Leadership and Capacity Building for Protected Areas
Leadership in Protected Areas
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ARTICLE: Conservation leadership is a term without a widely shared understanding of its scope and meaning. In this article, the author shares perspectives based on interviews, literature, and a survey to begin to identify strategies that define conservation leadership. Results indicate that some elements of conservation leadership are similar to strategies of effective leadership more broadly.
Conservation leadership also includes distinguishing aspects, however, such as conflict management and partnership-building. The purpose of this article is to provide some initial thoughts and ideas to address “What is conservation leader-ship?” The outcomes of this work can assist those in leadership positions and those who teach conservation leadership by defining the skills and strategies necessary to be effective in conservation leadership roles.
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ARTICLE: This landscape study of capacity development initiatives focused on conservation leadership and available to early and mid-career professionals. The goals of the study were to understand what is currently available, identify needs and gaps, and inform the development of potential future initiatives. The analysis revealed a need to foster leaders with a diverse breadth of knowledge and skills, as well as significant depth in skill development.
Given the complexities of conservation, the uncertainties typically found around conservation issues, and the rapid pace of change, the sector needs leaders who are self-aware, systems thinkers, adaptive learners, conveners, network builders, collaboration brokers, effective communicators, and innovators. The authors found a need for more robust evaluation of program outcomes, more cross-sectoral collaboration, and a deeper consideration of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in both the content and design of training programs.
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ARTICLE: Management of protected areas must adapt to climate impacts, and prepare for ongoing ecological transformation. Future-Proofing Conservation is adialogue-based, multi-stakeholder learning process that supports conservation managers to consider the implications of climate change for governance and management. This process can be applied and adapted to a wide range of climate adaptation contexts, to support practitioners in developing positive ways forward for management and decision-making. By acknowledging scientific uncertainty, considering social values, and rethinking the rules that shape conservation governance, participants can identify new strategies towards ‘‘future-oriented conservation’’ over the long term.
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ARTICLE: Effective leadership is considered essential for conservation success, but there is currently not enough understanding of what conservation leaders are doing, and what they should be doing, in order to be effective. Other sectors, such as health, commerce, education, industry and the military have studied leadership for decades, and have a good knowledge of particular styles and suitable instruments for measuring leadership effectiveness. This study uses the perspectives of conservation professionals through interviews, a focus group and an online survey, to help develop a more comprehensive picture of the role of leaders, and leadership, within the discipline.
The study concludes that competencies that relate to interpersonal leadership skills are key for effectiveness, particularly building trust amongst followers. However, leaders in conservation are not showing these to the same extent as they are showing more technical skills. Future conservation training schemes should incorporate these competencies to ensure leaders are effective. Greater understanding can help inform conservation professionals who wish to invest in leadership development schemes to improve effectiveness across conservation initiatives.
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ARTICLE: Achieving nature conservation goals require grappling with ‘wicked’ problems. These intractable problems arise from the complexity and dynamism of the social–ecological systems in which they are embedded. To enhance their ability to address these problems, conservation professionals are increasingly looking to the trans disciplines of systems thinking and evaluation, which provide philosophies, theories, methods, tools and approaches that show promise for addressing intractable problems in a variety of other sectors.
Four key principles of a ‘praxis for effective conservation’ are presented: (1) attend to the whole with humility; (2) engage constructively with the values, cultures, politics, and histories of stakeholders; (3) learn through evaluative, systemic enquiry, and (4) exercise wisdom in judgement and action.
Capacity Building for Protected Areas
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WEBSITE: This page includes links to the BIOPAMA page, the massive open online courses (MOOC) that the Programme on African Protected Areas and Conservation (PAPACO) organises, and the PA Law course, as well as to the numerous publications by IUCN and the WCPA that contribute to protected area capacity development.
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REPORT: Landscape conservation, and management of protected areas in particular, needs leadership, knowledge, practical skills, science, innovation, creativity and collaboration. The people tasked with managing land and sea in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region are confronted with a conservation challenge of unprecedented scope and complexity. The urgency of the call to build capacity for effective conservation management of protected areas cannot be overstated. This report documents the need for new short courses that can build the skills and knowledge of people working in protected areas and related conservation activities across Australia and the Asia-Pacific.
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REPORT: As the global coverage of protected areas increases, it is becoming more important to ensure that today's managers have the necessary qualifications and skills to effectively manage protected areas. This publication defines all the possible skills, knowledge and personal qualities required by people working in protected areas around the world. It is an ideal reference and starting point for managers and human resource professionals to plan and manage staffing of protected areas, for educators to identify and meet capacity needs, and for individuals to assess and develop their own skills.
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REPORT: This document is an important tool for promoting action. It highlights the importance of culturally‐responsive capacity development, with Pacific Islanders defining the most appropriate approaches to be used.
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FRAMEWORK: The Strategic Framework for Capacity Development (SFCD) is the result of a widespread programme of activities and consultations during 2013 and 2015, including the World Parks Congress in Sydney Australia in November 2014. The SFCD is intended to complement, guide, and extend the recommendations on capacity development included in the Promise of Sydney that resulted from the Congress. It briefly describes the current situation concerning protected area capacity development, identifies major capacity development issues that need to be addressed over the next decade, and recommends pathways, goals, and objectives for future action
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REPORT: This is a report of a short scoping exercise intended to set the scene for further discussion and planning by PAC (Protected Area Collaboration for Learning and Research) and its network of collaborators in the South Pacific region and Melanesia in particular. The report summarises the current situation, the need for a clear capacity building strategy driven from with the region and the demand for appropriate support and services.
It focusses on the nature of the capacity building challenges and possible responses and the need for a coordinated support network and suppliers (providers) to enhance capacity in key areas. It also seeks to assess the suitability of two training programs currently available through PAC and more broadly look at how PAC might prepare a strategic response to help address the wider demand and supply issues in the future.
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FRAMEWORK: Capacity development is increasingly recognized as central to conservation goals. Efforts to develop individual, organizational and societal capacity underpin direct investments in biodiversity conservation and natural resource management, and sustain their impact over time. In the face of urgent needs and increasingly complex contexts for conservation the sector not only needs more capacity development, it needs new approaches to capacity development. The sector is embracing the dynamic relationships between the ecological, political, social and economic dimensions of conservation.
Drawing from conservation and other sectors, this report highlights examples of approaches that can support reflective practice, so capacity development practitioners can better understand the factors that favour or hinder effectiveness of interventions and influence system-wide change.