PoWPA Activity 1.2.1
Evaluate national and sub-national experiences and lessons learned on specific efforts to integrate protected areas into broader land- and seascapes and sectoral plans and strategies such as poverty reduction strategies.Protected areas that remain as isolated units, marooned by radically altered habitat, almost always face serious viability problems over the long term. The Programme of Work emphasises the importance of protected areas existing in a mosaic of land and water that includes habitat which, if not in a fully natural form, at least provides suitable enough conditions to provide, for example, passage for species and maintenance of ecological processes. Specific activities in the Programme of Work refer to “linking habitats” between protected areas, such as through buffer zones around protected areas (where use is restricted to activities that do not undermine the integrity of the protected area), biological corridors, and “ecological stepping stones” (habitat that provides stopping off places for migrating species). This can further involve developing mechanisms for improving the integration of protected areas into the wider landscape, for example requiring regional planning processes and Environmental Impact Assessment procedures for large scale projects to address protected area issues. Activity 1.2.1 is limited to a stocktaking and planning exercise. This is the first step to actual integration of protected areas into productive landscapes. The sequence of actions, which can be undertaken for Activity 1.2.1 may include (but will not be limited to): Overview / map of protected areas which the country undertakes to establish before 2010/2012. This can be one of the outcomes of the gap analysis under Activity 1.1.5. Within the national protected area system, what are the elements of flora and fauna that require “buffering” or “corridors” that would “extend” the strict boundaries of the protected areas, or would need some linkages between protected areas to be established, so that economic use in them is limited? A special map with clarifying notes can be developed, and approved as part of a country’s master plan for protected area development or other legal instrument. On the other hand – create the map of industries/sectors (specifically consider: mining, fisheries, water management, tourism, forestry, agriculture, construction) and analyse how this map overlays onto the map of “buffer-seeking”/migratory elements of biodiversity. The outcomes of this overlaying may be a matrix of areas/spots/industries on the outskirts or in-between several protected areas, for which “special requirements for limitations/restrictions/no use/no take” have to be developed. What are the legal instruments to put such requirements into action? What has been the experience of the country’s use of such instruments so far? The most common instrument to materialize these requirements is the Environmental Impact Assessment. Is this instrument recognized and used in the country? Is Environmental Impact Assessment alone sufficient to insure that these elements are enforced? If not, what should be the plan to revise/improve the Environmental Impact Assessment? If it is not sufficient – what should be other country- or place-specific mechanisms that would make it possible to legally enforce the requirements to integrate the concerns for migratory and fragile biodiversity? A plan to put this mechanisms into action should be developed. This plan then needs to be discussed publicly, and aligned with the country’s other priorities, primarily those dealing with poverty reduction.
An example of marine protected areas can be drawn here. Marine protected areas vary in management objectives in the same way as their terrestrial counterparts. The Convention on Biological Diversity puts forward a marine and coastal biodiversity management framework consisting of two types of marine and coastal protected areas: Multiple use protected areas, which may permit extractive uses but contain areas that are more strictly controlled for biodiversity protection. Such controls may also have other (e.g., economic or social) objectives. Examples include controls on fishing (e.g., restricting bottom trawling), on the removal of certain species (e.g., habitat forming species), rotational closures, and controls on pollution and sedimentation. Such areas can protect particular species or life cycle stages (such as spawning), help to maintain connectivity and buffer more strictly protected areas. No-take zones (representative marine and coastal protected areas where extractive uses are excluded), which permit no extraction and are managed to maintain their ecology or to allow natural restoration. Such strictly protected areas form the backbone of the marine biodiversity conservation measures and need to be selected for coverage and representation in the same way as land and freshwater sites. There is ample evidence that such no-take zones can have short and long-term benefits to human communities through, for example, helping to maintain and replenish fish stocks.
Further, there are a number of instruments developed by international NGOs for the implementation of ecosystem approach. Care should be taken though, that Activity 1.2.1 is limited to initial stocktaking and planning, and not, as is commonly supposed, to cover concrete efforts to put the ecosystem approach into action on the ground.
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