News Story
June 24, 2003
A VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF PROTECTED AREAS

The Durban Accord, a collective vision for the future of protected areas, will emerge from the Vth IUCN World Parks Congress, which will be held in South Africa this September. Earlier this month, a group of protected area experts and a youth spokesperson, lead by Roger Crofts - IUCN World Commission for Protected Areas Regional Vice Chair for Europe, met to further develop the content of the Durban Accord and Action Plan.
To shape a youth vision for protected areas in the 21st century, students at Yale University recently sent a survey to individuals worldwide under the age of thirty-five. Ideas and recommendations which emerged from this process will feed into the Accord and Plan. The drafts of these two documents will soon be circulated for public comment, and will then be finalized by participants at the Congress.

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Features Story
June 20, 2003
A FIELD OF FLAMINGOES OR A GAGGLE OF GREYLAGS?

20 June 2003 (IUCN) Ichkeul Lake, Tunisia, - The numbers of salt-loving flamingos gathering in Lake Ichkeul in northern Tunisia are increasing, while the populations of greylag geese are in decline. Thousands of geese from Central Europe once wintered in the area, but today, like other birds, they have to find different places to forage. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1980 for its outstanding universal natural values, Ichkeul was classed as endangered in 1996. In an effort to restore the attributes that motivated the inscription of the site onto the prestigious List in the first place, the Tunisian Agency for Environmental Protection has asked IUCN to provide technical advice in the implementation and monitoring of a restoration programme for the area. (...)

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News Story
June 17, 2003
HACIA DURBAN 2003: TERCER ENCUENTRO DE LA RED IBEROAMERICANA DE PARQUES NACIONALES - RIPANAP

En el mes de mayo se llevó a cabo la tercera reunión de la Red Iberoamericana de Parques Nacionales, RIPANAP,en Bayona, España. Este evento buscó promover la participación de Iberoamerica en el V Congreso Mundial de Parques, a celebrarse en Durban, África del Sur, en septiembre de este año. Durante este tercer encuentro, donde participó activamente la Union Mundial para la Naturaleza (UICN), 23 países firmaron el acta constitutiva de la Red cuya misión es defender el “valor ecológico, social y económico que representan los espacios naturales protegidos”. (...)

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IUCN in South America

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News Story
June 16, 2003
TACKLE POVERTY TO ENSURE SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT

“Development planning cannot overlook environmental and biodiversity questions,” said Dr. Balakrishna, Head IUCN Asia Regional Biodiversity Programme, speaking at the 3rd Asian Regional Session of the Global Environment Facility. The session that opened yesterday calls to fight poverty to ensure sustainable development in the region, whilst noting that conservation and environment are no longer the concerns of environmentalists or NGOs alone. Participants highlighted the intricate link between poverty and environmental health. The critical themes at the centre of the meeting are: sustainable development and livelihood issues; trade and intellectual property rights on access to genetic resources and genetically modified organisms; the role of taxonomy in conservation; and people and protected areas – a topic also at the heart of the Vth IUCN World Parks Congress, taking place this September in Durban, South Africa. (...)

Full story in the Daily Star
Daily Star website
IUCN in Asia

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News Story
June 10, 2003
EL MANEJO COMPARTIDO EN LA ADMINISTRACION DE LAS AREAS NATURALES PROTEGIDAS, HACIA DURBAN 2003

Recientemente María Fernanda Espinosa, especialista en políticas sobre biodiversidad y pueblos de la UICN, impartió una charla organizada por el Instituto Nacional de Parques Nacionales de Venezuela, INPARQUES. El tema central fue los retos que presentan las iniciativas del co-manejo de las áreas protegidas. El co-manejo, o manejo participativo, puede ser definido como la responsabilidad compartida por dos entidades sociales u organizaciones en la administración de una área natural protegida. El incluir a la mayoría de los actores sociales y políticos que participan en el manejo de una área protegida es uno de los fines del co-manejo y es visto como un mecanismo que permite integrar a las áreas protegidas en los contextos socio-culturales y políticos locales a través de la participación activa de los actores involucrados e incorporarlas en las estrategias nacionales y subnacionales de desarrollo sostenible. (...)

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Statement
June 3, 2003
SPOTLIGHT ON THE WORLD’S OCEANS

New York, UN, (UICN) - Vulnerable marine ecosystems and safety of navigation are on the agenda of the fourth meeting of the Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (ICP) opening today at the UN Headquarters in New York. At the meeting, the IUCN delegation will showcase marine and coastal protected areas, including a new joint initiative with WWF on such areas in the high seas, as well as focus on recommendations set out in the adjoining statement. The IPC, in which IUCN has been involved since its inception, was created as a specialized oceans forum to better prepare for the annual fall debate in the UN General Assembly on oceans concerns. Two to three main topics are selected for review each year, with an emphasis on the need for improved coordination and cooperation among governments and international agencies, in which NGOs participate on an equal footing. (...)

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Features Story
June 2, 2003
MEETING THE FAMOUS WHITE LADY OF AFRICA

Gland, Switzerland, (UICN) - When the tin mine in the Namibian town Uis closed down in 1991, it left more than 1000 men unemployed. Uis was in danger of becoming a ghost town: shops closed, houses were abandoned, and the streets became empty. But then Karel Naibab, Ou Henrik and some other men from Uis had a big idea; they decided to pull their town out of decline by working as local guides at the famous Brandberg – the Burning Mountain. They set out to establish an ecotourism business, to attract tourism to the region and create a new sustainable income for their community. The Brandberg is Namibia’s highest mountain, famous both for its unique rock art, and irreplaceable flora (4800 species in Namibia are found nowhere else in the world). Recently declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Burning Mountain is home to over 45 000 rock art paintings, amongst them the Mona Lisa of this collection, the famous White Lady of Africa, left by a prehistoric folk more than 500,000 years ago. (...)

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