Guidelines

Protected areas are vital for life on earth. They safeguard biological and cultural diversity, help to improve the livelihoods of local communities, provide the homelands for many indigenous peoples and bring countless benefits to society at large. It is now generally understood that conservation planning cannot just be site-specific; plants and animals do not recognize national boundaries, nor do many of the forces that threaten them.

A companion document to the Strategic Approach document, this guide reviews the lessons learned from the various agency initiatives to integrate biodiversity issues into development cooperation programmes. The lessons learned have been condensed into a set of Guiding Principles which aim to ensure that development cooperation projects and programmes are effective and sustainable, and take full account of environmental security and biodiversity issues.

This publication provides a collection of material useful to planners and managers of parks and protected areas in East Asia. It has been designed to help them think about the influx of tourism to natural protected areas, and to urge them to consciously plan for management of the interactions of tourists and the natural and cultural environment.

The IUCN system for classifying protected areas distinguishes six management categories (I-VI). This publication aims to further clarify how they can be interpreted within Europe, in order to help protected areas managers and others concerned with protected areas to apply the IUCN system more consistently to ensure reliable categorisation and data gathering

It is sometimes assumed that protected areas must be in conflict with the rights and traditions of indigenous and other traditional peoples on their domains. In reality, where indigenous peoples are interested in the conservation and traditional use of their lands, waters, territories and the natural and cultural resources that they contain, conflicts need not arise.

Is it possible to go beyond what the State declares to be the best way to manage natural resources? If yes, how? This publication attempst to answer these questions, by providing a practical manual for project officers, community members, government staff, NGO staff and others interested in participatory approaches to managing natural resources. It offers guidelines, checklists, concepts, ideas and a range of methods and tools to facilitate a co-management process.