Recommendation 07
Financial Security for Protected Areas

Protected areas deserve significant financial support owing to the tremendous benefits they provide.

The International Community agreed at the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) to work toward the goal of significantly reducing the loss of biodiversity by 2010.

However, a significant funding gap means that protected area system managers are being increasingly required to devote resources to raise their own funding and the protected areas are facing greater degradation.

As an indicator of this need, it is estimated that protected area budgets in the early 1990’s totalled only about 20 percent of the estimated US$20-30 billion annually over the next 30 years required to establish and maintain a comprehensive protected area system including terrestrial, wetland, and marine ecosystems.

Nonetheless, there remain government policies and other institutional obstacles, which intentionally and unintentionally restrict the flow of funding to protected areas, such as:

a. Insufficient priority allocated to the conservation of nature and associated cultural values against other competing budget programs;

b. Revenues from tourist income and environmental services provided by protected areas (e.g., water charges) not being earmarked for protected area management;

c. Institutional barriers restricting the flow of funding to protected areas;

d. Inappropriate management structures that fail to channel funding to protected area management;

e. Lack of mechanisms to encourage donor organizations to participate in supporting protected areas; and

f. Limited use of business planning at both a protected area systems level as well as for specific protected areas.

To help address these problems the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas has implemented an initiative on Sustainable Financing.

Therefore, PARTICIPANTS in the Stream on Financing: Building a secure financial future at the Vth World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa (8-17 September 2003):

RECOMMEND governments, national and international non governmental organizations, international conventions, indigenous and local communities, and civil society to:

1. OPERATIONALISE the WSSD biodiversity goal and assess the cost of achieving it;

2. ENSURE that the financial mechanisms adopted to increase protected area revenue do not lead to the degradation of biodiversity or the destruction of the natural and cultural heritage;

3. COMMUNICATE more effectively the results of investments in protected areas, to the global and national community to gain greater support for the funding of protected areas, including both conservation results and socio-economic benefits of protected areas;

4. INCREASE, diversify and stabilise the financial flows to protected areas and biodiversity conservation including through appropriate incentives and support for the implementation of diverse portfolios of financing mechanisms and cost-effective management approaches for terrestrial, wetland, and marine protected area networks and systems, so as to ensure that long term conservation objectives are fully met in each ecoregion of the world;

5. ENSURE that there is proper valuation of the goods and services provided by protected areas and biodiversity in general so that decisions about economic development are made with the full understanding of the costs as well as the benefits and the social impacts involved;

6. REMOVE policy and institutional barriers to sustainable financing solutions, including to the effective allocation of resources across protected area networks and systems, so that funding from both new and existing sources, and revenue generated by the protected areas can be fully and efficiently directed to protected area management; where such removal does not compromise biodiversity, natural and cultural heritage objectives;

7. ENSURE that protected areas, and the surrounding local and indigenous communities, as primary beneficiaries, are granted access to the benefits from the increasing number of opportunities to gain remuneration from ecosystem services provided by protected areas. These comprise existing sources such as tourism-related revenues as well as new opportunities like the provision of clean air and water, flood defence and disaster prevention, soil conservation, conservation of genetic material, recreational opportunities and carbon sequestration;

8. URGE donors, government, and the private sector to support the establishment of trust and endowment funds for the conservation of biodiversity, as well as support other sustainable financing mechanisms, such as debt swaps, and the inclusion of support for biodiversity and the environment in countries’ Poverty Reduction Strategies;

9. IMPROVE coordination of financial sources for protected areas based on jointly agreed strategies established with all relevant stakeholders; to support coordination, improve the quality and dissemination of conservation funding information;

10. INCREASE significantly future replenishments of the GEF to support the sustainable management of protected areas in developing countries through support for sustainable financing mechanisms;

11. ENCOURAGE governments at all levels to increase the financial flows to protected areas by reducing and redirecting funding currently allocated to subsidies for fishing, agriculture, and other sectors, that contribute to environmental degradation and biodiversity loss;

12. ENSURE, where appropriate, that environmental compensation payments from economic activities are effectively channelled to protected areas or ecosystem restoration; and

13. FOCUS greater attention on increasing the cost effectiveness of protected area financing through improved budgeting, financial planning and the use of innovative arrangements such as conservation easements, direct incentive payments, tax credits, and other market-based transactions.

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