Protected area management

In 1994, IUCN launched Parks for life: Action for Protected Areas in Europe - a plan devised by IUCN with 200 partners to ensure an adequate, effective and well-managed network of protected areas in Europe. In November 1997, some 150 protected area experts from 34 countries met to review progress and chart a course for future work.

Describes a field-level assessment of how people living near the Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda use the park's forest resources. It argues that extractive use of a range of timber and non-timber forest products, if properly monitored and controlled, is not necessarily a threat to biodiversity. The book explains clearly which data gathering methods were chosen and why, and how the results of this assessment can be used to develop collaborative management agreements with local people.

A system plan is the design of a total reserve system covering the full range of ecosystems and communities found in a particular country, identifying the range of purposes of protected areas and the relationships among the system components (i.e. individual areas, protected areas and other land uses), and different sectors and levels of society.