The Protected Planet Report 2012 reviews progress towards the achievement of international protected area targets.
Resource Type: ReportsThe World Congress for Education and Communication on Environment and Development (ECO-ED), which took place in Toronto, Canada, 17-21 October 1992, was multisectoral in scope, accommodating individuals and groups from business, aid agencies, the NGO community, government, the media, UN agencies (UNEP/UNESCO), educators and education associations.
Resource Type: Journal PapersBiologists view Protected Areas (PAs) as natural areas established and managed primarily for the conservation of nature. However, many early Pas were established for aesthetic or socio-economic reasons and received little scientific input to their design. More recently, scientists have identified gaps in PA networks and various contemporary PAs have been established to provide for habitats and species in need of protection.
Scientists have also modelled minimum areas and population sizes that should be protected to prevent extinctions arising from demographic or chance causes. However, these theoretical ideals are difficult to put into practice, particularly as PAs increasingly face more immediate external threats. If scientists are to influence future PA design, and if PAs are to succeed in the long term, these concepts must be applied in practice. Therefore, sufficient protection must be integrated with human needs and aspirations in the design of future protected areas.
Protected areas can act as a case study for REDD: lessons can be learnt from their success or otherwise in reducing deforestation and supporting local livelihoods. Further research into the most effective management and governance frameworks for acheiving goals on carbon emissions, biodiversity and communities, and the extent to which protected areas reduce (or merely displace) deforestation within national boundaries would be useful in informing REDD implementation.
Resource Type: Journal PapersA European Study on protected area management effectiveness assessments was carried out between May 2009 and March 2010, to provide an overview of existing studies, evaluation methods and results. This study was initiated in response to the Global Study’s insufficient coverage of the European sub-region, and as protected area governance in Europe has distinct characteristics that justified a separate analysis. The study was led by the Universities of Greifswald and Queensland, in partnership with UNEP-WCMC, EUROPARC Federation and the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN).
Resource Type: ReportsThe Global Study into management effectiveness evaluation was conducted between late 2005 and 2010. In cooperation with many people across the world, it aimed to strengthen the management of protected areas by compiling the existing work on management effectiveness evaluation, reviewing methodologies, finding patterns and common themes in evaluation results, and investigating the most important factors leading to effective management.
Resource Type: ReportsRecent CITES decisions that accepted an obligation to take into account the impacts of CITES listings on the livelihoods of the poor, have some affinities with the ‘Do no harm’ approach to the livelihoods of the poor. The process will produce guidelines and rapid assessment tools. If these guidelines and tools are to be effective they will need to take account of the context-specific nature of solutions in this area. The CITES case provides lessons for other international conservation institutions whose activities affect the livelihoods of the poor at the local level.
Resource Type: Journal PapersHere we describe a method for standardizing the collection and analysis of stories of change that originated in, and is commonly employed by, the development sector. Trials of the use of the Most Significant Change method in a range of Fauna & Flora International's partnership projects revealed not only its value as a monitoring tool alongside more familiar surveys and quantitative data collection but also as a participatory management tool that improved staff capacity and project adaptive management and responsiveness.
Resource Type: Journal PapersThis report presents a synthesis and integration of the findings concerning biodiversity contained in the reports of the four Millennium Assessment Working Groups (Condition and Trends, Scenarios, Responses, and Sub-global Assessments).
Resource Type: ReportsAlthough trade in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) has been widely promoted as an approach to rural development, recent research has indicated that NTFP commercialisation is often not successful. Analysis of the factors influencing success of NTFP commercialisation has been hindered by the lack of an appropriate analytical approach for comparison of case studies. We tested and further developed a methodology recently developed by CIFOR, by examining 16 NTFP case studies in two workshops held in Mexico and Bolivia involving a variety of stakeholders involved in NTFP commercialisation.
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