IUCN

Customary laws, established by communal practice and usage for generations and passed down through oral tradition, are familiar, effective and continue to be practiced to a greater or lesser extent throughout the Northern Areas. And yet few of them have been documented so far.

Biological diversity faces many threats throughout the world. One of the major threats to native biological diversity is caused by Invasive Alien Species (IAS) which can damage or replace native animal and plant populations, as well as the health of our ecosystems. The impacts of IAS are immense, insidious and usually irreversible. The scope and cost of biological alien invasives is global and enormous in ecological, environmental and economic terms.

Conventional approaches to managing protected areas have often seen people and nature as separate entities. They preclude human communities from using natural resources and assume that their concerns are incompatible with conservation. Protected area approaches and models that see conservation as compatible with human communities are explored. The main themes are co-managed protected areas and community conserved areas.

At the heart of ‘co-management’ of natural resources is a process of collective understanding and action by local communities and other social actors. The process brings about negotiated agreements on management roles, rights, and responsibilities, making explicit the conditions and institutions of sound decentralised governance. De facto, co-management is about sharing power.

En el taller se presentó una diversa gama de proyectos e iniciativas que involucran a la mayoría de países de la región. Así, se intercambiaron experiencias y lecciones aprendidas sobre la aplicación del enfoque ecosistémico (EE) en el diseño y gestión de corredores biológicos y de conservación en América del Sur.