Management Effectiveness, Monitoring and Evaluation
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VARIOUS: IUCN and WCPA publish a variety of resources on protected and conserved areas.
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ARTICLE: A shared earth approach links biodiversity and people.
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BOOK: This book provides the first contemporary assessment of area-based conservation and its implications for nature and society.
Now covering 15% of the land surface and a growing area of ocean, the creation of protected areas is one of the fastest conscious changes in land management in history. But this has come at a cost, including a backlash from human rights organisations about the social impacts of protected areas. At the same time, a range of new types of area-based conservation has emerged, based on indigenous people’s territories, local community lands and a new designation of “other effective area-based conservation measures”. This book provides a concise overview of the status and possible futures of area-based conservation. With many people calling for half the earth’s land surface to remain in a natural condition, this book taps into the urgent debate about the feasibility of such an aim and the ways in which such land might be managed. It provides a timely contribution by people who have been at the centre of the debate for the last twenty years. Building on the authors’ large personal knowledge, the book draws on global case studies where the authors have firsthand experience, including Yosemite National Park (USA), Blue Mountains National Park (Australia), Bwindi National Park (Uganda), Chingaza National Park (Colombia), Ustyart Plateau (Kazakhstan), Snowdonia National Park (Wales) and many more.
This book is valuable reading for students, academics and practitioners interested in conservation and its impact on society
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REPORT: Protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) are a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation that provide co-benefits for achievement of the SDGs, in support of a nature-positive future. This report presents the global status of PAs and OECMs and opportunities for action, focusing on coverage and quality elements of effective management and equitable governance. Recognition is given to Indigenous Peoples' territories and the need to secure tenure rights, as well as embed PAs and OECMs into national policies and frameworks.
SAPA is a multi-stakeholder assessment for use by PA/CA managers, communities living within and around a PA/CA or other stakeholders and rights holders at local and national levels. The goal of SAPA is to help increase and more equitably share the positive social impacts and reduce the negative social impacts of conservation.
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MANUAL: This manual (revised and expanded 2nd edition) provides detailed guidance for assessing the social impacts — positive and negative — of protected areas (PAs) and other conserved areas (CAs) and any related conservation and development activities. The manual describes the relatively simple and low-cost Social Assessment for Protected and Conserved Areas (SAPA) methodology, which is intended for use at site level. SAPA can be used with PAs and CAs of any kind. This includes PAs governed and managed by government agencies, communities and the private sector.
SAPA is a multi-stakeholder assessment for use by PA/CA managers, communities living within and around a PA/CA or other stakeholders and rights holders at local and national levels. The goal of SAPA is to help increase and more equitably share the positive social impacts and reduce the negative social impacts of conservation.
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MANUAL: This manual provides detailed guidance for assessing the governance quality of protected areas (PAs) and other conserved areas (CAs) and any related conservation and development activities. The manual describes the relatively low-cost Governance Assessment for Protected and Conserved Areas (GAPA) methodology, which is intended for use at site level.
GAPA can be used with PAs and CAs of any kind. This includes PAs/CAs governed and managed by government agencies, communities and the private sector. GAPA is a multi stakeholder assessment for use by PA/CA managers, communities living within and around a PA/CA or other stakeholders and rights holders at local and national levels. The goal of GAPA is to improve the governance of PA/CAs and any related conservation and development activities.
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HANDBOOK: Second edition guidance for using METT-4.
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JOURNAL: The International Journal of Protected Areas and Conservation.
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ARTICLE: Increases in area-based conservation are essential to halt biodiversity loss and respond to climate change. Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are poised to adopt a target of protecting at least 30 per cent of the Earth’s lands, seas and freshwater by 2030. This is in the draft Global Biodiversity Framework and supported by over 70 countries who have joined the High Ambition Coalition.
The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, in partnership with UNEP – World Conservation Monitoring Centre, National Geographic, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Birdlife International has published guidance entitled ‘Conserving at least 30% of the planet by 2030: What should count?’. This guidance calls for a focus on quality as an essential part of large area-based conservation targets. Quality includes many elements, including a focus on establishing protected and conserved areas in areas important for biodiversity, how they are designed and ecologically connected, and ensuring management effectiveness and governance equity. But protected and conserved areas must be realised in full partnership with Indigenous and local communities.
The 30 per cent minimum target provides a significant opportunity to strengthen security of tenure, land and use rights especially for Indigenous Peoples and support to IPLC-led conservation efforts. Moving to protect at least 30 per cent of the Earth by 2030 is a grand challenge in which we need to speak a common language.
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REPORT: Protected Planet Reports are biennial landmark publications that assess the state of protected and conserved areas around the world. The 2020 edition provides the final report on the status of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11, and looks to the future as the world prepares to adopt a new post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
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ARTICLE: Area-based conservation targets aimed at stopping and reversing global biodiversity loss are set to form an integral part of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework discussions later this year. An international team of researchers have however found that strictly protecting global land area for conservation could have an adverse impact on human health and food security in some parts of the world.
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ARTICLE: The main effort to secure threatened species globally is to set aside land and sea for their conservation via governance arrangements such as protected areas. But not even the biggest protected area estate will cover enough area to halt most species declines. Consequently, there is a need for assessments of how species habitats are distributed across the tenure landscape, to guide policy and conservation opportunities.
Using Australia as a case study, we assess the relationship between land tenure coverage and the distributions of nationally listed threatened species. We discover that on average, nearly half (48%) of Australian threatened species' distributions occur on privately owned (freehold) lands, despite this tenure covering only 29% of the continent. In contrast, leasehold lands, which cover 38% of Australia, overlap with only 6% of species' distributions while protected area lands (which cover 20%) have an average of 35% of species' distributions. We found the majority (75%; n = 1199) of species occur across multiple land tenures, and those species that are confined to a single tenure were mostly on freehold lands (13%; n = 201) and protected areas (9%; n = 139). Our findings display the opportunity to reverse the current trend of species decline with increased coordination of threat management across land tenures.
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ARTICLE: The article seeks to summarize a range of perspectives in relation to the future of area-based biodiversity conservation.
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ARTICLE: Setting out the principles of post-growth conservation.
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ARTICLE: The expansion of coastal marine protected areas can suffer from two key drawbacks:(a) the difficulty of incentivizing local communities to manage areas for conservation when their livelihoods also depend on resource use; and (b) that many protected areas get situated residually, or in locations with limited value for either biodiversity conservation or livelihoods. Here, we discuss and analyze key characteristics of Tonga’s Special Management Area (SMA) program, including both the mechanisms that have motivated its successful national expansion and its ability to configure no-take reserves in areas that are considered to have high value to resource users.
Granting communities exclusive access zones in exchange for implementing no-take reserves has encouraged conservation actions while fostering long-term relationships with resources. Ensuring no take reserves occurred within the boundaries of exclusive access zones enabled communities to protect areas of greater extractive values than they would have otherwise. We conclude that the success of this program offers a way forward for achieving targets in the global expansion marine protected areas.
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WEBSITE: The Conservation Standards (CS) are a widely adopted set of principles and practices that bring together common concepts, approaches, and terminology for conservation project design, management, and monitoring. Developed by the Conservation Measures Partnership and regularly updated in collaboration with the broader community, this open-source, strategic process helps conservation teams achieve lasting impact.
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VARIOUS: The Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) is a community of conservation-oriented NGOs, government agencies, funders, and private businesses that work collectively to guide conservation around the world. As stewards of the Conservation Standards, we seek better ways to design, manage, and measure the impacts of conservation action.