding of the facts. A standing support unit for protected area projects could be set up in France to manage a system for accumulating and disseminating knowledge and experience with regard to protected area management to local populations and managers. This would call for standardised procedures for assessing the value and limitations of organisational, institutional, economic, technical and technological innovations in protected areas. It would also require the development of information and communication methods and tools for the stakeholders involved in the protected area management process.

4. Supporting Organisational, Institutional, Economic and Technical Innovation The various players involved in the complex and difficult task of protected area management are vying with each other to discover and test new procedures, tools and techniques. Protected areas are key sites for innovation. We need to encourage innovative, pioneering and reproducible initiatives. More specifically, we need to encourage thinking about protected area development that would enable these areas to become self-financing and that would provide safeguards ensuring that they become part of a manageable and ecologically viable economic system. We need to improve the professional quality of initiatives to develop protected areas and, more specifically, financial and ecotourism systems. The use of the genetic resources, knowledge, innovations and practices of populations living in or near protected areas must result in “fair and equitable” sharing of any benefits. Cooperation strategy can reinforce government institutions in the contractualisation of government action concerning protected areas. We need to promote initiatives based on a management partnership, with roles for central government and local skills. We also need to be aware of the ethical aspects of these approaches and refrain from any attempts at social experimentation. The projects need to comply with an ethical code yet to be defined. They need to protect the dignity of the individuals and populations concerned.

6. Capacity building Capacity building in the Southern countries is one of the keystones for any development policy. It concerns all of the local and national players involved in protected area management. Action for effective local and national capacity building should be the priority for support, along with sharing knowledge between local players and projects.

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Recommandations

7. Adapting Procedures to Improve Action in Protected Areas

On a more general level, capacity building should also make it possible to inform players of global cooperation policies that may have an impact on protected area management. This can be done by providing training to development cooperation players in other areas or sectors on the synergy between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. France’s tradition of training in development cooperation in this area could be enhanced by promoting exchanges between protected area managers in the Southern countries, by giving new impetus to training of researchers and managers in Southern countries and by applying the subsidiarity principle to expert advice. This would promote the development of national capacity by limiting reliance on international advisers to cases where there is inadequate local expertise. French expertise should also be developed further so that it plays a much greater role than it currently does on the world stage. The French World Environment Fund, the French Development Agency and France’s participation in international negotiations on issues related to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development are all instruments for enhancing France’s expertise.

The rationale and constraints of some projects may raise specific problems when applied to protected area management. Implementation of projects should be planned over longer periods of about ten years. The goals of protected area projects should be spelled out, as well as the means of making a priori and a posteriori assessments of impacts and externalities. In view of the shift in policies towards synergy between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, social science capabilities need to be improved to play a part in projects and project participants need to be trained in interdisciplinary working skills. Implementation conditions could be improved substantially at every stage in the project cycle. More overall flexibility is required to enable projects to adapt to local contexts. This means more flexibility for project planning, financing and management. Project managers could be given more decision-making power over these aspects.

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Changing definition and concept

Changing Definition and Concept of Protected Areas What Is a Protected Area?

also includes objectives, exclusions or restrictions on activities, regulatory measures, legal status, land-use plans and management programmes. The IUCN classification breaks protected areas down into 6 categories according to management approaches. According to this classification, there are currently some 30,000 protected areas in the world covering nearly 13 million square kilometres, or nearly 10% of the earth’s land area.

The term “protected area”, as used in this document, refers to protected areas in the meaning of the IUCN (World Conservation Union) categories, but it includes other areas that are not covered by these categories. Many types of protected areas exist by virtue of a specific legal status, such as national parks, regional nature

IUCN Management Categories for Protected Areas10 I. II. and III. IV. V. VI.

Strict protection: protected areas managed mainly for science or wilderness protection (Ia Strict Nature Reserve / Ib Wilderness Area) Ecosystem conservation and tourism: protected areas managed mainly for ecosystem protection recreation (National Parks) Conservation of natural features: protected areas managed mainly for conseervation of specific natural features (Natural Monuments) Conservation through active management measures: protected areas managed mainly for conservation through management intervention (Habitat/Species Management Areas) Landscape/seascape conservation and recreation: protected areas managed mainly for landscape/seascape protection and recreation (Protected Landscapes/Seascapes) Sustainable use of natural ecosystems: protected areas managed mainly for the sustainable use of natural ecosystems (Managed Resource Protected Areas)

parks, nature reserves, game reserves, bird refuges and protected forests. Others have a social or cultural status, such as world heritage sites, refuges, sacred forests, spiritual or ancestral seats and creation sites. Others are defined by reference to their purpose, such as conservation, production, research, sightseeing, use of resources, landscape preservation, building restrictions or sustainable development. And still others are defined by reference to a timeframe, which may be unlimited, limited, permanent or subject to review, or to their size, which may be a whole country, a mountain range, a ranching area or a pond. Yet, analysis of the expression “protected area” reveals common elements: • a notion of geographical and physical limits; • a cultural, political or biological value in the past, present or future; • reference to possible harm from a danger; • a system for preventing the danger. For many people the notion of protected area

A Historical and Conceptual Approach to Protected Areas11 Setting aside protected areas is undoubtedly one of the oldest tools for managing living resources. Many civilisations that use living resources have had sacred places throughout history, where the species concerned can complete part of their life cycle. For centuries, normally recognised protected areas have been established, particularly in Europe, for the purpose of protecting especially useful resources. This is true of the game reserves or forest reserves that were established to manage and make better use of resources for the benefit of minorities or governments. African animal reserves were established in the twentieth century primarily to conserve some species that were favourites for hunters and zoos. Similarly, the protection of forests in Western Africa has often been justified

Protected Areas Strategy 21

by the demand for materials for building and supplying railway networks. In these examples, the protected areas are seen as tools for protecting nature that is useful to humans. Management of these areas focuses on a few target species in order to increase numbers and conserve the genetic heritage. The impact on other aspects of biological diversity is a secondary consideration. Human activities can be tolerated in these areas, as long as they do not threaten the target species. Another vision of protected areas developed in the United States at the instigation of John Muir of the Sierra Club and Gifford Pinchot, who was the Director of the Forest Service at the end of the nineteenth century. This led to the foundation of a conservation and utilitarian movement aimed at promoting the distribution of the material wealth produced by using natural resources, with the goal of providing welfare and progress for all to share12. This approach was applied with the creation of national parks to conserve scenic sites and to preserve or recreate the landscape as it was when it was discovered by Europeans in the fifteenth century. All this was done to satisfy crowds of visitors13. The approach was then exported with the establishment of protected areas in relatively spacious countries, where some areas seemed to be largely undisturbed by recent human activity. The determination behind this approach was to preserve “virgin” wilderness. There is a mystical aspect to this approach and, in a way, it represents an attempt to recreate a Garden of Eden. This is particularly true in America, Australia, the Middle East and Southern Africa, where vast parks and nature reserves have been established. For a long time, the implementation of this approach was based on the phytosociological concept of “climax” plant communities and supposed states of equilibrium in natural environments. In fact, protecting these natural areas from outside intervention gradually changed them and, in some cases, the change meant that the initial value they were protecting was lost. There were some spectacular failures at conserving ecosystems, since their temporal and spatial dynamics could no longer express themselves14. The limitations and failures of protected area management made it possible to revise the approaches and to adopt the concept that ecosystems are in a permanent state of disequilibrium. Of course, this concept of putting protected areas under a bell jar meant the total absence or

expulsion of humans, other than scientists or tourists. Many protected areas were thus created in areas with very sparse human populations or in uninhabited regions. Elsewhere, protected areas were created by evicting the human populations that inhabited them or carried out some of their activities there. “Clearance” procedures occurred in several countries. Many, many conflicts between populations and protected areas emerged. The consequences were sometimes disastrous for the survival or health of human populations that had formerly harvested resources from the areas concerned. The destruction of traditional systems for allocating and managing these areas and resources, and the ineffectiveness of new control systems led to de facto open access in some cases. This conservation tragedy greatly discredited these types of procedures and led to moves to factor humans back into the protected area rationale. At the initiative of UNESCO, under its intergovernmental research programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), the concept of Biosphere Reserves started to develop in the mid-1970s. Biosphere reserves attempt to conserve biodiversity and biological resources through sustainable use. Humans are at the heart of the concerns as they form an integral part of ecosystems. Ecosystem management, research and education are critical elements in this approach. Countries can voluntarily nominate areas that fulfil the criteria for inclusion in the world network of biosphere reserves. Periodic reviews are conducted, every ten years as a rule, to confirm the inclusion of the site on the UNESCO list. Biosphere Reserves are made up of a core area, a buffer zone and a transition area. The protected area is generally laid out in concentric rings, which are less and less protected against human activities, with a hard core at the centre. The model is that of a fruit protecting the seed at its core. This theoretical model has been applied in many places. Even though it did make it possible to protect the core area, following the eviction of human populations in some cases, it has created new problems in the surrounding areas. In other countries, where human activity in rural areas is more intense, other approaches attempt to integrate human activities into a conservation outlook. The recent trend makes more of an attempt to design protected area models as land-use plans for local and regional areas and plans for sustainable development of human activities. This factors humans back into

Protected Areas Strategy 22

Changing definition and concept

the model and makes local populations partners in protected area management. Starting in the 1990s, Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) in several countries attempted to find social and economic solutions to the ecological problems of protected areas. The results of these projects do not look very positive. They have been criticised for not really trying to integrate conservation and development and focusing instead on diverting human pressures from conservation areas onto the surrounding areas. Furthermore, and this was often the case with “participatory” projects, the ICDPs rapidly established repressive conservation methods, whereas the development methods were experimental and marginal. The gap between theory and practice in ICDPs could give rise to doubts about the feasibility of combining biodi-

African countries with agreed charters for conservation and management and private landowners’ initiatives including the game ranches created in Zimbabwe by pooling private land holdings.

New Reasons for Establishing Protected Areas Including humans in the vision for protected areas has led to a sweeping renewal of the benefits that can be derived from such areas. The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas has analysed these benefits according to the economic categories of natural assets15. Despite the scientific limitations and ethical difficulties of such an approach, this classification helps us determine the objectives and management procedures of a protected area. It also helps us identify the

Benefits of use Direct use Recreation Sustainable harvesting Wildlife harvesting Fuelwood Grazing Agriculture Gene harvesting Education Research

Indirect use

Benefits of non-use Option

Bequest

Ecosystem services Future information Climate stabilisation Future uses (direct Flood control and indirect) Groundwater recharge Carbon sequestering Habitat Nutrient retention Natural disaster prevention Watershed protection Natural services

Use and non-use Values for legacy

Existence Biodiversity Ritual or spiritual values Culture, heritage, community values Landscape

economic agents that benefit from the protected area in order to find new financing sources. A matrix of management objectives and IUCN protected area management categories16 shows which types of protected areas are most appropriate for which objectives (following page).

versity conservation and sustainable development in protected areas. Paradoxically, this gap also raises doubts about the participation of stakeholders in protected area management. The ICDPs did reveal the obstacles that still need to be overcome and the need for genuine integration of conservation and development. There has been a renewal of protected area models based on local community initiatives, such as the Extractive Reserves created by forest dwelling communities in South America, Pilot Village Hunting Areas in the Central African Republic, Wildlife Management Areas in Tanzania, or decentralised entities, such as France’s Regional Nature Parks. Local communities have also created Sanctuaries on common land in several Southern

Current Changes in Southern Countries Are Protected Areas an Outmoded Concept? The United Nations list of protected areas shows that there has been a big increase in the number of areas and a huge increase in the size of officially protected areas around the world since

Protected Areas Strategy 23

IUCN protected area management category Management objectives Ia

Ib

II

III

IV

V

VI

Scientific research

1

3

2

2

2

2

3

Wilderness protection

2

1

2

3

3

-

2

Preservation of species and genetic diversity

1

2

1

1

1

2

1

Maintenance of environmental services

2

1

1

-

1

2

1

Protection of specific natural and cultural features

-

-

2

1

3

1

3

Tourism and recreation

-

2

1

1

3

1

3

Education

-

2

2

2

3

2

3

Sustainable use of resources from natural ecosystems

-

3

3

-

2

2

1

Maintenance of cultural and traditional attributes

-

-

-

-

-

1

2

1: Primary objective 2: Secondary objective 3: Potentially applicable objective -: Not applicable

1940. But this type of indication obscures the very diverse reasons for nominating protected areas under the various international agreements and the actual management resources available for these areas. Some observers think that protected areas are an outmoded concept. According to them, the term “protected” refers to an outlook that is too negative, static and repressive. They compare protected areas to prisons. For some, the word “area” isolates them from other human activities. In fact, protected areas represent the appropriation of an area by politicians, technicians and specialists. The administration or institution managing an area comes to believe that it owns it. This type of behaviour leads to conflicts between managers and users or neighbours of protected areas. Protected areas reflect special perceptions of how space is organised and how humans relate to nature. The many players involved in managing protected areas rarely share the same perceptions. Perceptions can be totally opposed, with society in developed countries expressing a demand for wilderness conservation in the Southern countries, while the latter wish to use their natural resources for their own development.

Disappointing Results There is no denying that some protected areas have made it possible to conserve large wild animals. In some regions, many living resources or types of ecosystems have disappeared or been seriously damaged outside of the protected areas. Often, the economic role of these resources or areas is critical. Wild animals are harvested for meat; land is used for migratory herding, game hunting and sight seeing17. Protected areas require substantial operating resources and, with a few rare exceptions, they do not generate much income18. In most cases the results achieved through management of protected areas are disappointing with regard to the resources committed. Often, there are no reliable methods for assessing results and impacts. Therefore, it is not realistic to try to establish a precise and authoritative assessment of the overall effectiveness of protected areas. Many donors feel that protected area management has not yet produced the expected results. Several major reasons for this are suggested: • Conservation objectives cannot be met through management of protected areas alone. Action is also needed outside of these areas or in conjunction with them.

Protected Areas Strategy 24

Changing definition and concept

The Main Development Cooperation Players for Protected Areas

• In the past, protected area management had a negative impact on local development by restricting action, through evictions, arrest of local populations, conflicts of interest between the local population and the protected area managers, damage to crops caused by wildlife, etc. This negative impact was rarely offset by equivalent benefits.

Changing International Players International players have a long-standing interest in protected areas and their resources. A convention on conserving wildlife in Africa was signed in London back in 1900, but it was never ratified and it was replaced by the 1933 agreement, which called explicitly for the creation of national parks and reserves. This direct involvement of governments changed after the Second World War, when the international bodies created by the United Nations took over in the name of world governance. At present, protected areas mainly concern specialised international organisations, such as UNEP, UNESCO and IUCN, along with the multilateral funding providers, such as the World Bank and the European Union, some of the European cooperation agencies from the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Germany and France, the Canadian International Development Agency and non-governmental organisations or foundations, such as the WWF, CI and WRI. Current guidelines for cooperation are based on the lessons learned from the failings and shortcomings of earlier strategies. For example, in 1999, the European Commission asked the World Commission on Protected Areas to set key policy guidelines20 for effective management of protected areas and needs for donors and partners. The Commission of the European Communities’ Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) calls for a specific Action 7 for conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in protected areas: «The EC will support developing countries to make full use of all six IUCN categories for conservation and sustainable use. This should focus upon the participatory review of the conflicts and opportunities, local livelihood improvements and income generation from the use of protected areas. It includes EC funding complementary to conservationfocused GEF investments21. For its part, the IUCN is preparing to hold the fifth World Parks Congress. The challenge for this Congress will be to demonstrate how protected areas fit into the general economic, social and environmental programme for humanity in the twentyfirst century. The main challenges have been identified as, «moving from an “island” to “network” view of protected areas, mainstreaming protected

• The rationale of development projects, in which an initiative is promoted by creating the right conditions for obtaining funding, is not easy to apply in sectors that are not productive, such as protected areas. Self-financing protected areas are the exception rather than the rule. Policies for supporting protected areas seem to be going through a period of crisis. Lasting institutions and, more especially, financial viability for protected areas still cannot be taken for granted. Furthermore, democratic changes in many countries have curbed means of control and enforcement, without providing effective replacement systems. Fiscal restrictions can imperil the survival of protected areas in some cases.

Under New Management In the last few years, protected areas in the public domain have come under new management. They were formerly the exclusive preserve of specialised government agencies (Water and Forest Administrations, Environment Administrations, National Parks, etc.) The central government was seen as the sole defender of the general interest and, therefore, it managed these protected areas on its own and often in opposition to all those who, in its view, could pose a threat to them. This single-handed management has, on the surface at least, been replaced by a degree of openness and a pluralistic perception of the responsibilities and powers of the players concerned by protected areas. The emergence of new players on the international and local scene has brought about sweeping changes in how decisions are made with respect to the management of protected areas. Local communities in and around the areas, international and local non-governmental organisations, along with elected officials or traditional leaders are often active participants in the decision-making process19. New players, such as tourism industry operators or business operators, are gradually gaining a say in decision making too.

Protected Areas Strategy 25

areas into other areas of public policy, managing protected areas by, for and with local communities, not against them, and, raising management standards and building capacities to this end»22.

very close to government bodies and international organisations. Sometimes their relationships are defined by contracts or agreements. They recruit some of the best specialists, which sometimes means that they have more scientific clout than government bodies. However, they often have to send out a caricatured or oversimplified message in order to raise funds and motivate their activists. They also have to limit themselves to flagship causes and short-term actions for the same reasons.

Scientists When protected areas are sheltered from the impact of human activities they can become veritable laboratories that enable the scientific community to work towards a better understanding of the dynamics of biodiversity. This function is still very important for some categories of protected areas, and notably for those under strict protection (IUCN Category I). In Biosphere Reserves, research is also a key activity, alongside conservation and education. However, this objective can lead to abuses of authority or management. The scientific community has no legitimate role in decision-making and must not take the place of decision-makers. The new role for research is to support the process by providing known elements and an indication of unknowns to inform decisions.

Governments and government agencies The role of national governments in protected area management has changed. As contractualisation of government action increases, the transfer of protected area management to non-government bodies changes the nature of the governments’ responsibilities. Of course, governments still set policies on protected areas and are still responsible for procedures concerning them. The governments’ action is critical for the success of action by local communities and by local authorities, as well as for the emergence of civil society. Government administration now needs to change to adapt to the new context.

New Players

Local populations and communities in and around protected areas

Non-governmental organisations Many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have staked their claim to issues relating to the environment, natural resources and biodiversity in recent years. But, since the Earth Summit in Rio in June 1992, their positions have been strengthened in both institutional and financial terms. NGOs have long sought an active role in decisionmaking and protected area management. Their participation is growing and has narrowed the ideological gap between conservation NGOs and administrations and donors. Some NGOs are now more professional and have become veritable business undertakings, with hundreds of employees in some cases. They have grown increasingly dependent on government and private assistance systems and projects. In addition, they have started to compete for financing and alliances. However, there is a division of labour between the various NGOs and their strategy in such cases is to join forces on certain issues or actions. Thus, NGOs have forged more and more links to the other players. Financial and structural links tie some NGOs to private companies and government institutions. Some NGOs are

Local populations are just as able as governments to adapt to the expectations of assistance donors and project managers, as long as the projects can help them advance their own interests. Local resentment of protected areas varies greatly. It often depends on how relations between local populations and government administrators are managed. For example, people from the generations that were evicted from protected areas sometimes still make demands for restitution of their former land and resources. Younger generations do not necessarily feel the same way. In some places, their activities and plans can even benefit from the proximity of a protected area. Some populations have more recently moved to be near protected areas. These people are attracted by the benefits that they derive in terms of living resources and economic activity. Sometimes, the new arrivals capitalise on confusion about the rules applying to “original inhabitants” to make their own demands. However, it is a difficult and time-consuming task to identify the interests in protected areas

Protected Areas Strategy 26

Changing definition and concept

does not inevitably hold true, even though the areas and resources are not under private ownership. One of the distinguishing characteristics of these systems is their ability to evolve as events unfold and their adaptability to changing organisational and legal structures. The establishment of modern governments, particularly in Africa, has sometimes made the traditional systems less visible. Positive law and traditional law often overlap. This form of legal pluralism can be used to come up with original solutions for dispute management and controlling access to resources.

and their resources, or in the measures taken by outside players. Some communities or populations may have a positive engagement with a protected area, while others may be opposed to the management structure of the same area or the regulations governing it. In many cases, there are “model” villages that favour protected areas and play a genuine role in their management. There are also population groups that rebel against them and make their own demands. These positions can become more extreme when protected area managers reward the “good” population groups and penalise the “bad” ones.

Businesses and private landowners Elected officials and traditional leaders

Some activities in protected areas may be profitable and attract business firms. This is particularly true when protected areas are developed for sports hunters or sightseers using outside funding. Tourism companies develop such activities and so do private landowners and even local communities.

Decentralisation in many countries has given rise to a new category of protected area management players. It covers local elected officials, who are now involved in protected area projects. These officials sometimes take coordinated action to promote local conservation and development policies23. Elsewhere, traditional land and living resource management systems are still in place in many regions. They prove that the open access theory

Protected Areas Strategy 27

International Agreements

International Agreements and Protected Areas The major international agreements show how governments’ concerns and attention with regard to conserving nature have changed. International treaties are contracts that express the will of governments. They can be used to identify which rules governments are willing to comply with. They are different from the non-binding international legal standards set at intergovernmental conferences, such as the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development, Agenda 21, etc.24 They also differ from the standards set by intergovernmental organisations such the General Assembly of the UN, the OECD, UNESCO or the IUCN. In addition to pollution prevention, these conventions primarily deal with conservation of species, areas and, then, biodiversity. This change can also be seen in European Union legislation, such as the Directives on birds (1979), baby seals (1983), habitats, fauna and flora (1992), protected areas and biodiversity in the Mediterranean (1995). Some fifty international agreements have been signed since the end of the Second World War. Protected areas are one of the most common arrangements set out in international agreements. Half of them establish binding rules, obligations or incentives for creating or managing protected areas, but few of them provide for accompanying measures to support the protected areas25.

ments, the dangers threatening the stocks or survival of the species are preponderant. The first argument for protection of areas was their natural beauty, as seen in the 1940 Convention on Nature Protection and Wild Life Preservation in the Western Hemisphere. The 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (Paris Convention) underpins this argument by identifying sites of outstanding universal value and drawing up a list of World Heritage Sites. At the same time, as more was learned about ecology, the importance of habitats for species conservation became clearer. This was incorporated into agreements, starting with the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat, followed by several agreements on marine and coastal species, including the 1976 Convention on Conservation of Nature in the South Pacific, the 1981 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the 1983 Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, the 1985 Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region, the 1986 Convention for the Protection of the Natural Resources and Environment of the South Pacific Region and the 1976 Geneva Protocol Concerning Mediterranean Specially Protected Areas. These international agreements support the development of areas and rational management of harvested species. All of them highlight the creation of protected areas as an appropriate conservation measure. Similarly, following the 1959 Antarctica Treaty, which calls for sharing scientific information about Antarctica and bans any nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive waste in Antarctica, a 1991 protocol on environmental protection designates Antarctica as a nature reserve devoted to peace and science. With the 1991 International Convention on the Protection of the Alps (Alpine Convention), the purpose has been expanded to include environmental protection in the Alps and ensuring economic development that is consistent with

International Agreements on Species and Areas The first international agreement on nature conservation was signed in 1946. It was the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (International Whaling Convention), which regulates whaling to ensure effective and rational conservation and promotion of whale species. This same concern for managing species that are harvested and traded can be seen in the 1972 Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals. This concern was then more or less generalised by the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The Bonn Convention organises the conservation of migratory species of wild animals with ranges that cover more than one country. In each of these agree-

Protected Areas Strategy 29

sustainable development. This agreement laid the groundwork for environmental protection measures on a much broader range of issues, such as regional planning, water management, tourism and recreation, transport and waste management.

The objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity can be accomplished in protected areas. As these are world public goods, it is only logical that supranational assistance should support action to manage protected areas. «If developing countries conserve resources of interest to the world, such as biodiversity, then it is legitimate for this service rendered to the international community to be remunerated, either through official development assistance or in other ways.»27 The Convention on Biological Diversity breaks new ground in more ways than one. Article 8 recognises in-situ conservation as the preferred conservation method, particularly through systems of protected areas28. The Convention on Biological Diversity is the first international agreement to include a clause that encourages the management of resources by local populations because the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities are relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity29. Some observers felt that the Convention was an attempt to establish equity between countries by upholding the Southern countries’ appropriation of biological resources, so as to ensure financial and technology transfers from the developed countries30. After the loss of enthusiasm following UNCTAD in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity was mostly seen as concerned with conservation and worldwide use of the medical and industrial potential of genetic resources31.

Convention on Biological Diversity The United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, institutionalised the issues of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development at international level and brought them into the media spotlight. The 1992 Rio Convention on Biological Diversity affirms that conservation of biological diversity is a common concern for humankind and thus establishes a degree of international solidarity. Article 2 of the Convention provides the following definition of biological diversity: «the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.» By ratifying the Convention, France committed itself to taking part in international cooperation on its three objectives: conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of utilisation of genetic resources. The Convention on Biological Diversity is one of the few international agreements that makes an explicit reference to the duty of cooperating to protect species and areas26. Even though the Convention reaffirms States’ sovereign rights over their own biological resources, several of its articles encourage cooperation on political, scientific and technical matters. Similarly, Principle 7 of the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development stipulates that, «States shall cooperate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem. In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.»

Consequences for Protected Area Management The trends in major international agreements reflect those in the perception of protected areas. For a long time, protected areas were primarily known for the “flagship” species found there, which are often endangered, or for their magnificent scenery. Knowledge and management therefore focused on conservation of certain species and presumed natural equilibriums. For a long time, the elements that were cited to justify decisions to establish protected areas stemmed from the notions of rarity and collections of living beings. A look at the history of protected areas shows that there have been important changes nonetheless. In French-speaking Africa, many of the hunting reserves established during colonial times were later turned into parks in keeping with

Protected Areas Strategy 30

International Agreements

contemporary concerns. Image considerations mean that fund providers still have a strong attachment to areas with flagship species, even when such species are not endangered. With the advent of the Convention on Biological Diversity, protected areas are now justified in terms of the biodiversity found and conserved in them. In fact, the number and the rarity of species32 found in them get more attention than their actual diversity. The species conservation approach has gradually given way to an

ecosystem management approach, which is more dynamic and comprehensive. It also incorporates humans and human activities. However, the benefits of choosing flagship species cannot be overlooked, especially when it comes to their power to raise public awareness and to attract funding for conservation. The ecosystem approach called for in the Conference of the Parties of the Convention of Biological Diversity33 can be applied in its entirety to protected areas.

The twelve management principles of the ecosystem approach34 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

The objectives of management of land, water and living resources are a matter of societal choice. Management should be decentralised to the lowest appropriate level. Ecosystem managers should consider the effects (actual or potential) of their activities on adjacent or other ecosystems. Recognising potential gains from management, there is a need to understand the ecosystem in an economic context. Conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should be a priority target of the ecosystem approach. Ecosystems must be managed within the limits of their functioning. The ecosystem approach should be undertaken at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales. Recognising the various temporal scales and lag-effects that characterise ecosystem processes, objectives for ecosystem management should be set for the long term. Management must recognise that change is inevitable. The ecosystem approach should seek the appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation and use of biological diversity. The ecosystem approach should consider all forms of relevant information, including scientific and indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices. The ecosystem approach should involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines. The following five points are proposed as operational guidance for applying the ecosystem approach:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Focus on the functions of biodiversity within ecosystems. Promote fair and equitable access to the benefits derived from the functions of biodiversity in ecosystems. Use adaptive management practices. Carry out management actions at the scale appropriate for the issue being addressed, with decentralisation to the lowest level, as appropriate. Ensure intersectoral cooperation.

Protected Areas Strategy 31

Implementation proposals

Implementation Proposals for French Development Cooperation on Protected Areas In consideration of the major changes in knowledge about protected area management and the recommendations of international organisations, implementation of French development cooperation on protected areas should be based primarily on a very long-term view of the issues.

account. As a result, other users have to be recognised as bona fide participants in the process and methods need to be devised to coordinate action35. This will also require expanding the range of skills to be brought into the process, from conservation biology (complexity, habitat, scaling problems, retrospective and iterative assessments of impact, overlaps in data series, interactions) to economic and social policy skills (negotiations, public policy, information systems, mediation, trade-offs, etc.) Protected areas should be seen as spatial structures where the operating rules are different outside of the area, but also with links between the interior and the exterior. Protected areas are not isolated. This is true in more ways than one.

Factoring Protected Areas into Views on Land-use Planning and Sustainable Development A policy to establish protected areas obviously has to deal with spatial limits. Restricting action to protected areas will not protect biodiversity, action needs to cover whole countries. Many other areas can make just as much of a contribution to conserving and developing biodiversity. Biodiversity also exists in farming, not just in wildlife. Humans can create and maintain the right conditions for promoting biodiversity or they can destroy them. Therefore, creation and management of protected areas need to underpin and extend general resource management policies applied outside of protected areas. Under this approach, protected areas are part of broader land-use and sustainable development issues. However, land-use planning is still a Western notion, which needs to take account of the temporal dimension of resource management. Experiments with the creation of activity zones in Africa during the colonial period were successful enough to lead to certain areas being zoned for specific activities, such as forestry, crops and ranching. Yet the regulations have not change much, despite changes in the context. Furthermore, forestry, farming and grazing regulations often uphold the most powerful parties’ positions on the basis of precedence. Incorporating protected areas into views on land-use planning and sustainable development completely changes perceptions and management considerations. This means that conservation concerns are no longer the only legitimate issues. Protected areas may be used in many ways by a multitude of different users. The sometimesconflicting interests of the stakeholders involved in protected area management need to be taken into

The Illusion of Isolation in Protected Areas For a long time, protected areas were remote in terms of geography and ecology. They had no real potential, as long as other land that was easier or more profitable to develop was available. Demographic changes in some countries often give rise to fears that protected areas will disappear completely under constantly increasing demand for farmland, especially when conditions are not right for more intensive agriculture. A realistic approach is needed that considers protected areas as part and parcel of a larger area and in interaction with the latter, rather than seeing them as “besieged fortresses” to be defended. Local and global climate changes also have a substantial impact on the geographical distribution of species and habitats. Scientists are engaged in debate and controversy over temporal issues linked to the appearance of species (speciation and invasion) and climate change (hence, landscape changes). The proven reconstitution of equatorial forests from small refuge areas in Africa and the Amazon over 10,000 years and the relatively large human populations living in these forests for the last several hundred years have changed the old perception of them as areas that had remained unchanged for thousands of years or even longer.

Protected Areas Strategy 33

Protected areas are long-term societal projects

Protected areas have not been spared by these changes and they may deviate from their purpose if they do not trace out a dynamic management view for the medium and long term. As a rule, there are no concerted plans or policy guidelines for coordinating protected area management at the regional level. A rare species at the level of a local community could be considered to be an invasive species at regional level. Protected area management needs to be considered within the framework of networks of protected areas and information about them to see how well they complement the conservation objectives worked out in common. Assessments of networks of protected areas and critical areas for biodiversity conservation, like those conducted in Central Africa over the last ten years, represent a step in this direction.

France’s regional natural parks and its new biosphere reserves seem to be precursors for landuse planning aimed at accommodating biodiversity conservation and economic development. Recent changes have been introduced in the criteria for selecting areas to be protected with a view to land-use planning. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) ecoregions36 attempt to integrate areas to be protected into sustainable resource management areas, ecological corridors and development zones. Other selection criteria have been put forward, but they enjoy less international support. These include ecological service criteria. In terms of maintenance of ecological services, the critical species are often micro-organisms, protozoa and fungi, rather than large mammals or birds. A more recent approach calls for setting up protected areas and recolonisation corridors in wildlife refuges in preparation for likely climate changes, drawing inspiration for the refuge areas in the most recent ice ages. Droughts and climate change have led to a complete alteration of the resources in protected areas set up several decades ago in the Sahel and changed the justifications for maintaining protection. These proposals would involve different spatial scales and timeframes. Such schemes could be complementary to existing biodiversity protection measures, but they are mapped out over periods of 25 years or more. They require an approach that encompasses whole continents. This means that implementation of the schemes would require international cooperation and perhaps ex-situ conservation. They raise questions about ecosystem resilience, coping with shocks and climate change and they propose actions to be taken in small protected areas forming a fairly dense network.

Protected Areas and Long-term Land-use Planning Creating new protected areas A fresh look at the role and purpose of protected areas makes it possible to consider establishing new protected areas in a wider range of areas or with a greater variety of purposes, such as wildlife refuges in case of climate change, migration areas (resting, breeding and wintering areas, points of passage, etc.), intensive farming regions, forestry regions, mining regions, areas subject to intensive human migration, areas taking in refugees, former war zones, damaged areas, areas for reconstituting depleted resources and areas with strong tourist potential. Even in countries where demand for farmland is strong and population growth is high, some areas are neglected or even damaged. The land involved is rarely subject to claims and it is sometimes possible to bring it back under ownership with a view to rehabilitating it. Some experiments have already been carried out in Western Africa, with game ranching in damaged forests that used to be protected. The technical solutions found are sometimes quite simple, as long as the areas are fenced off and managed artificially in the first instance. The land needs for this type of productive protected area are quite small, ranging from a few hectares to a few square kilometres, depending on the species being re-established.

A New Doctrine for Action Political Considerations in Institutional Support French development cooperation for protected areas should focus primarily on the Priority Solidarity Zone and the Least Developed Countries. Stronger and more lasting partnerships could be considered with countries that support the principles of French development cooperation on protected areas and protected areas could be inte-

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Implementation proposals

grated into land-use and sustainable development planning. Support for institutions in the Southern countries is still required for the implementation of effective protected area management. Countries that are willing to contractualise government action deserve support.

Despite its value for science, the establishment of a Global Biodiversity Information Facility under the auspices of the OECD could be seen at international level as a potential way of circumventing countries’ sovereign rights over their biological resources. It could also be seen as an additional obstacle to recognising the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. Since it is difficult to obtain comprehensive and objective information, selection of projects to support could be based on areas designated by the Ecosystem Conservation Group, as well as on some of criteria that are specific to France’s strategy for development cooperation on protected areas, such as giving all the stakeholders a real say in the decision-making process, using innovative, pioneering and reproducible initiatives and serving the ends of sustainable development. Furthermore, requests for assistance from nongovernmental partners will be considered. Efforts to capitalise on projects, along with monitoring and assessment are critical for disseminating information about successes and failures.

Practical Considerations in the Selection of Projects Selection of protected areas or projects raises the delicate issue of information sources. Information systems operating with spatial references have been established. These systems collect and organise existing data at the global level. Data are processed according to certain theoretical and strategic choices to come up with world maps37 that provide a schematic representation of the areas with the greatest wealth of biodiversity, which are the ones that protection efforts should focus on at first. Designation of “priority” areas using biological criteria is in keeping with donors’ concerns. With globalisation and the shrinking of conservation budgets, donors are seeking criteria that can be used to select projects worldwide. The perception of environmental issues, such as biodiversity, has also become global. This can be seen in the concern about biological invasions and the naturalisation of species, along with climate change and, more recently, the risk of dispersion of genetically modified organisms. Protected areas are open to all of these influences. Information and communications about biodiversity are a major challenge. Global biodiversity information is mainly held and disseminated by international NGOs, even though proposals and the arguments for and against them are frequently debated within scientific communities, which often play a direct role in producing the information. No country is willing or has the resources to compile this information at international level, or even at national level in many cases. Some observers are concerned about this situation and the manipulation of information that could result. Therefore, less well-known areas are not considered to be priorities. Similarly, proposing the establishment of priority zones because of the abundance of biodiversity may, paradoxically, lend support to those with a utilitarian view of biodiversity. By conserving maximum biodiversity, as it stands today, we ensure that it will be available for industrial and pharmaceutical development.

Cross-border Protected Area Initiatives Border areas can be seen as transition areas or buffer zones and it is not unusual for disputes about the use of resources in these areas to emerge and sour relations between neighbouring countries. Refugees and migrants sometimes shelter in these areas as well. When protected areas exist along borders, it could be a worthwhile initiative to set up crossborder protected areas. Such arrangements promote cooperation and confidence building between countries and contribute to settling disputes. In this way, they comply with one of the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s guidelines on initiatives to promote dispute management and peace38. They can also prove to be very helpful for bioregional planning. They can be a tool for coordinating the conservation efforts required for cross-border management of ecological units and corridors. The number of cross-border protected areas around the world increased sharply from 59 in 1988 to 136 in 1997. A special international legal status has been discussed as a means of giving

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such areas priority for certain budget allocations. This will enshrine the existence of these areas in the same way as listing of sites under other international agreements.

and validating innovations that may be used in other protected areas or transposed to other contexts. The high profile of protected areas means that more attention is paid to actions carried out in them.

Encouraging Innovations for Combining Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development in Protected Areas

Clear ambitions and a variety of situations Some protected areas have long had the aim of combining biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. This is true of biosphere reserves and protected areas along the lines of French Regional Nature Parks. Many experiments for developing biodiversity have been conducted in them, along with ecotourism projects. These experiments also contributed to biodiversity conservation and involved local populations in the decision-making processes. In view of the wide diversity of situations, it would surely be presumptuous to believe that development in each protected area can be sustainable. Where there is intense pressure on protected areas, the emphasis could be on developing them, whereas, when the pressure on them is weak, or when exceptional values are attributed to them, then protected areas will not be expected to make such a large contribution to development. When it comes to managing protected areas and their living resources, there does not seem to be one solution for all problems. The concern is to adapt solutions to different contexts.

Protected areas and biodiversity have been minor concerns up until now, but henceforward, they will form part of a more comprehensive approach and linked to the major issues of fighting poverty, food security and climate change. The defensive rational of conservation is gradually giving way to an offensive approach to sustainable development based on ecologically, socially and economically viable use of living resources. Implementation of this approach spurs us to drop some old and ineffective conservation measures and attempt to link conservation to broader social political and economic issues39. If protected areas are up to the challenge of combining conservation and development in the long term, they will undoubtedly become models for society. The scale of the problems encountered in managing protected areas and their living resources means that the various players involved are vying with each other to discover and test new procedures and techniques. Protected areas are key sites for innovation. However, ethics need to be maintained to prevent approaches from turning into attempts at social experimentation. Furthermore, the variety of situations makes it impossible to transpose or disseminate such experiments without proper assessment of the implementation of innovations and their impact. Unfortunately, such assessments are rare.

Protected areas are key sites for innovation Protected areas are already key sites for innovation. The concentration of financial and human resources on small areas and the constraints imposed by the different management partners, whose aims and interests are sometimes at odds with each other, make it necessary to come up with procedures and solutions that are just as varied as the coordination methods, biodiversity evaluation procedures and low-impact harvesting techniques. However, the innovations are not always accompanied by genuine efforts to promote creation and dissemination. Experiments need to be backed up by assessments and dissemination arrangements, with consideration of the conditions for success or failure, costs and benefits, outcomes and impacts, and the conditions that make experiments transferable. Compiling such data will help protected area managers develop their experimental programmes for use in more broadly based approaches.

Benefiting from Past and Current Experiments in Protected Areas The variety of protected areas and their history mean that they are used for seeking new ways to achieve conservation. These areas, and the use of their living resources, have contributed to local and regional economies in many situations and sometimes in ways that are contrary to the aims of conservation. The new ambition of combining biodiversity conservation and sustainable development poses a real challenge for these areas. They have proven to be key sites for testing, evaluating

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Implementation proposals

Protected areas and media attention

times, be excessive confidence in these abilities. Confidence in local decision-making processes for protected area management must remain relative and these processes need to be monitored. Traditional systems for managing land and living resources around the world combine access rules, exchanges, monitoring and enforcement. They can sometimes be quite complex. Management of protected areas and their living resources needs to consider such systems where they exist. It should reinforce such systems and encourage change as appropriate in line with management objectives.

The general public’s interest in protected areas and their living resources has brought them into the media spotlight. Actions conducted in protected areas are easy to identify. This characteristic can be used for communication about actions carried out in protected areas and to disseminate worthwhile innovations. The circumstances of protected areas vary extremely widely. Management and support procedures need to adapt to the specific context of each one. Each protected area is unique because of its objective, its history, its legal status, its environment and its features. However, most of them share broadly common concerns, such as access control, wildlife management, economic development of land and resources, and financing for these actions. Experiments in each should benefit the others.

Partnerships for protected area management Procedures for contractualisation, negotiation and dispute settlement are being developed in protected areas with greater respect for the interests of the various players involved. They acknowledge the often great imbalances in the power relationships between players and sometimes seek to offset them. Some procedures deem that the stakeholders’ participation in the decision-making process is critical for the viability of protected areas. They propose that all stakeholders have a say in setting the very-long-term common goals for protected areas, thus moving beyond consideration of their individual interests. Others try to reach a consensus or a compromise between the various interests at stake. These procedures rely on arbitration, negotiation, facilitation or mediation of collective action. Such initiatives need to be analysed to determine the right conditions for developing them, how they should be implemented and what their limits are. Even though partnerships and empowerment are often essential, they are not always enough. Managing protected areas and their living resources involves concerns that often extend beyond the local or community context. It often involves an entire sector of the economy, where a wide range of different players do not necessarily subscribe to the same values. Furthermore, benefits are often siphoned off by a small elite at the expense of the wider population. Therefore, local systems for redistributing benefits also need to be taken into consideration.

Organisational and Institutional Innovations Supporting local initiatives Local civil society now has a say in the process of creating protected areas. Protected areas are now being created voluntarily in some countries. Such creations are often initiatives by local communities, indigenous populations or NGOs. They provide a legal and regulatory framework and create media interest in the development of biological and cultural heritage. This is the case for extractive reserves, indigenous areas or areas with exclusive rights of use for local populations. There may not be very many of these initiatives, but they should be identified better so that they can receive greater support. Such an approach sometimes calls for particular attention to specific players, such as the young, women, local elites, traditional practitioners and economic operators, and not just to local communities. Support provided under such an approach may not require much in terms of money and time. The resources to manage this type of support must also be found by delegating management of “small projects” to specialised consulting firms.

Using local technical and social knowledge The government as guarantor and partner

There has been an intense debate about local communities’ or users’ ability to manage protected areas and their living resources. The debate seems to have shifted from outright dismissal of these populations’ management abilities to what may, at

Even though the involvement of the various players concerned by protected area management is aimed at ensuring the effectiveness of actions undertaken, the new role for the government

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seems to be fundamental to the new arrangements. The government’s role is to facilitate the process of creating and managing protected areas by setting an appropriate regulatory framework and by training its officials to work with the new practices and procedures. The precautionary principle and inter-generational solidarity require the government to exercise its supervisory and enforcement rights when the various players’ interests are incompatible. Protected areas are also a political power issue. Creating protected areas can redistribute land and resources, taking them out of the control of administrative, traditional or elected leaders. It can redistribute authority over management, access and the flow of resources from these areas. Decentralisation processes that redefine the prerogatives, responsibilities and stakes of the players and focus on tax mechanisms are a clear example of this.

membership programmes, etc.) The three main options mentioned can actually be complementary to each other. The first option relies on external economic support, which may be temporary or more permanent. The second is based on assigning a value to protected areas. The third is more in line with the strategy, presuming that protected areas will be developed over the long term.

Financial support for protected areas Protected areas in developing countries have long been integrated into the global economy. Traditionally, they have received assistance from governments, international institutions and donors. As the global economy evolves, more lasting financing mechanisms are being sought for protected areas. Mechanisms for maintaining and securing financial capital will make it possible to counter fluctuations and delays in traditional financing. International assistance from Englishspeaking countries, some NGOs and, more recently, the Global Environment Facility have supported financing experiments in recent years. Several types of mechanisms can be considered separately or as complements to each other. Debt-for-nature swaps are fairly complex financial structures that enable a credit institution to sell off its claims on an indebted developing country at a lower price in order to ensure repayment of part of the initial debt. The debt securities acquired by another credit institution are redeemed for local currency by the central bank of the indebted country. The money is then invested on the market and the interest is used to finance conservation actions. The idea for this mechanism came from difficulties collecting some countries’ debts and the threat of excessive use of natural resources in order to meet debt repayments. Debt-for-nature swaps were quite popular in the 1990s, when deals worth several million US dollars were made. However, indirect problems linked to the swaps emerged, including risks of inflation and debt depreciation, insignificant impact on total debt loads and penalisation of countries collecting their debts. Bilateral debts can be restructured through direct negotiations between debtor and creditor countries, with moves to reduce debt through actions to support protected areas. The success of several national and international NGOs testifies to the utility of creating private and public foundations that muster financial, material and human resources and make them

Economic Innovations Financing for protected areas is still an unanswered question in many cases. Yet it is critical for their continued existence. Protected areas have real problems in being self-financing and the economic mechanisms for managing them still need more study. This is undoubtedly the area where the greatest innovations are still to be conceived. New types of para-governmental protected areas are being developed. There are protected areas under private ownership or ones that are specially managed by NGOs. These new institutional arrangements also reflect new financing arrangements that rely on public or private resources. The IUCN supports managers’ taking a business approach to protected areas in order to increase their viability40. Several sources of financing have been identified: international sources, (multilateral banks, Global Environment Facility, bilateral development cooperation agencies), foundations, NGOs, alternative financial mechanisms (carbon offsets, global levies, Internet fundraising, cultural funds, etc.), national sources (taxes, levies, tax incentives, tax deduction schemes, grants from private foundations, national environment funds, debt swaps, lotteries, public good service payments, etc.) and local sources (user fees, fees for entry, parking, camping, concessions and licenses, adoption schemes, corporate or individual donations, bequests,

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Implementation proposals

available for protected areas. This may be facilitated in some countries through tax breaks for businesses and incentives for individuals making donations or bequests. Some foundations also enjoy considerable media support in some countries. Seed funds provide long-term financing for fund management structures in the form of dividends from endowments invested in financial instruments providing guaranteed returns. The seed funds can then raise further funds by guaranteeing that they will be used solely to finance actions supporting protected areas and not to cover structural and management costs. This can be a very attractive proposition for private and public sector donors. The fund can then be maintained through bilateral debt swaps, in which the proceeds are invested in venture capital operations or in fixed-income securities. Another scheme relies on trust funds, which invest money raised from individuals (ethical investment funds, for example), businesses or donors and use the proceeds to finance protected areas. Trust funds encounter certain problems, such as the unsuitability of legislation in countries Latin legal traditions, long start-up periods (three years on average), high administration costs (approximately 20%) and their reliance on investment strategies. Trust funds can be managed by a variety of legal structures (foundations, NGOs, etc.) and provide certain guarantees to attract donors, such as credible accounting, good governance, transparency, investment strategies, boards of directors including representatives of the government and civil society. In order to be eligible for funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), trust funds need to meet the following non-negotiable criteria: the government must not have the majority of the seats on the board, investment strategies must be worked out in detail and well managed, government cofinancing is needed along with a donation (the donation may be in kind, such as a commitment to cover payroll costs and operating expenses). There are also negotiable criteria relating to the legal structure and the period that the trust fund will remain under GEF supervision (ten years as a rule). On the whole, such arrangements to support protected areas are very rarely found in France. However, France’s policy for development cooperation on protected areas cannot ignore the trend and France must take part in the discussions and in the experiments with these new financing tools.

A substantial effort is required in terms of tax rules and media coverage to make such tools effective support measures. A close eye should be kept on raising money for these funds and the arrangements for supervising their management, along with the redistribution of powers amongst the players concerned.

Attributing value to protected areas The creation and maintenance of a protected area is the material expression of a certain value that has been attributed to the area. If we could determine this value in concrete terms, we could compare it to other options available to the government or the private sector and we could potentially include protected areas in the national accounts. By identifying the beneficiaries of the value we could ask them or require them to make a financial contribution to the management of protected areas. This is already being done in certain urban areas in the developed countries. The value of the ecological and environmental functions performed by protected areas can be determined through comparisons with artificial structures providing the same services. Economic research to approximate some components of the value of natural ecosystems is used to inform decision-making. Yet, economic valuation is still a very difficult and imprecise task when it comes to the non-utilitarian values, altruistic choices, empathy for certain species and preferences of future generations that drive much of the interest in protected areas. Furthermore, these methods rely on surveys and the findings are greatly influenced by the type of people surveyed, their purchasing power and their access to information.

Developing protected areas Developing the biological, tourism, genetic and human resources in protected areas is one key to ensuring their survival, but it takes careful planning. Paradoxically, the creation of a new protected area can modify the local population’s production system and therefore threaten their livelihood. This explains their reluctance or their opposition. Viable management of harvested biological resources requires us to set a basic value that is higher than the cost of harvesting or hunting. This is the value of “standing” resources and it is at least equal the cost of renewing the resource. This requires marketing mechanisms that cover and contain management costs. But the development

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of protected areas and their living resources also requires the involvement of outsiders who are part of the production system. There is no point in considering action limited to local players if we ignore what causes damage and we do not understand the development methods used for these areas and resources, which may have to be sought elsewhere. Economic development of protected areas and some of their resources must be carried out within the framework of genuine production systems, which could potentially be certified or attributed approved status. Development of protected areas and their living resources needs to contribute to their financing in order to contribute to their management. Financial contributions can be direct, through local tax and financial incentive systems, or indirect, through the involvement of the players concerned in programmes to reduce the cost of supervising and managing protected areas. However, the economic benefits of combining biodiversity conservation and sustainable development are not necessarily directly felt or instantaneous. Many living resources can be harvested, such as bush meat, traditional medicinal plants and natural materials. This is already being done in the protected areas where populations in and around the area are allowed to harvest these resources. The danger of developing protected areas and their living resources lies in the risks associated with rent-seeking behaviour that leads to the destruction of the elements making up the biological and economic rent. Therefore, development choices that are deemed to be “non-destructive” are emphasised and give rise to some hopes. These choices are gene harvesting and ecotourism. To ensure compliance with international agreements and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from gene harvesting, all of the research of this nature carried out in protected areas should be covered by contracts making such provisions. There is a danger that protected area managers, researchers and manufacturers will collude to harvest samples of biological resources from protected areas. Once this material has been removed from the country for purported “research” purposes, it could be made available to those seeking genetic resources of agricultural or pharmaceutical value, without the country of origin being paid for, or even being aware of, the transfer. Scientific and industrial investment needs an ethical framework. This framework needs to be

negotiated and accepted so that some French institutions do not feel victimised by being used as scientific fronts for such practices. Yet, the benefits to be derived from such bilateral agreements may never come within reach, in view of the massive prospecting work already done and the low probability of success. With globalisation and the generalisation of markets for rights to access and use, actual ownership of things may no longer be important. Ownership of rights to access and use of things will be enough. Work is under way on a proposal for an “International Bank for Ecological Settlements” to handle trade in such rights. Yet, manufacturers’ interest is now turning to traditional medical knowledge. Incorporation proceedings would enable communities and collectives to trade access to their knowledge or knowledge about their innovations and practices with regard to managing and developing biological resources. Furthermore, in many less developed countries, protected areas could have great tourism potential. But tourism can harm protected areas. Mass tourism, which brings in large numbers of people in order to generate higher income, can have negative effects41. Furthermore, mass tourism is only possible in prestigious protected areas, or areas that are easy to reach. New forms of tourism, dubbed ecotourism, are being developed. They are aimed at a specialised and responsible clientele. These customers are active, motivated, aware and often wealthy. They would be more compliant with the constraints of protected area management and more willing to take part in conservation and development efforts. Many failed or troubled ecotourism projects suffer from inadequate market research, lack of partnerships with tourism professionals and a lack of local involvement. Many other factors related directly or indirectly to tourism are also necessary for ecotourism projects to succeed. These include a culture of friendly service, professionalism, national investment and transport and communication infrastructures. Special care is needed when dealing with projects relating to ecotourism, or more particularly ethnotourism42, in order to preserve the human dignity of local populations. Projects must not go ahead until the populations involved feel that they will get value from them. This means that negotiations must start beforehand and all of the preparations for the actual impacts and benefits must be made openly. The social and cultural

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Implementation proposals

impact on local populations must be assessed and the risks of abuse must be monitored and plans should be made to halt abuse when it occurs.

arguments usually given for conserving nature often translate into building up populations of a handful of flagship species and excluding certain human activities. The task of defining protected area management objectives in precise detail becomes even more difficult when it comes to combining biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. But if we expect stakeholders to negotiate and agree to these objectives, they need to be precisely stated and transparent. This reveals the different ways the parties to the negotiations view such notions as biodiversity and development. Their perceptions of certain trends can be used as a starting point for reviewing certain practices. This phase, in which all of the players and future stakeholders in protected area management work out precise objectives, can be long and difficult. It must be accomplished before undertaking any concrete management action when creating a protected area.

Technical and Technological Innovations The need to intervene in the ecological functions of protected areas is especially apparent in small areas, where there are no large predators and where human activities are present. The biodiversity to be conserved may also be the result of human activity, such as harvesting of resources, grazing or fires. This means that users of protected areas are fully involved in their management. In any case, there is no denying that some local population groups have empirical knowledge about the impact of certain practices on the species or ecosystems that they use or observe. The partnerships managing these areas must make use of all of the management players’ knowledge, practices and innovations. In addition to local knowledge, we also need to develop methods and tools for evaluation, monitoring and informing decision-making that are adapted to the constraints of managing different protected areas. This means that scientists and technicians should work with managers and users as part of a research and action approach. The task now is to promote finalised research arrangements and establish systems for exchanging research experiences.

Promoting Subsidiary Management Partnerships Placing protected areas into the broader context of sustainable development means we have to drop the narrow view of them as an alternative to pressure from human activities. The local populations’ involvement must no longer be seen as merely taking part in management, but as having a say in the decision-making process too, choosing their own future for themselves and for their descendants through a planning process involving development options, social and spatial organisation and ownership of protected areas and their management objectives. Including local populations in the decision-making process with regard to creating and managing protected areas enables the central government to transfer some responsibility and reduce supervisory costs by having the community cover them, while at the same time considering the sharing of the benefits. In this case, the negotiations on the procedures, ways and means of making this transfer become the key to success or failure. Traditional systems can sometimes provide the groundwork for building modern decentralised management systems that are adapted to the many different ways that communities take ownership, control access, supervise use and enforce rules. Under the new arrangements, the protected area management abilities and skills of each of the stake-

Better Coordination of Development Cooperation Partners The interweaving of policies for managing protected areas, biodiversity and sustainable development makes coherence of official development assistance policies critical. It makes it necessary to strengthen coordination and transparency to minimise conflicts and reduce externalities. Furthermore, official development assistance must not cancel out other positive action. It should reinforce it and complement it.

Defining Protected Area Management Objectives Protected area management objectives are rarely set out in a precise and detailed manner. This also makes it very tricky to evaluate them. The

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New Directions for the Use of Cooperation Resources

holders, including the central government and government agencies, must be evaluated, supported and monitored, where appropriate.

Developing Methods and Tools to Inform the Decision-making Process

Achieving Greater Consistency across Sectors in Government Policy and Official Development Assistance

The specific features and real complexity of individual protected areas sometimes make it difficult to arrive at fully informed choices regarding actions to be carried out. Lack of resources and information means that the exact impact of actions on social and natural dynamics are often only observed a posteriori. Yet we can’t wait until we know everything before we act. Biodiversity management in these areas means an attempt to come up with a guideline that is subject to many unknown factors and constant adaptation. It means more than just following a predefined plan. We need to set up mechanisms for taking action and making assessments that enable us to adapt management by monitoring a situation of relative uncertainty and informing the decision-making process as knowledge and contexts change. To avoid doing irreparable harm to biodiversity, management must comply with the precautionary approach and, more critically, it must abide by the principles of monitoring and assessment. Expertise and research can play a part in these processes; not by imposing a solution from outside, but by informing the stakeholders’ choices at their request and by enabling them to decide with a better understanding of the facts.

Sustainable environmental management is an aspect of development cooperation that cuts across sectors. This makes it critical for players to own the objectives of multilateral environmental agreements and for them to be able achieve consistency in all of France’s development cooperation arrangements, including bilateral and multilateral cooperation, decentralised cooperation and work with NGOs. Interministerial coordination committees could be set up in France to provide real structures for consultation. Coordination is critical for the effectiveness and reputation of France’s development cooperation, especially when business sectors are likely to compete with protected areas and biodiversity. This is particularly true for agriculture, energy, mining, transport and training. Integrating protected areas into general policies, such as national strategies for biodiversity or sustainable development, may make it much easier to achieve consistency in policies and in the geographical distribution and timing of official development assistance. Negotiations between players are now in vogue, yet consultation between donors has also become more intense. The Amsterdam Treaty sets consistency, complementarity and coordination as requirements for the development policies of the European Union countries. Consistent action by donors in a given activity sector, such as protected areas, can be achieved quite easily and joint projects can foster leverage and attract other donors. France should join forces with other donor countries to undertake large-scale and ambitious projects in a given country or region. A multi-donor secretariat can be set up in a given country to coordinate development assistance policies so as to promote the consistency of action under way or in the planning stages. Sharing project information via networks, including financial information, should also make it easier to get a clearer idea of the actions being supported and help avoid redundant efforts and incompatibilities. It can also help with the assessment of the actual capacities of local institutions.

Defining and characterising biodiversity in order to manage it More in-depth research is required into the complex dynamics of the biological and ecological factors involved in maintaining or creating biological diversity. This research is needed in order to inform the decision-making processes when the time comes. There are still many unanswered questions. In addition to species richness, which is often emphasised, we need to consider the higher level of ecosystem structures, which corresponds to the overall structure and dynamics of interconnected wildlife populations and habitats. Evaluation of biodiversity in protected areas for operational management purposes relies on indicators of biodiversity richness and functions that still need to be validated in many cases. Some research areas are therefore priorities, such as evaluation of the natural and man-made dynamics

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Implementation proposals

of biodiversity and the impact of protected area management on living resources. These different research topics also rely on ecological engineering techniques for the finalised evaluation, for example, of simple site management and rehabilitation methods.

social and economic systems. From the point of view of sustainable development, social and economic monitoring is critical in protected areas. This monitoring is also helpful for determining and adapting management instruments. Finally, the costs of implementing monitoring and management systems must not be overlooked when choosing methods.

Developing evaluation, monitoring and impact assessment methods

Developing conciliation and negotiation methods

Creating and maintaining a protected area does not guarantee that the objectives of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development will be achieved. Appropriate measures are needed to facilitate support for these projects. In biological matters, research often restricts itself exclusively to plant cover and certain flagship species. In many cases, these static indicators are not sufficient to support or guide action. Managers would find dynamic indicators or management procedure indicators more helpful. Yet, such methods are not used very often because they are less well-known and more difficult to implement. They also attract less media attention. Work on the use of soil fauna as a management indicator, or work on micro-habitats or ecotones, for example, is rarely considered in protected areas, even though they are bound to be more helpful for achieving management objectives than incomplete inventories that always need to be updated. Protected area management needs to address every aspect of biodiversity management: at the level of landscape and ecosystems, at the level of species and at the intra-species level of genetic diversity. There is still too little in the way of methods and work addressing all of these levels. When it comes to the use of resources, methods for monitoring use and its impact on other resources may be required to define biological standards. However, standards alone are not enough. They need to be backed up by legislation and economic incentives. Evaluations, monitoring and impact assessments also have a direct bearing on social sciences. The establishment of a protected area can have negative, or even catastrophic, consequences for some human communities. This needs to be taken into consideration and we have to think of ways of remedying the situation or meeting the opposition that is likely to arise. Development of protected areas can also have unwanted consequences because it alters existing

With regard to negotiating and partnership conditions, procedures and practices, more work needs be done on the social and political dynamics and on the mechanisms for drafting and implementing rules. Some methods of seeking information or opinions are available, but they are rarely suited to taking local institutional structures into account in management. How, for example, can the representativeness of the stakeholders be defined? And how can we move from repression to negotiation or partnership? Work is needed to develop tools for evaluating and monitoring conciliation procedures for the many stakeholders in protected area management and for assessing their effectiveness and their impact.

Making information available to stakeholders In addition to accruing knowledge, which will never be complete, the main challenge for research lies in integrating this knowledge and making it available to all of the stakeholders involved in management. Methods need to be developed for making the available information accessible. However, decision-making could be influenced or manipulated by inadequate, or even malicious, use of some tools. The limitations of methods and tools need to be taken into account. The representations produced by traditional mapping minimise the importance of the transition areas or ecotones to biodiversity management. Protected area management decisions are taken with a medium-term to longterm view. This means that the methods used have to go beyond mere inventories and analysis of static situations. Modelling and simulation methods can be used to evaluate trends and management scenarios with regard to a given state of knowledge. Decision-makers can use these methods to test and assess innovations or choose various options.

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Capacity Building

mentation. One way to build capacities is to involve national experts in projects and only call on international experts for temporary support and training when national experts are not available. International negotiations and the implementation of international nature conservation agreements have a clear impact on protected area management. Multilateral agreements and the mechanisms for implementing and monitoring them provide major opportunities for improving cooperation and consultation through support for the delegations from the countries taking part. Setting up and providing access to the Clearing-House Mechanisms established under the terms of the Convention on Biological Diversity may provide support for such delegations, as long as they have access to the computer and communication resources needed and if they have proper training in using them. Support can also be provided to local communities and populations that want to play a greater role in implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Capacity building in the Southern countries is one of the keystones for any development policy. Capacity building concerns all of the local and national players involved in protected area management. It should also make it possible to reach the broader audience of all of the global political players involved in development cooperation who may have an impact on protected area management.

Helping partner countries build up their own capacities One of the keys to the long-term success of development cooperation policies is training technical and political personnel. Training for all of the partners involved in managing protected areas and biodiversity appears to be critical43. The various management players’ roles will change more and more and round out their skills. These skills relate to technical capacities, but also to communication and negotiating skills within management partnerships. Contractualisation of government action through the creation of management partnerships for protected areas requires that the many stakeholders be able to negotiate the terms on an equal footing. Otherwise, the interests of the most powerful are likely to predominate and the contracts will not be made between equal parties44. Training local players should contribute to this process and therefore, it should be undertaken before management decisions are made. The use of mediators is another possibility. The process of transferring management responsibilities has proven to be a rich learning experience for communities that engage in experiments and education and undertake negotiations with government officials on issues that are often of capital importance to them. The local players’ knowledge may also turn out to be very useful for protected area management. Without presuming that the local populations’ knowledge and practices will necessarily give rise to viable biodiversity management, we can share and compare traditional and empirical knowledge with the more scientific knowledge held by protected area managers and experts to consider technical and social solutions that are adapted to the specific context. This approach also demonstrates a willingness to work in partnership. Capacity-building also concerns the players who work to support development project imple-

Training for development cooperation players too Training should also start for technical assistants in the protected area sector and for the Environment officers in French embassies. We must not overlook the need to provide information to other cooperation players about the issues involved in protected area management. A structure such as the Natural Area Technical Workshop could play a leading role in coordinating training and exchanges of information between protected area managers in France and their counterparts in other countries. The share of project budgets devoted to training and capacity-building needs to be increased substantially to prepare for their inclusion in these networks, to implement site visits and personnel exchanges and coaching systems. Setting up continent-wide or regional networks, along the lines of the IUCN-GTZ45 comanagement network, could promote learning and the sharing of experiences. Training is required for personnel working on decentralised cooperation projects relating to protected areas and for administrators who are not specialised in protected area issues. It will help prevent misunderstandings and inconsistency in government action.

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Implementation proposals

Adapting Procedures to Improve Action in Protected Areas

Planning The complex interactions of unpredictable external factors stemming from the lack of fundamental information during the planning stages makes planning a particularly difficult task. Thinking about protected areas tends to take a mediumterm to long-term view, which makes strict prior planning very difficult. If we need to work on ecosystems, on the one hand, and relations between the stakeholders taking part in negotiations, on the other hand, the timeframes for projects need to be at least 10 years if we want to achieve tangible results. Furthermore, dealing with these uncertainties means that managers on the ground need more latitude for running and adapting projects, but the protected area management objectives have to be spelled out clearly beforehand.

Improving development project impact assessments Protected areas are based on long-term commitments. Therefore, we need to be able to draw up long-term strategies and conceive realistic bridging solutions and institutional arrangements to ensure continuity in policies. Support for action under national policies makes it possible to consider reproducible methods of action from the outset. Implementation of development projects could disrupt areas through unplanned and more or less anarchistic colonisation by alien species. Therefore, we need to make sure that international funding does not have a harmful impact on protected areas and social equilibrium in the recipient countries. International funding could also run counter to very different local perceptions of nature, biodiversity, conservation and even development. Protected area management is a complex undertaking involving a multitude of players in negotiations that can take many unexpected turns. The somewhat strict and foreseeable framework of development projects should be made more flexible to cope with this. Local players’ participation in the decision-making process also requires us to establish systems for communication and exchanges. This calls for more time and resources for dialogue and coordination and, in some cases, less investment. Supporting local dynamics means that we have to be able to identify them and support them on the ground with people who are trained for this purpose. A sweeping review of project identification and feasibility assessments is needed to make this possible through longer timeframes and upgraded skills and resources. Initiatives in this direction can rely on local structures and skills. These structures and skills can be backed up and trained with the help of international experts, when local experts are not available.

Identification Under this system, the identification phase regains its full importance. We need to accept that it is a time-consuming phase and that time is needed to identify the concerned parties and discuss the issues with them. This phase should be based on the subsidiarity principle so that each party’s potential contribution to protected area management can be identified in keeping with their skills and interests. Examining proposals The positive and negative impacts of the project in and around the protected area need to be assessed before starting. This phase should give local partners a say in discussions to avoid misidentification of the players, technical issues and institutional issues concerned. Some activities, other than investment, are difficult to identify with precision before starting. Some options could be chosen in keeping with general development cooperation guidelines, such as local capacity building, by providing a substantial training programme or exchanges and by limiting the intervention of international experts to temporary project support. Prior research on protected areas must look at management oversight.

Adapting project cycles to protected area concerns The rationale and constraints of some projects may raise specific problems with their application to protected area management. Application conditions could be improved substantially at every stage in the project cycle. In general, flexibility is required to adapt projects to local contexts.

Financing Rigid financing arrangements are a handicap with regard to the need to adapt to processes under way in protected areas. Setting higher contingency coefficients from the outset could give projects the flexibility they need. Financing

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possibilities running for more than one year could also help. Some managers, particularly NGOs, prefer less money over a longer period rather than the contrary, which is what we are now seeing. At present, the cost of examining proposals and monitoring projects means that we cannot finance any projects much under one million euros. Government and private organisations could be given the task of managing small projects on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by developing ad hoc methods for examining proposals and monitoring projects inexpensively, as is already the case for some European Union financed projects. Financing for projects relating to protected areas also needs to take account of the fact that the government structure promoting the project does not bear the costs involved in the projects, but that these costs may have to be offset.

questions relating to protected area management objectives. The issues often overlap and, except for direct impacts, it becomes difficult to determine what was produced by the project and what has been facilitated by the project. Ex-post assessments of protected area management projects need to be improved. While it is fairly easy to assess infrastructure projects, institutional projects and capacity-building projects are much more difficult to assess. Information about failures and success is not easy to obtain or use. Yet, assessments made after the fact could still make an important contribution by proposing adjustments to past decisions and by promoting learning through doing. Project monitoring and assessment are critically important for learning lessons from the measures and innovations implemented in protected areas and for thinking about how they can be extended or transposed to other situations. There is no question of coming up with a standard project, since no project is 100% perfect. Detailed analysis is required to identify the successful and failed strategies used on a project. Project assessments must also look at the positive and negative externalities, such as a project’s contribution to building stronger institutions.

Implementation All of the measures for supporting research help to improve the implementation of projects on protected area management. Impact assessment involving protected areas and biodiversity is not always compatible with the timeframe of projects, unless there is widescale destruction. The methods and tools available should make it possible for the stakeholders to decide on management guidelines and adapt them as their impact becomes known. Interim assessments during the course of projects are not progress inspections or reprimands. They are a tool for improving projects. If initially planned accomplishments have not been carried through, it is important to ask why it is not possible to accomplish what was planned and why there have been delays, rather than trying to make up for lost points. These procedures require a true culture of constructive criticism. Interim assessments should facilitate progress instead of penalising delays. Projects are required to make the best use of resources, not necessarily produce results. These changes will require a new attitude, which can be instilled through training for project managers and project assessors.

Reconsidering the qualifications of project players Changes in the strategy for development cooperation on protected area management will lead to a strengthening of capabilities in different aspects of conservation biology and, more importantly, social sciences, especially when dealing with sustainable development issues, negotiations, legal instruments and financial incentives. Combining conservation and development also promotes interdisciplinary work on project design, implementation and assessment.

Ex-post assessments Right from the start of the project, we need to draw up the list of requirements and set the objectives for official development assistance in order to be able to assess projects after completion. Assessments also have to answer certain specific

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Further reading

Further Reading Aubertin C. and F.-D. Vivien 1998. Les enjeux de la biodiversité. Paris, Economica. Babin D., A. Bertrand et al. 1999. Patrimonial mediation and management subsidiarity: managing pluralism for sustainable forestry and rural development. Pluralism and sustainable forestry and rural development, Rome, Italy, FAO-IUFRO-CIRAD. Bahuchet S., F. Grenand et al. 2000. Forêts des tropiques, forêts anthropiques. Sociodiversité, Biodiversité: un guide pratique. Bruxelles, Programme Avenir des Peuples des Forêts Tropicales. Barbault R. 1997. Biodiversité. Introduction à la biologie de la conservation. Paris, Hachette. Beer-Gabel J. and B. Labat 1999. La protection internationale de la faune et de la flore sauvages. Bruxelles, Editions Bruylant / Editions de l’université de Bruxelles. Chardonnet P. 1992. Faune sauvage africaine. Bilan 1980-1990. Recommandations et stratégie des actions de la coopération française. Paris, Ministère de la coopération et du développement. Comité d’aide au développement. 1997. Lignes directrices du CAD sur les conflits, la paix et la coopération pour le développement. Paris, OCDE. Commission des communautés européennes. 2001. Plan d’action en faveur de la diversité biologique dans la domaine de la coopération économique et de l’aide au développement. Bruxelles, Commission des communautés européennes. Commission mondiale des aires protégées. 2000. Aires protégées. Avantages sans frontières, IUCN. Compagnon D. and F. Constantin. 2000. Administrer l’environnement en Afrique. Gestion communautaire, conservation et développement durable. Paris, Karthala. EC and IUCN. 1999. Parks for Biodiversity. Policy Guidance based on experience in ACP countries. Brussels, European Commission / IUCN. Glowka L., F. Burhenne-Guilmin et al. 1996. Guide de la convention sur la diversité biologique. Gland, UICN. Grenier C. 2000. Conservation contre nature. Les îles Galàpagos. Paris, IRD Editions. Griffon M., S. Matteo et al. 1995. Modélisation de la notion de développement durable pour le secteur agricole et rural. De la durabilité à la viabilité. Paris, ministère de la Coopération: 307. IUCN. 1994. Guidelines for protected area management categories. Gland, IUCN. Le Prestre P. 1997. Brefs repères historiques concernant la Convention sur la diversité biologique. La Biodiversité. Tout conserver ou tout exploiter? M.-H. Parizeau. Paris, Bruxelles, De Boeck Université: 177-180. Léopold A. 1968. A Sand County Almanac. New York, Oxford University Press. McNeely J. A. 1997. Une nouvelle vision pour la

gestion des zones protégées. Ecodécision 23: 20-23. Mounolou J.-C. and F. Fridlansky. 2000. Biosciences and bioeducation in administrative decision-making. Biology International (39): 22-32. Myers N., R. A. Mittermeier et al. 2000. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403: 853-858. Olson D. M. and E. Dinerstein 1997. The Global 200: Conserving the world’s distinctive ecoregions. Conservation Science Program. Washington, DC, World Wildlife Fund-US. Parizeau M.-H. 1997. Biodiversité et représentations du monde: enjeux éthiques. La biodiversité. Tout conserver ou tout exploiter? M.-H. Parizeau. Paris, Bruxelles, De Boeck Université: 115-136. Potvin C. 1997. La biodiversité pour biologiste: “protéger” ou “conserver” la nature? La Biodiversité. Tout conserver ou tout exploiter? M.-H. Parizeau. Paris, Bruxelles, De Boeck Université: 37-46. Sachs I. 1980. Stratégies de l’écodéveloppement. Paris. Sournia G. 1998. Les aires protégées d’Afrique francophone. Paris, ACCT: Editions de Monza. Supiot A. 2000. La contractualisation de la société. Université de tous les savoirs. Takforyan A. 2001. Chasse villageoise et gestion locale de la faune sauvage en Afrique. Une étude de cas dans une forêt de l’Est-Cameroun. Recherches comparatives sur le développement. Paris, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. Tubiana L. 2000. Environnement et développement. L’enjeu pour la France. Paris, La documentation française. Weber J. 2000. Pour une gestion sociale des ressources naturelles renouvelables. Administrer l’environnement en Afrique. Karthala, Paris: 79-106. World Commission on Protected Areas. 2000. Financing Protected Areas. Guidelines for Protected Area Managers. Gland, IUCN.

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Notes and references

Notes and References 1 Tubiana L. 2000. Environnement et développement. L’enjeu pour la France. Paris, La documentation française. 2 “Health is the state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being, and NOT merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” according to the World Health Organisation’s definition. 3 The UNEP-UNCTAD symposium on the “Pattern of Resource Use, Environment and Development” held in Cocoyoc, Morelos, Mexico in 1974. The “Cocoyoc Declaration” insists on the need to help people get education and get organised to develop the specific resources of each ecosystem to satisfy their basic needs. Sachs I. 1980. Stratégies de l’écodéveloppement. Paris. 4 Report of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Bruntland in 1987. 5 See Report 93-015-66-00, ministère de la Coopération. Griffon M., S. Matteo et al. 1995. Modélisation de la notion de développement durable pour le secteur agricole et rural. De la durabilité à la viabilité. Paris, ministère de la Coopération: 307. 6 Tubiana L. 2000. Environnement et développement. L’enjeu pour la France. Paris, La documentation française. 7 Ibidem, p 19 8 Conservation for the benefit of future populations is a recent western concept that is not necessarily universal. 9 According to the World Conservation Monitoring Centre – UNEP (September 2000). 10 IUCN. 1994. Guidelines for protected area management categories. Gland, IUCN. 11 For a more comprehensive approach see the recent work of Takforyan on wild animal management. Takforyan A. 2001. Chasse villageoise et gestion locale de la faune sauvage en Afrique. Une étude de cas dans une forêt de l’Est-Cameroun. Recherches comparatives sur le développement. Paris, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. 12 Parizeau M.-H. 1997. Biodiversité et représentations du monde: enjeux éthiques. La biodiversité. Tout conserver ou tout exploiter? M.-H. Parizeau. Paris, Bruxelles, De Boeck Université: 115-136. 13 Léopold A. 1968. A Sand County Almanac. New York, Oxford University Press. 14 Potvin C. 1997. La biodiversité pour biologiste: “protéger” ou “conserver” la nature? La biodiversité. Tout conserver ou tout exploiter? M.-H. Parizeau. Paris, Bruxelles, De Boeck Université: 37-46. 15 World Commission on Protected Areas 2000. Financing Protected Areas. Guidelines for Protected Area Managers. Gland, IUCN. 16 IUCN 1994. Guidelines for protected area management categories. Gland, IUCN.

17 Sournia G. 1998. Les aires protégées d’Afrique francophone. Paris, ACCT: Editions de Monza. 18 Takforyan A. 2001. Chasse villageoise et gestion locale de la faune sauvage en Afrique. Une étude de cas dans une forêt de l’Est-Cameroun. Recherches comparatives sur le développement. Paris, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. 19 Compagnon D. and F. Constantin 2000. Administrer l’environnement en Afrique. Gestion communautaire, conservation et développement durable. Paris, Karthala. 20 EC and IUCN 1999. Parks for Biodiversity. Policy Guidance based on experience in ACP countries. Brussel, European Commission / IUCN. 21 Commission des communautés européennes 2001. Plan d’action en faveur de la diversité biologique dans le domaine de la coopération économique et de l’aide au développement. Bruxelles, Commission des communautés européennes. 22 Commission mondiale des aires protégées 2000. Aires protégées. Avantages sans frontières, IUCN. 23 Example of integrated management of the Menabe coastal area of Madagascar. 24 Beer-Gabel J. and B. Labat 1999. La protection internationale de la faune et de la flore sauvages. Bruxelles, Editions Bruylant / Editions de l’université de Bruxelles. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Tubiana L. 2000. Environnement et développement. L’enjeu pour la France. Paris, La documentation française. p 14 28 Glowka L., F. Burhenne-Guilmin et al. 1996. Guide de la convention sur la diversité biologique. Gland, IUCN. 29 Article 8j. 30 Le Prestre P. 1997. Bref repères historiques concernant la Convention sur la diversité biologique. La biodiversité. Tout conserver ou tout exploiter? M.-H. Parizeau. Paris, Bruxelles, De Boeck Université: 177-180. 31 Beer-Gabel J. and B. Labat 1999. La protection internationale de la faune et de la flore sauvages. Bruxelles, Editions Bruylant / Editions de l’université de Bruxelles and Aubertin C. and F.-D. Vivien 1998. Les enjeux de la biodiversité. Paris, Economica. 32 Species richness. 33 Adoption in principle at the COP5 in Nairobi in May 2000. 34 UNESCO 2000. Solving the Puzzle, The Ecosystem Approach and Biosphere Reserves. Paris, UNESCO - MAB. 35 Weber J. 2000. Pour une gestion sociale des ressources naturelles renouvelables. Administrer l’environnement en Afrique. Paris, Karthala: 79-106, and Babin D., A. Bertrand, J. Weber and M. Antona 1999. Patrimonial mediation and management subsidiarity:

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managing pluralism for sustainable forestry and rural developement. Pluralism and Sustainable Forestry and Rural Development. Rome, Italy, FAO-IUFRO-CIRAD. 36 Olson D.M. and E. Dinerstein 1997. The Global 200: Conserving the world’s distinctive ecoregions. Conservation Science Program. Washington, DC, World Wildlife Fund - US. 37 Myers N., R. A. Mittermeier et al. 2000. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403: 853858, and Olson D.M. and E. Dinerstein 1997. The Global 200: Conserving the world’s distinctive ecoregions. Conservation Science Program. Washington, DC, World Wildlife Fund - US. 38 Comité d’aide au développement 1997. Lignes directrices du CAD sur les conflits, la paix et la coopération pour le développement. Paris, OCDE. 39 McNeely J. A. 1997. Une nouvelle vision pour la

gestion des zones protégées. Ecodécision 23: 20-23. 40 World Commission on Protected Areas 2000. Financing Protected Areas. Guidelines for Protected Area Managers. Gland, IUCN. 41 Grenier C. 2000. Conservation contre nature. Les îles Galápagos. Paris, IRD Editions. 42 Bahuchet S., F. Grenand et al. 2000. Forêts des tropiques, forêts anthropiques. Sociodiversité, biodiversité: un guide pratique. Bruxelles, Programme Avenir des Peuples des Forêts Tropicales. 43 Mounolou J.-C. and F. Fridlansky 2000. Biosciences and bioeducation in administrative decision-making. Biology International 39: 22-32. 44 Supiot A. 2000. La Contractualisation de la société. Université de tous les savoirs. 45 Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (German development cooperation agency).

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Acronyms

Acronyms AFD: Agence française de développement - French development dgency ATEN: Atelier technique des espaces naturels - Technical workshop for natural areas CI: Conservation International CIRAD: Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - International cooperation center on agronomical research for development CITES: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora - Convention sur le commerce international des espèces de faune et de flore sauvages menacées d’extinction FFEM: Fonds français pour l’environnement mondial - French facility for the global environment GEF: Global Environment Facility - Fonds pour l’environnement mondial GTZ: Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit IFB: Institut français de la biodiversité - French biodiversity institute MAB: Man And Biosphere programme - Programme sur l’homme et la biosphère MAE: ministère des Affaires étrangères - French ministry of Foreign Affairs MNHN: Muséum national d’histoire naturelle - French natural history museum NGO: Non-Governmental Organization - ONG: organisation non gouvernementale OECD: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - OCDE: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques UICN: Union mondiale pour la nature - The World Conservation Union UNEP: United Nations Environment Programme - PNUE: Programme des Nations unies pour l’environnement UNCED: United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - CNUED: Conférence des Nations unies sur l’environnement et le développement UNESCO: United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization - Organisation des Nations unies pour l’éducation, la science et la culture WRI: World Resources Institute - Institut des ressources mondiales WWF: World Wildlife Fund for Nature - Fonds mondial pour la nature

Photographic copyrights All photographs by © Didier Babin, except: page 2 et 10 : ©Dominique Louppe page 15 : © Pierre Laboute page 28 : © IRD - Bernard Moizo page 48 : © IRD - Pierre Gazin

Protected Areas Strategy 51

The members of Institut français de la biodiversité

Les cahiers de l’IFB Editor-in-chief: Jacques Weber Edition, layout and artwork: Thierry Pilorge, Institut français de la biodiversité Printing: Imprimerie Launay, 45 rue Linné, 75005 Paris

Les cahiers de l’IFB

Protected Areas: Combining Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development Foundations and Recommendations for a Development Cooperation Strategy on Protected Area Management

France’s position on development has combined a drive for economic growth with concern for protecting the environment, fighting poverty and achieving social justice. Biodiversity management and sustainable development can contribute to these goals when they are based on a partnership between public sector players and civil society as part of a comprehensive and long-term approach to land-use planning. Protected areas are key sites for the implementation of such policies. Through its Cahiers, IFB aims at building up a set of short syntheses (of less than a hundred pages) meant for skilled people. By “skilled”, I mean researchers as well as managers, association leaders and activists, and personnels of the business world involved in biodiversity management. Each book will provide a synthetic view on a specific subject. This kind of exercise is obviously difficult: some readers will find the result too cursory or shallow, others too much detailed. However, our hope is that the experienced biologist will find an accessible information in economics or in politics, that the manager will be happy to have at his disposal a synthetic and usable scientific information, and the educated person matter of thought. And that all will feel like making propositions for issues to come.

http://www.gis-ifb.org