Story | 12 មេសា, 2010

Next Steps: Convention on Biological Diversity's Programme of Work on Protected Areas

This paper outlines proposals from IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) on new strategies and opportunities arising from the review of the Programme of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA) at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) 10th Conference of Parties (COP) in Nagoya, Japan in 2010.

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Photo: Delwyn Dupuis

The paper starts (pages 8 and 9) with a brief summary of the progress on implementation of the PoWPA to date. A more detailed description of progress towards each goal is given in Appendix 2. The paper then has a short section on the overarching ways and means to strengthen implementation (page 10).

The major section of the paper follows looking at opportunities for the development of the PoWPA post 2010 (pages 12 to 16). Four key issues are discussed: issues that need greater attention; strategies and action plans for strengthening implementation: target and timetable issues; and funding opportunities.

Three appendices are included: the first (pages 30 to 32) provides a brief overview of the challenges that have arisen in the implementation of the PoWPA to date and includes recommendations for future success (which are also discussed in the opportunities section above). Appendix 2 (pages 33 to 44), prepared by the Secretariat of the CBD (SCBD), draws on the 65 fourth national reports prepared by Parties to the CBD to give an overview of implementation to date on all the PoWPA goals. The final appendix, 3, (pages 45 to 46) provides a summary of Summary of COP 9 Decision IX/18.

Development of the paper
The Korea National Parks Service sponsored a meeting in Jeju Island, South Korea in September 2009 to review progress and discuss the future of PoWPA. The meeting responded to the COP9 Decision (Section A, Para. 24) inviting IUCN to contribute further to the process of the PoWPA review leading to the COP10. After the international meeting in Jeju, a series of regional meetings took place in India, South Korea, Côte d’Ivoire, Colombia and Germany, which provided further input to the thinking. Recommendations from these meetings contributed to the CBD Secretariat’s background paper for the May 2010 SBSTTA meeting and will feed into debates at the tenth Conference of Parties.

The draft paper was made available to several thousand people through regional WCPA networks and elicited a wide response. French and Spanish versions of the summary were prepared with support from the IUCN Protected Areas Programme, to facilitate feedback.

Circulation has included: all PoWPA focal points; all Friends of PoWPA representatives; all invitees to the global meeting in Jeju; the WCPA steering committee; other IUCN commissions; regional IUCN offices and through them many regional contacts; within NGOs; on a PoWPA supporters’ Facebook page; and by means of a website forum run by the SCBD. The recommendations draw directly on outputs from these discussions and from the meetings.

The final document therefore represents thinking within the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas at the beginning on 2010, including some firm commitments from the Commission in terms of implementing the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas.