WORLD PARKS CONGRESS 2003
Way forward for world's parks
19 September 2003
The fifth World Parks Congress closed in Durban on Wednesday with participants agreeing on new commitments and policy guidance for protected areas worldwide.
"Tomorrow, 3 000 delegates will return to their home countries armed with the Durban Accord, Action Plan and Recommendations, as well as new knowledge and contacts", said World Conservation Union (IUCN) director-general Achim Steiner. "For the past 10 days, parks were centre stage and at the front of people's minds, and we hope they will remain so beyond Durban."
The closing plenary of the congress delivered the Durban Accord, a succinct statement for the future of protected areas, an Action Plan, a set of 32 specific Recommendations, and a message to next year’s meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity - see "Congress outputs" below.
A number of initiatives were announced, pledging funding, political support and technical input to improve the management of this 100 000
sites-strong estate.
"The Durban Accord sets a new vision – one that is clear, and one that is feasible for the world to implement. But more than that, it has created the energy and will to take this agenda for the next decade and put it to work", said congress secretary-general David Sheppard.
Responding to its theme, "benefits beyond boundaries”, the congress addressed pressing problems within protected areas by identifying new sites for under-protected ecosystems, defining tools to improve management effectiveness, finding new legal arrangements, and bringing new constituencies on board.
Specifically, delegates put forward guidance to engage governments, the private sector, indigenous peoples, local communities, and young people in protected areas, to jointly safeguard the many benefits these areas provide to societies worldwide.
"The discussions here were as rich as many of our National Parks", said South African Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister
Mohammed Valli Moosa. "For South Africa, this is a very successful conference. It has translated many issues, such as sustainable livelihoods, sharing of benefits and the role of the private sector, that came out of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, into concrete goals and actions for the management of parks and reserves."
The outputs of the congress empower protected area managers and policy makers around the world. With the Durban Accord and the Recommendations in hand, they can start a process with their governments, institutions and organisations to make the vision set in Durban – of protected areas as a common tool for biodiversity protection and poverty alleviation – a reality.
At the same time, the congress generated the political support to transform the outputs into action.
A host of new protected areas were announced in countries such as Madagascar, Senegal and Brazil covering over 200 000 square kilometres, and over US$35-million was pledged
for conservation both on land and sea.
The congress also launched the Africa Protected Areas Initiative, a major programme to develop a well-designed and managed system of protected areas that will meet the environmental and social needs of the continent.
Three major congress outputs
The Durban Accord presents a new paradigm for protected areas. It celebrates their role in achieving conservation
and development aims as well as new participatory management strategies, emphasising the role of local communities to share in protected area benefits and decision-making.
Packaged with the Durban Accord is the Durban Action Plan, a technical document that provides policy-makers with key targets and timetables for the protected area agenda.
Though the Durban Accord and Action Plan are not legally binding, they carry the voice of this decade’s most prestigious assembly of resource managers, conservation scientists, civil servants and community leaders devoted to protected areas.
32 Recommendations were approved by participants attending a series of technical workshops. Overall, three broad themes are reflected in the recommendations:
- The importance of engaging with the broad array of people who reside near
and around protected areas to ensure that their interests and needs are
understood and considered in the management of these
areas.
- The recognition that protected areas provide a number of very valuable
ecosystem services in addition to protecting threatened species, such as clean
water, maintenance of critical habitats; and play an important role in relation to
mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
- Broad recognition of the importance of providing practical tools, guidelines and
training, as well as resources, for protected areas managers to achieve their
objectives.
Message to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Convention on Biological Diversity is the only convention that addresses protected areas in a comprehensive manner. The message from Durban to the next meeting of the convention stresses the importance of protected areas for sustainable development and poverty eradication. It urges signatory states to make a strong political commitment to contribute effectively to achieving the World Summit on Sustainable Development goal of a significant
reduction of the current rate of
biodiversity loss by 2010.
Three essential requirements were put forward:
- The urgent need to identify and fill in the existing gaps in the global protected areas system, on the basis of sound science.
- The need to put in place mechanisms to ensure necessary participation and equitable sharing of the benefits of protected areas, particularly with indigenous and mobile peoples, as well as local communities.
- The need to create the necessary enabling conditions. A well-managed system of protected areas requires appropriate institutional and human capacity, supportive policy, legal frameworks that cut across all sectors, assessment mechanisms and, most importantly, the financial support to make all this happen.
Source: World Conservation Union
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