Protected areas

Protected and Conserved Areas (PCAs) safeguard biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services for human and animal health, from water filtration to climate regulation. Yet PCAs can also be places where infectious diseases can emerge or spread among people, wildlife, and domestic animals. These dynamics make PCAs both vulnerable to infectious disease threats and critical allies in preventing and mitigating them.

This publication focuses on ecosystem governance in the context of urban-rural linkages, analysing nine case studies to develop principles for ecosystem governance. Ecosystem governance utilises the ecosystem approach, adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity, which emphasises the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the importance of integrated management for the analysis of the case studies.

Jordan is situated at the intersection of three continents and is home to a variety of ecosystems and rich biodiversity. Maintaining this  biodiversity in the face of climate change and human land use will require a representative and well-connected system of protected areas.

Este libro tiene como objetivo crear una fuerte conexión con respecto al agua y los humedales entre la sociedad y la naturaleza en la Sierra Gorda y entre la Sierra Gorda y el mundo. Varias otras localidades, en particular las zonas áridas de gran altitud en todo el mundo, enfrentan problemas similares relacionados con la gestión del agua y humedales. Cómo es que las experiencias de la Sierra Gorda puedan contribuir a la solución de estos dilemas en diferentes regiones?

This report tells the story of 10 years of the Asia Protected Areas Partnership (APAP) and the impact it has had. Understanding the impact of a wide-ranging partnership is never easy; outputs such as the 2nd Asia Parks Congress (APC2) reported here were only possible thanks to the efforts of a multitude of individuals and organisations. This report thus considers impacts based on APAP’s overarching objectives.

The IUCN World Heritage Outlook 4 assesses 271 natural and mixed World Heritage sites. Complementing the official monitoring processes under the World Heritage Convention, the World Heritage Outlook offers the most in-depth analyses of threats facing natural World Heritage around the world and their protection and management status.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022, provides a framework for the effective implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) through four goals and 23 targets. Target 3 (known as the ‘30x30 target’) calls on Parties to conserve at least 30% of terrestrial, inland waters, and coastal and marine areas by 2030. These guidelines are designed to promote good practices relating to identifying, reporting, monitoring and strengthening OECMs.

This report covers both terrestrial and marine protected and conserved areas (PCAs). The audience is practitioners and policymakers who seek background information on the role of PCAs in climate change mitigation to:
- develop policies that enhance biodiversity and climate change simultaneously;
- quantify the importance of PCAs as a mechanism to reduce GHG emissions in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the Paris Agreement;