Among the tools which may be put at the service of conservation, protected areas (PA) occupy a special niche, and are widely recognized as a cornerstone of conservation policy and action. While one of the oldest techniques used to protect places and resources for achieving specific conservation-related goals, protected areas have, over the past few decades, evolved into important management tools. The concept of protected area systems, and its recognition for use at all levels – national, regional and global – has also considerably increased their potential.
PA Law
In order to be effective, however, a system of PAs, as well as individual PAs, must be supported by a firm legal infrastructure. The IUCN Environmental Law Programme (ELP) has consistently worked towards creating and improving PA law. This has been a two-pronged effort, aimed first at improving international/regional binding commitments towards protected areas (for instance through the obligations of the CBD at global level, and of the revised African Convention at regional level), and second at creating or modernizing national legislation in this field.
CEL/IUCN Academy
Work on the legal aspects of protected areas has traditionally been, and still is being undertaken by both the IUCN Environmental Law Centre (ELC) and the Commission on Environmental Law (CEL). CEL has recently created a Specialist Group on Protected Areas, as well as a joint CEL/WCPA Task Force. In addition, the IUCN Academy on Environmental Law is poised to support the environmental law protected area programme by appropriate research in this field.
IUCN PA categories
Joint efforts of CEL and the ELC have in the recent past resulted in practice-oriented studies of a variety of legal questions, e.g. the use and role of the IUCN PA categories in national legislation, or the existing tools of international governance that exist in this field. In the area of international treaty law, the most significant recent result has been the adoption of the IUCN PA categories as an Annex to the 2003 Maputo Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
Future work of the ELC will concentrate on developing guidelines for protected areas legislation, and in doing so involve all relevant components of the ELP, as well as the Academy, the regions and colleagues from WCPA Programme and network.
Publications / Reports
International Environmental Governance: An International Regime for Protected Areas, edited by John Scanlon and Françoise Burhenne, EPLP No 49, 2004
Influence of IUCN Protected Area Management Categories on National, Regional and International Legal and Policy Frameworks, Working Paper by Benita J. Dillon, 2003
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