Supporting country action on the CBD programme of work on protected areas

PoWPA Activity 3.1.1

Identify legislative and institutional gaps and barriers that impede the effective establishment and management of protected areas, and by 2009, effectively address these gaps and barriers.

The PoWPA encourages parties to conduct a hands-on analysis of what is missing in the legislation and government structures which prevents from expansion or improvement of the effectiveness of national protected areas. This assessment may be covered by the gap assessment exercise (Activity 1.1.5), but may well be an important stand-alone exercise. To implement this PoWPA Activity a country should do the assessment of legal and institutional barriers and on that basis adopt a plan to remove the identified barriers, as it is a requirement under the PoWPA that all Parties to the CBD should have in place the appropriate institutions and legal frameworks to support the establishment of comprehensive national, regional and sub-national protected area networks for terrestrial areas by 2010 and for marine protected areas by 2012. The plan needs to envisage adoption/revision of laws, by-laws, policies. Countries are also eligible to receive assistance for putting the plan into action, i.e. for the coverage of legal, participatory and consultative costs preceding and immediately following the adoption/revision of new legislation and by-laws, as well as for putting in place the necessary enforcement mechanisms.

While the world’s diversity of political and legal systems makes it dangerous to prescribe a particular “blueprint” for protected areas legislation, “capacity building in environmental law” is a central mission of IUCN’s Environmental Law Programme (ELP) (http://www.iucn.org/themes/law/elp06.html).