Protected Areas and World Heritage Programme

1997 United Nations List of Protected Areas

A notable development since publication of the previous edition has been the development of a wider range of information sources, including national Protected Areas Databases, accessible through the Internet. The need to bring together these disparate sources, and to provide users with a coherent interface to often complex data sets, has prompted WCMC and WCPA to develop the Protected Areas Resources Centres (PARC) concept. It will provide a clear framework for facilitating the flow of information between site managers, national management agencies, regional bodies and conventions and the international community. It will strengthen the capacity of protected area networks to communicate and exchange information, while providing a single distributed and coherent source of protected area information resources and services. PARC is an integral component of the Biodiversity Conservation Information System (BCIS), which is being established by a consortium of international conservation organisations including, amongst others, IUCN, WCPA and WCMC.

PARC will be established as a three-tiered network of protected area resource centres at international, regional and local levels. At each level, centres will be established in suitable 'host' institutions which can provide the necessary infrastructural support. PARC International will be based at WCMC, from where it will co-ordinate and support the network of regional PARCs in each of the 15 regions recognised by WCPA.

An Internet version of the 1993 UN List was made available through the WCMC World Wide Web pages (http://www.unep-wcmc.org) and this new edition will also be made similarly available. Although it is not possible to determine the uses to which the information copied from the Internet is put, it is possible to record the number of enquires made. The number of enquiries addressed to the Internet version of the 1993 UN List has averaged approximately 1,000 or more each month, and it is very probable that this will increase in the future.

The process by which the UN List is compiled has now been repeated a sufficient number of times for there to be a high degree of confidence that the data accurately represent the world's protected areas estate. Inevitably, with a document of this size and complexity there will be some errors and omissions, but it is hoped that these will stimulate ever more accurate information. Corrections or updates are warmly welcomed, and these should be sent to:

Many professionals from protected areas management agencies around the world and other experts have provided information which has been used in compiling this list. Without their invaluable input, this edition of the UN List could not have been completed. This generous assistance given freely to the project is deeply appreciated.

Compilation of the list has been carried out by many WCMC staff, including Javier Beltrán, Christine Carey-Noble, Donald Gordon, Sam Kanyamibwa, Jim Paine (project manager), Isabel Ripa Juliá and Balzhan Zhimbiev. The team was ably supported by student interns Vicky Fletcher and Sally Graham. Much administrative and technical support was provided by Victoria Freeman and Michael Green, former Head of the Protected Areas Unit, acted as mentor and diplomat on many occasions.

Compilation has been actively supported by WCPA, especially the Chair of the Commission, Professor Adrian Phillips and the members of the WCPA Steering Committee. IUCN Protected Areas Programme staff David Sheppard and Pedro Rosabal provided valuable input.

The generous financial support of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Council of Agriculture, Taiwan is gratefully acknowledged. Additional financial support was also provided by the IUCN Protected Areas Programme and by WCMC.

The 1997 UN List was prepared for publication by Victoria Freeman of WCMC, with support from Elaine Shaughnessy and Anne Rodford of the IUCN Publications Services Unit.

ABC. 1997. Protected areas systems review of the Indo-Malayan realm. Asian Bureau for Conservation, Canterbury, England. x + 198pp.

Hockings, M. 1997. Evaluating management effectiveness: a framework for evaluating management of protected areas. Draft for discussion. IUCN/WCPA Working Group on Management Effectiveness. 78pp.

IUCN. 1994. Guidelines for protected area management categories. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. x + 261pp.

James, A. N., Green, M. J. B. and Paine, J. R. 1997. Financial indicators and targets for protected areas. Background paper for Global Biodiversity Forum 6: Dialogue on biodiversity indicators and targets, UN Headquarters, New York, 3-4 April 1997. 16pp.

Watkins, C. W. and Green, M. J. B. (in press). The contribution of private initiatives in conserving biological diversity: a pilot study. Environments.

WCMC. 1997. Biodiversity conservation in the tropics: gaps in habitat protection and funding priorities. WCMC Biodiversity Series. No. 6. Murray, M. G., Green, M. J. B., Bunting, G. C. and Paine, J. R. World Conservation Press, Cambridge, UK. 170pp.