adrian phillips turning ideas on their head

Protected AreasA starting point is a definition of

“protected area.” IUCN adopted thisin 1994:

[An] area of land and/or sea especial-ly dedicated to the protection andmaintenance of biological diversity,and of natural and associated culturalresources, and managed through legalor other effective means (IUCN 1994).

The Convention on BiologicalDiversity (CBD) uses a different defi-nition:

[A] geographically defined area whichis designated or regulated and man-aged to achieve specific conservationobjectives (Article 2).

In practice these definitions areonly marginally different. Eitherwould suffice for the purposes of theargument in this paper. Note that bothof them consider protected areas:

• To be area-based concepts thatmight be found anywhere;

• To require specific measures (dedi-cation, designation, regulation) forthe purposes of biodiversity con-servation (i.e., protection andmaintenance);

• To require management, deliveredthrough legal or other effectivemeans; and

• By implication, to require thatsome kind of management authori-ty is in place to secure conserva-tion.There are some 60,000 protected

areas around the world—that is, placesthat satisfy the IUCN definition andare held in the database kept by theUnited Nations Environment Pro-gram’s World Conservation Monitor-ing Center (UNEP/WCMC) at Cam-

The George Wright FORUM8

Adrian Phillips

Turning Ideas on Their HeadThe New Paradigm For Protected Areas

Introduction

The ideas that this paper brings together will be individually familiar toresource managers, protected area planners and managers, and otherconservation experts, but they may not have considered their combinedsignificance. So its purpose is not so much to break new ground as to

suggest that the changes that have occurred in our thinking and practice towardsprotected areas over the past 40 or so years amount to a revolution. But while themerits of many of these individual changes have been fiercely debated, their col-lective significance, which can be traced in the decisions of four world parks con-gresses, has largely gone unnoticed. Yet taken together they have produced a newparadigm for protected areas in the 21st century. Powerful forces have helped tobring about this new paradigm—and they will have an even greater influence onprotected areas thinking and practice in future.

bridge, United Kingdom. However,fewer than a quarter of these are largeenough to be included in the UnitedNations List of Protected Areas,whose listings are normally restrictedto areas greater than 10 sq km. TheU.N. list is published every few years;the last edition dates from1997(IUCN 1998a).

Protected areas are managed formany purposes and nationally havebeen called by many different names.To bring some order into this compli-cated situation, IUCN has developed asystem of protected area categories,based on primary management objec-tives (IUCN 1994). All categories areintended to fit within IUCN’s overalldefinition of a protected area. Thesecategories are summarized in Table 1.

A Classic Viewof Protected Areas

It is traditional (and correct) toaccord to the United States the honorof pioneering protected areas in theirclassic form, as government-owned,government-run areas set aside forprotection and enjoyment. Thismodel was, and remains, a simple butpowerful expression of peoples’ con-cern to protect their heritage for alltime. If this paper sets out to showwhy it is now often regarded as incom-plete, and in some situations potential-ly counterproductive, this is not todiminish its achievements in manycountries, nor to suggest that it has norole to play in the future.

Notwithstanding the leadershiprole of the USA, in fact the idea of for-

Volume 20 • Number 2 2003 9

Category Description

Ia Strict Nature Reserve: Protected area managed mainly forscience.

Ib Wilderness Area: Protected area managed mainly forwilderness protection.

II National Park: Protected area managed mainly for ecosystemprotection and recreation.

III Natural Monument: Protected area managed mainly forconservation of specific natural features.

IV Habitat/Species Management Area: Protected area managedmainly for conservation through managementintervention.

V Protected Landscape/Seascape: Protected area managedmainly for landscape/seascape conservation andrecreation.

VI Managed Resource Protected Area: Protected area managedmainly for the sustainable use of natural ecosystems.

Table 1. IUCN categories of protected areas (IUCN 1994)

mally designated protected areas—national parks in particular—took rootin a number of countries around thesame time. The origins of YosemiteNational Park go back to 1864, andYellowstone National Park, of course,came into being in 1872. But the Por-tuguese colonial government of Brazilinitiated what is now Tijuca NationalPark in 1861. The British colony ofNew South Wales (Australia) reserveda number of areas west of Sydney forprotection and tourism in the 1860sand 1870s, some of which laterbecame part of Blue MountainsNational Park. In 1879, Royal Nation-al Park was created in the wilds southof Sydney as a natural recreation areafor its burgeoning population. In1885, Canada protected hot springs inthe Bow Valley of the Rocky Moun-tains; part of this became BanffNational Park. Several forest reserveswere set up in South Africa in the lastyears of the nineteenth century. In1887 in New Zealand, the Maori ChiefTe Heuheu offered the Crown 2,400ha of sacred mountain summits, whichlater became Tongariro National ParkAct. The provincial or state tier of gov-ernments also started to create pro-tected areas: the province of Ontarioin Canada created Queen VictoriaNiagara Falls Park in 1885, and Algo-nquin National Park (later AlgonquinProvincial Park) in 1893 (Holdgate1999).

While the modern protected areasmovement had 19th-century originsmainly in the then “new” nations ofNorth America, Australia, NewZealand, and South Africa, othercountries were quick to follow. Duringthe twentieth century, the idea spread

around the world, though the drivingforce has been different in differentregions. For example, in Africa, theemphasis was on creating large gameparks; in Europe, a focus on landscapeprotection was more common.

The inspiration of the UnitedStates was much in evidence in thisworldwide trend—creating a family of“Yellowstone’s children” (Everhart1972). Indeed, active marketing of theU.S. experience has a long history.Thus, the 1940 Washington Conven-tion on Nature Protection and WildlifePreservation in the Western Hemi-sphere called on contracting parties tocreate protected areas, of which theprincipal model was national parks,sensu USA. The first two world parkscongresses were held in the UnitedStates (Seattle in 1962; Yellowstoneand Grand Teton national parks in1972). Beginning in 1965, the USA(and Canada) hosted a very influentialannual short course on parks foryoung conservation leaders fromaround the world. Also, the interna-tional office of the U.S. National ParkService helped many countries toestablish national parks. Pride in theAmerican achievement was evident: asthe writer Wallace Stegner said,“National Parks are the best idea weever had. Absolutely American,absolutely democratic, they reflect usat our best rather than our worst”(Stegner 1983).

As protected areas were set up inmore and more countries, it becamemore difficult to generalize about whythey were established and how theywere managed. Nonetheless, for manyyears the classic model dominatedthinking, and was at the center of


much national legislation to set upprotected areas. This view was rein-forced by IUCN’s advisory, promo-tional, and training work in this field,which treated national parks as primusinter pares among the different kind ofprotected areas.1 These ideas weredelivered on the ground in many partsof the developing world through sup-port given to national park projects byFAO (the Food and Agriculture Orga-nization of the United Nations, inwhich U.S. experts played a very influ-ential role, especially in Latin Ameri-ca), and (after its establishment in1972) UNEP, as well as by some otherdonors. Also, many countries set upspecialized agencies (national parksservices) to manage these areas.

At least until around the mid-1960s, the climate in which protected

areas were set up favored a top-downand rather exclusive view of protectedareas. Setting up large game parkswithout too much concern for theimpact on local people fitted well withthe autocratic style of colonial admin-istration (especially in Africa), and itwas equally at home in the early daysof post-colonial government whichfollowed many of the same styles ofadministration. Thus, modeled in parton the 1940 Western HemisphereConvention, the 1968 Africa Conven-tion on Nature and Natural Resourcesencouraged the creation of protectedareas from which local people wouldbe excluded, though tourists (andtheir activities such as sport fishing)would be welcome (see Table 2).

Certainly the opinions and rights ofindigenous peoples were of little con-


Conservation area “means any protected natural resource area, whether it be a strictnatural reserve, a national park, or a special reserve....”

Strict nature reserve “means an area ... under State control ... throughout which anyform of hunting or fishing ... [is] strictly forbidden ... where it shall be forbidden toreside, enter, traverse or camp....”

National park “means an area ... under State control ... exclusively set aside for thepropagation, protection, conservation and management of vegetation and wildanimals ... in which the killing, hunting and capture of animals and the destruction orcollection of plants are prohibited ... and [in which measures are taken] to enable thepublic to visit these parks.... [S]port fishing may be practised with the authorisationand under the control of the competent authority....”

Special reserve “means other protected areas such as: ‘game reserve’ ... within whichthe hunting, killing or capture of fauna shall be prohibited ... where settlement andother human activities shall be controlled or prohibited; ‘partial reserve’ or‘sanctuary’ ... an area set aside to protect characteristic wildlife.... ‘Soil,’ ‘water,’ or‘forest’ reserve shall denote areas set aside to protect such resources.”

Table 2. Extracts from the 1968 Africa Convention on Nature and Natural Resources.

cern to any government before about1970; these groups were not organ-ized as a political force as they are nowin many countries. Even in moredeveloped countries, the prevailingview until about the 1960s was thatgovernments knew best, and publicopinion was something for officials tohelp shape, not to be influenced by.Moreover, the scientific foundation forprotected areas was often limited: thebasis upon which areas were selected,and their boundaries drawn, ofteninvolved arbitrary judgment based onsuperficial knowledge. More generally,the idea of inter- or multi-disciplinaryworking was in its infancy. The greatmajority of people working in their

area or profession made little effort tobuild bridges to others employed inrelated topics; protected areas were noexception. In short, many protectedareas came into being at a simpler timein a less complex world.

It is this context that accounts forthe main features of the classic model,or paradigm,2 of protected areas as itwas before, say, 1970, and which aresummarized in Table 3.

Of course, Table 3 is a bit of a cari-cature, and certainly a rather crudegeneralization that overlooks many ofthe detailed ways in which protectedarea management in one country dif-fered from that in another. Nonethe-less, it captures the prevailing values


Objectives

• “Set aside” for conservation, in the sense

that the land (or water) is seen as taken out

of productive use

• Established mainly for scenic protection

and spectacular wildlife, with a major

emphasis on how things look rather than

how natural systems function

• Managed mainly for visitors and tourists,

whose interests normally prevail over those

of local people

• Placing a high value on wilderness—that is,

on areas believed to be free of human

influence

• About protection of existing natural and

landscape assets—not about the restoration

of lost values

Governance

• Run by central government, or at least set

up at instigation only of central government

Local people

• Planned and managed against the

impact of people (except for visitors),

and especially to exclude local people

• Managed with little regard for the local

community, who are rarely consulted

on management intentions and might

not even be informed of them

Wider context

• Developed separately—that is, planned

one by one, in an ad hoc manner

• Managed as “islands”—that is,

managed without regard to

surrounding areas

Management skills

• Managed by natural scientists or

natural resource experts

• Expert-led

Finance

• Paid for by the taxpayer

Table 3. A classic model of protected areas (adapted from Phillips 2002).

held by protected areas professionalsand political leaders at the time.

Charting the Changes in ThinkingTo help chart the progress in think-

ing about protected areas since, ananalysis has been undertaken of thetopics chosen for recommendations atthe four global protected areas eventsthat have occurred since 1962. Theseare the first (Seattle, 1962), second(Yellowstone/Grand Teton, 1972),third (Bali, 1982), and fourth (Cara-cas, 1992) world parks congresses.Also included in the analysis are twoother international protected area

events held since 1992, and thethemes selected for the fifth congressto be held in Durban, South Africa, inSeptember 2003. Each congress was(or will be) a global gathering of pro-tected area and other conservationexperts, addressing the issues thatthey regard as the most pressing. Thestrictly limited number of recommen-dations adopted at each event forced aprioritization that can be quite reveal-ing. Of course this is a crude form ofanalysis on its own, but detailed study

of the texts of the recommendationstends to bear out the following conclu-sions.

The First World Conference onNational Parks adopted a number ofbrief recommendations, but not all ofthem focused on protected area policy.Several addressed institutional ques-tions (e.g., support for the newlyfounded World Wildlife Fund), site-specific issues (e.g., Galapagos), andspecies conservation issues. Table 4includes only those recommendationsthat relate to protected area policy ingeneral.

The recommendations adopted bythe Second World Conference onNational Parks were much more clear-ly focused on what were then seen asthe global priorities for protectedareas. They are set out in Table 5.

The most remarkable thing aboutthis list, fully borne out by a detailedanalysis of the texts of the recommen-dations, is the failure to address theconnections between protected areasand questions of development in gen-eral, and between protected areas and


5: Park interpretation services6: Research into undisturbed biotopes7: Management to be based on scientific research8, 9, 10: Protected areas definitions and standards11: Exclusion of damaging development13, 14: Inclusion of support for protected areas in aid programs15: Marine protected areas22: Species protection by protected areas

[Because the original recommendations were only given numbers,titles have been added by the author.]

Table 4. Topics of relevant recommendations of the First World Conference on National Parks,Seattle, USA, 1962 (Adams 1962).

the areas around them in particular.There is also little interest shown inlocal communities or indigenous peo-ples—except as a threat to protectedareas. And no direct attention is givento biodiversity and genetic resourcesconservation. From today’s perspec-tive, these products of the 1972 con-ference in Yellowstone appear to rep-resent an inward-looking and narrowview of protected areas. They producea much more comprehensive agendathan that adopted at Seattle, and maybe said to capture the priorities ofadvocates of the classic paradigm inTable 3.

Toward a New ParadigmIt is instructive to compare Table 5

with the topics of recommendationsadopted by the Third World ParksCongress in Bali, Indonesia, ten years

later (see Table 6). While some themesare the same or similar, there are abunch of recommendations thataddress a wholly new agenda—seethose emphasized in italics. Evenfamiliar topics, like poaching, are con-sidered from a much more construc-tive viewpoint, with as much stress onalternative sources of income for localpeople as on combating illegal activi-ties. In place of education in protectedareas has come the much bigger chal-lenge of building public support forprotected areas. In this way, by makingthe link between protected areas anddevelopment questions, and byacknowledging the key role of localand indigenous groups, Bali repre-sented a real watershed.

Analysis of the recommendationsadopted at the Fourth World Congresson National Parks and Protected


1. Conservation of Representative Ecosystems2. Conservation of Tropical Forest Ecosystems3. Conservation of North and Sub-Polar Ecosystems4. Marine National Parks and Reserves5. Establishment of Antarctica as a World Park under U.N. Administration6. International Parks7. Regional Systems of National Parks and Other Protected Areas8. Conservation of the World Heritage9. Wetlands Convention10. Standards and Nomenclature for Protected Areas11. Integrity of National Parks and Equivalent Reserves12. Usage of National Parks13. Detrimental Effects of Vehicles, Boats, and Aircraft in National Parks and Other Protected

Areas14. Research on National Park Values15. Planning of National Parks and Other Protected Areas16. Exchange of Information17. Technical and Financial Assistance for National Parks18. Training19. Interpretation Services for National Parks20. Education in National Parks and Other Protected Areas

Table 5. Topics of recommendations of the Second World Conference on National Parks,Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, USA, 1972 (National Parks CentennialCommission 1973).

Areas, Caracas, Venezuela, shows anumber of further new themes emerg-ing. This congress took place justbefore the United Nations Conferenceon Environment and Development(UNCED) and was clearly influenced

by issues that were to come to the forein Rio de Janeiro a few months later,such as global change and biodiversityconservation; see italicized recom-mendations in Table 7 below. Itshould be noted, however, that other


Table 6. Topics of recommendations of the Third World Congress on National Parks andProtected Areas, Bali, Indonesia, 1982 (McNeely and Miller 1984).

1. Information on Protected Areas2. Global System of Representative Terrestrial Protected Areas3. Marine and Coastal Protected Areas4. Antarctica5. The Role of Protected Areas in Sustainable Development6. Threats to Protected Areas7. Combating Poaching8. Environmental Planning and Protected Areas9. Protected Areas and Traditional Societies10. Conservation of Wild Genetic Resources11. Development Assistance and Protected Areas12. Management of Protected Areas13. Protected Areas Personnel: Training and Communication14. Development of Public Support for Protected Areas15. Voluntary Assistance for Protected Areas16. World Heritage Convention17. Biosphere Reserves18. International Agreements and Protected Areas

1. Strengthening the Constituency for Protected Areas2. Global Change and Protected Areas3. Global Efforts to Conserve Biodiversity4. Legal Regimes for Protected Areas5. External Forces Threatening Sustainability6. People and Protected Areas7. Financial Support for Protected Areas8. Protected Areas and the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources9. Tourism and Protected Areas10. Partnerships for Protected Areas11. Marine Protected Areas12. Information, Research, and Monitoring13. Ecological Restoration14. Water and Protected Areas15. Development Planning and Natural Resource Use16. Expanding the Global Network of Protected Areas17. Protected Area Categories, Management Effectiveness, and Threats18. Building Protected Areas Institutions19. Developing Protected Areas Professionalism20. Biosphere Reserves

Table 7. Topics of recommendations of the Fourth World Congress on National Parks andProtected Areas, Caracas, Venezuela, 1992 (McNeely 1993).

new ideas, such as encouraging(supranational) regional strategies forprotected areas and promoting theidea of corridors between protectedareas, were included in the CaracasAction Plan but not in the recommen-dations adopted there (see McNeely1993; Holdgate and Phillips 1999).

In the years since Caracas, ideasabout protected areas have continuedto evolve rapidly at the internationallevel. Thus, the first Latin AmericanCongress on National Parks andOther Protected Areas (Santa Marta,Colombia, 1997), gave priority to (a)the spiritual dimension of protectedareas; (b) the emerging impacts onprotected areas of an increasinglyglobalized free-market economy; and(c) the changing role of protected areaagencies, from “managers” to “regula-tors” (Castaño Uribe 1997). In thesame year, IUCN convened a “mid-term” meeting five years after the

Caracas Congress in Albany, Aus-tralia. The theme was “From Islandsto Networks,” and the meeting empha-sized the importance of bioregionalplanning as a context for protectedareas management (IUCN 1998b).

It is of course too soon to say whatwill be decided at the forthcomingFifth World Parks Congress to be heldin Durban, South Africa, in Septem-ber 2003, but the pre-congress draftlist of proposed topics for recommen-dations is analyzed in Table 8.3

Table 9 attempts to synthesize thisanalysis by showing how variousthemes have emerged over the courseof these five congresses while othershave declined in importance. Thegrouping of recommendations is sub-jective, as is the assignment of recom-mendations. Moreover, the titles arefar less important than the contents ofthe decisions. Also, it is noticeable thatover time the range of issues covered


1. Protected Areas and Global Change2. Protected Areas and The CBD3. Protected Areas in Africa4. Protected Areas and Extractive Industry5. Protected Areas and Tourism6. Protected Area Categories for the 21st Century7. Protected Area and Mountains8. Transboundary Protected Areas9. Spiritual Values of Protected Areas10. Linking Protected Areas to International Programmes11. Urban Protected Areas12. Protected Areas and Armed Conflict13. Protected Areas and Politics14. Governance for Protected Areas15. Capacity Building for the 21st Century16. Protected Areas and Information Technology17. Management Effectiveness of Protected Areas18. Financial Security for Protected Areas19. Building Comprehensive Protected Area Systems20. Communities and Equity21. Marine Protected Areas

Table 8. Draft topics for recommendations at the Fifth World Parks Congress, 2003.

under the topic headings hasincreased greatly, so titles alone can bemisleading. Nonetheless, this analysisserves to illustrate what has been seenas important at different ten-yearstages over the past 40 years, and tothat extent the broad trends are clear.

This analysis of the topics chosenfor recommendations at the worldparks congresses between 1962 and2003, albeit a subjective one, reveals

how much ideas about protected areaschanged in quite a short time. A num-ber of critical external events wereresponsible for moving the agenda ofthe world parks congresses over thisperiod. At the international level, themost important were:• The 1972 United Nations Confer-

ence on the Human Environmentheld in Stockholm (which may beseen as signaling the end of a colo-


Table 9. Changing priorities for world parks congresses.

Recommendations adopted at (or proposed for):Topic1st

(1962)2nd

(1972)3rd

(1982)4th

(1992)5th

(2003)Ecosystem coverage

(including marine)15 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 2, 3, 4 11, 14,

167, 19, 21

Standards, definitions,information

8, 9, 10 10, 16 1 12, 17 6, 16, 17

Threats, pressures,global change

11 11, 12, 13 6, 7 2, 5, 9 1, 4, 5, 12

Technical assistance,finance

13, 14 17 7 18

Interpretation,education

5 19, 20 14

Species, geneticresources, biodiversity

22 10 3, 8

Research, science 6, 7 14Law, planning, and

management15 12 4

Training, capacitybuilding

18 13 18, 19 15

Conventions,transboundary, etc.

6, 7, 8, 9 16, 17, 18 20 2, 8

Building support,partnerships

15 1, 10 13

Development, bio-regional scale, etc.

5, 8, 11 15 10

People (includingindigenous peoples)

9 6 20

Ecological restoration 13Governance 14Spiritual values 9Urban links 11N.B.: the proposed region-specific recommendation on Africa at the Vth Congress has beenexcluded from this analysis.

nial period of conservation);• The development around the same

time of the biosphere reserve con-cept as part of the Man and Bios-phere program of the U.N. Educa-tional, Scientific, and CulturalOrganization, with its idea of a corearea for strict protection surround-ed by buffer and transitional zones,and its integration of conversationand development;

• The publication of the World Con-servation Strategy in 1980, whichexpressed new thinking on conser-vation and its relationship to devel-opment (IUCN 1980); and

• The adoption of Agenda 21 andthe CBD at the 1992 UNCED.These same events influenced (and

reflected) thinking about people andnature in general over the same peri-od—see Table 10.


Variable 1960+ 1980+ 1990+Perception ofnature

Wilderness Ecosystem;biodiversity;ecoregions

Culture in nature andnature in culture

Environmentalvalues

Theocentric andanthropocentric

Anthropocentric andcosmocentric

Anthropocentric andcosmocentric

Diagnosis ofenvironmentalproblems

Overpopulation;exceeding the land’scarrying capacity

poverty;overpopulation

Power relations;North–Southinequalities; whatcounts as a problemand to whom?

Representationsof local people

People are the threat People can’t beignored; people are aresource

Align with rural people

Solutions andtechnologies

Exclusionary protectedareas

Buffer zones,integratedconservation anddevelopmentprograms; sustainableuse; community-basedconservation

Alternative protectedareas; participatorynatural resourcemanagement; humanrights

Power relations Alliances with elites Technocratic alliances Alliances withgrassroots

Key influences Colonial conservation;elitist interests

Sustainabledevelopment debate;growing concern forlivelihoods

Democracy/humanrights movement;participatorydevelopment; post-modern influence onnatural and socialsciences

Author’s note: Whereas the 1980+ column corresponds very well with the message in the WorldConservation Strategy of 1980, the 1990+ column seems to go beyond UNCED and Agenda 21.Perhaps this most recent group of ideas challenges governments too much to find expression in aninternational agreement. Nonetheless, the ideas in the right-hand column are beginning toinfluence thinking profoundly, especially the idea of linking human rights and environmentalprotection. Indeed, what seems to be emerging is the idea of an environmental human right asagainst, or as well as, a theory of rights of nature.

Table 10. Summary of people—nature problematics in international conservation, 1960-1999(Jeanrenaud 2002)

The Modern Paradigm

for Protected Areas The result is the emergence of a

new paradigm for protected areas, onewhich contrasts in almost everyrespect with that which prevailed 40or even 30 years ago. The essential ele-ments of the paradigm at the outset ofthe 21st century are listed in Table 11.The contrasts with the classic model(Table 3) are summarized in Table 12.

None of the ideas in Table 11 (sum-marized in the right-hand column ofTable 12) is particularly novel. Theyare becoming the standard ways ofworking among professionals in theprotected areas business in manycountries, although progress withsome issues is more rapid than withothers. The contrast with the classicmodel is very striking. In almost everyrespect, established ideas that pre-


Table 11. The main elements of the modern paradigm for protected areas.

Objectives• Run also with social and economic

objectives as well as conservation andrecreation ones

• Often set up for scientific, economic andcultural reasons— the rationale forestablishing protected areas thereforebecoming much more sophisticated

• Managed to help meet the needs of localpeople, who are increasingly seen asessential beneficiaries of protected areapolicy, economically and culturally

• Recognizes that so-called wilderness areasare often culturally important places

• About restoration and rehabilitation as wellas protection, so that lost or eroded valuescan be recovered

Governance• Run by many partners, thus different tiers

of government, local communities,indigenous groups, the private sector,NGOs, and others are all engaged inprotected areas management

Management technique• Managed adaptively in a long-term

perspective, with management being alearning process

• Selection, planning, and managementviewed as essentially a political exercise,requiring sensitivity, consultations, andastute judgment

Finance• Paid for through a variety of means to

supplement—or replace—governmentsubsidy

Local people• Run with, for, and in some cases by local

people—that is, local people are no longerseen as passive recipients of protectedareas policy but as active partners, eveninitiators and leaders in some cases

• Managed to help meet the needs of localpeople, who are increasingly seen asessential beneficiaries of protected areapolicy, economically and culturally

Wider context• Planned as part of national, regional, and

international systems, with protected areasdeveloped as part of a family of sites. TheCBD makes the development of nationalprotected area systems a requirement(Article 8a)

• Developed as “networks,” that is, withstrictly protected areas, which are bufferedand linked by green corridors, andintegrated into surrounding land that ismanaged sustainably by communities

Perceptions• Viewed as a community asset, balancing

the idea of a national heritage• Management guided by international

responsibilities and duties as well asnational and local concerns. Result:transboundary protected areas andinternational protected area systems

Management skills• Managed by people with a range of skills,

especially people-related skills• Valuing and drawing on the knowledge of

local people

vailed only 30 years ago have beenturned on their heads. The result is arevolution in our approach to protect-ed areas.

Putting this new paradigm intoaction calls for a new, more people-focused protected areas legislation,such as that adopted in Peru or Brazil

(though existing laws can often bestretched to accommodate many of thenew approaches); the “re-engineer-ing” of protected areas people; the re-education of politicians and the publicso that they understand the newmodel of protected areas; and the re-orientation of development assistance


Table 12. Contrasting paradigms: a summary of Tables 3 and 11 (adapted from Phillips2002).

As it was: protected areas were... As it is becoming: protected areasare...

Objectives • Set aside for conservation• Established mainly for

spectacular wildlife andscenic protection

• Managed mainly for visitorsand tourists

• Valued as wilderness• About protection

• Run also with social andeconomic objectives

• Often set up for scientific,economic, and cultural reasons

• Managed with local people morein mind

• Valued for the culturalimportance of so-calledwilderness

• Also about restoration andrehabilitation

Governance • Run by central government • Run by many partnersLocal people • Planned and managed

against people• Managed without regard to

local opinions

• Run with, for, and in some casesby local people

• Managed to meet the needs oflocal people

Wider context • Developed separately• Managed as “islands”

• Planned as part of national,regional, and internationalsystems

• Developed as “networks”(strictly protected areas,buffered and linked by greencorridors)

Perceptions • Viewed primarily as anational asset

• Viewed only as a nationalconcern

• Viewed also as a communityasset

• Viewed also as an internationalconcern

Managementtechniques

• Managed reactively withinshort timescale

• Managed in a technocraticway

• Managed adaptively in long-term perspective

• Managed with politicalconsiderations

Finance • Paid for by taxpayer • Paid for from many sources

Management

skills

• Managed by scientists and

natural resource experts

• Expert-led

• Managed by multi-skilled

individuals

• Drawing on local knowledge

policies so as to integrate protectedareas into poverty reduction projectsand strategies. Bringing about such arevolution has not been easy. Thereare many people who—for good rea-sons or bad—do not wish to hear thatthe values and policies associated withprotected areas are now very differentfrom those that prevailed in the past.And indeed there may be some in theprofession who still yearn for the oldcertainties.

The Forces Behind the ChangesThe forces that have driven these

changes are increasingly powerful. It isnot the aim of this paper to analyzethem in detail: the implications arevery broad, since they touch on manyaspects of the way that society oper-ates and how nature functions. But it ispossible to identify the main factorsthat have brought about a very differ-ent way of looking at conservationissues, and the management of naturalresources in general and of protectedareas in particular. These relate to sci-entific understanding, cultural andsocial awareness, the acknowledgmentof human rights, political develop-ments, general developments in man-agement practice, technologicaladvances, and economic forces.

Scientific understanding has taughtus, for example, that many protectedareas are too small to function effec-tively and need to be joined up withothers, or set in an ecologically friend-ly landscape, if the species withinthem are to survive. It has also shownus that the human impacts on whatwere previously thought of as pristineenvironments, from the Amazon forestto the Australian outback, have often

been significant—thereby to someextent undermining the power of thewilderness argument. It has revealedmany new frontiers for conservation,especially in the marine environment,including the high seas, and many newchallenges, such as climate change. Ithas also shown that techniques existfor ecological restoration.

Cultural and social awarenessencourages greater respect for localcommunities and traditional andindigenous peoples, an understandingof the true character of their relation-ship with nature, and an appreciationof the sustainable practices that manyof them have followed. This too hasled people to question the value of thewilderness concept, since many so-called wilderness areas are in fact thehomelands of indigenous peoples.The views and experience of womenare acknowledged now to be of specialimportance, and there is concern thatethnic minorities should not be mar-ginalized; this too affects views of therelationship between protected areasand the people living in or near them.More generally, greater understandingof the values held by different sectorsof society has made it incumbent onprotected area managers to listen tothe views of local people and torespond to their concerns. The cur-rent pre-occupation with stakeholderanalysis is an expression of this.

Linked to this has been the emer-gence in recent decades of an interna-tional doctrine and law on humanrights, especially the rights of indige-nous peoples, particularly in relationto the environment. This is evident inthe International Labor Organiza-tion’s Convention 169, the draft Dec-


laration on the Rights of IndigenousPeoples, and the Inter-America Decla-ration on the Rights of IndigenousPeoples. In response, governmentshave been obliged to make big changesin how they approach protected areasin indigenous territories. In LatinAmerica, the Arctic, New Zealand,and Australia, for example, govern-ments are transferring responsibilityfor management, and even for initiat-ing protected areas, to local communi-ties. Respect of indigenous rights andawareness of the values of indigenousknowledge have been reinforcedthrough the implementation of inter-national conservation agreements.Thus the CBD includes article 8( j),which specifically calls on countries towork with indigenous and local com-munities. And even though conven-tions dating from the early 1970s,notably Ramsar (wetlands) and WorldHeritage, do not include such meas-ures, their implementation (and that ofUNESCO’s Man and Biosphere Pro-gram) has been increasingly guided bythe need to be sensitive to culturaldiversity and the values of indigenousgroups.

It is impossible to generalize aboutpolitical developments, but severalbroad trends do seem to be underwayin many parts of the world, in Africa,Latin America, Eastern Europe, India,China, and so on. For example, greaterdemocratization and the devolution ofpower from the center to regional andlocal tiers of government (includingindigenous peoples) means that cen-tral government is no longer the onlygovernment agency that creates ormanages protected areas: provincial,municipal, and local governments are

also more and more involved. Theenhanced role of civil society favorsnon-governmental organizations(NGOs) playing an increasinglyimportant role in protected areas.Greater use of market mechanisms toeffect change, deliver services, or man-age processes impact in many ways onprotected areas and how they are man-aged. For example, private individualsare creating their own reserves, com-mercial ventures are more involved indelivering aspects of protected areamanagement, and protected area man-agers have to approach their job in amore business-like way. At the otherend of the scale, governments increas-ingly recognize that protected areasare in part an international responsi-bility. This is sometimes very precise,for example where a site is designatedunder the World Heritage or Ramsarconventions (or regional agreementssuch as those in Europe), and some-times it is a more general sense ofresponsibility encouraged particularlyby the requirements of the CBD toconserve biodiversity in situ.

General developments in manage-ment practice have affected protectedarea management in a number of ways.For example, in the latter part of the20th century it has become clear thatmaking connections across profes-sional and institutional boundaries isone of the biggest challenges facinggovernments and managers of allkinds. For protected areas, this meansmaking connections to the areasaround and adopting a multi-discipli-nary approach. Another broad trendin management in general is away fromdetailed master plans and towards theadoption of a strategy of clearly


defined objectives coupled with adap-tive forms of response; this too findsan echo in protected areas practice.

Technological advances also havetheir impact on protected areas man-agement. It is not just that IT or GISmake possible the handling and shar-ing of vast amounts of data and infor-mation, but that they create a differentset of understandings and expecta-tions among all concerned. In partic-ular, they encourage a belief that theboundaries to what are possible arenot so often technical as they arehuman and political.

Finally there are economic forces,ranging from the global to local, but allputting pressure on protected areasplanners and managers. As these pres-sures have grown, so the managementof protected areas has been ‘invaded’by economic theory. Managers havehad to master the language of valuesand benefits that protected areas rep-resent, and to adopt more business-like approaches to the care of theseplaces, including the requirement todevelop business plans. Increasingly,this has included the idea of generat-ing income to supplement governmentsubventions.

Some Critical Reflections

on the Modern ParadigmAs noted at the outset of this paper,

the current approach to protectedareas is now widely shared. It accordswell with prevailing political, econom-ic, and scientific conditions. But it isnot without major problems and thereality is that it is not always easy tooperate the modern paradigm. Hereare several of the criticisms that aresometimes heard:

• Devolution of political power fromthe center has led to the break-up ofsome protected area agencies withunfortunate results. An extremecase is Indonesia, where the parkssystem in a country of globallyimportant biodiversity has, to alarge extent, been undermined bythe breakdown of central controland widespread corruption. Sever-al vital sites (such as GunungLeuser National Park in Sumatra)face wholesale destruction from arange of threats; Jakarta has neitherthe will nor the ability to do muchto defend the area in a political cli-mate that encourages the ruthlessextraction of natural resources.

• Stakeholder participation and com-munity involvement may be essen-tial but they can make greatdemands of resources (staff, time,and money) from over-stretched pro-tected areas agencies. Also, they callfor fine political judgments aboutwho stakeholders are and how con-flicting interests can be determinedand reconciled. Sometimes it is alltoo difficult and managers com-plain of “analysis paralysis” and“stakeholder fatigue.”

• We should not be naïve about thewillingness or ability of all localcommunities to support conserva-tion and sustainable use. Not everycommunity has responsible tradi-tions in its use of natural resources;modern hunting technology (e.g.,high-velocity rifles) can change thebalance between hunters andwildlife; and a community with afast-growing population has a dif-ferent impact on natural resourcesthan one with a stable population.



How to build partnerships withlocal people in the context of suchchallenges poses major dilemmasfor many protected area managers.

• In our enthusiasm for people-basedconservation, we are in danger ofdiminishing the achievements ofgovernment-managed, strictly pro-tected areas. That is not the inten-tion; in fact, government-ownedand -managed parks that are strict-ly protected against all kinds ofexploitative use will remain the cor-nerstone of many countries’ sys-tems of protected areas. The newparadigm is not intended to under-mine the value of such places but toshow how their management haschanged (or should change) radi-cally, and to stress that the contri-bution that other kinds of protect-ed areas can make is equally impor-tant. It also a reminder that all gov-ernments try to meet the demandsof many different groups and there-fore find it hard to support protect-ed areas at the expense of otherinterests. The relevance of new par-adigm is that it offers more scopefor negotiation.

• We are in danger of making themanager’s job undoable. Thedemands of stakeholder analysisare only one part of the protectedarea manager’s ever-expanding setof responsibilities. He or she isexpected to master (or at leastemploy experts in) many new andcomplex areas of expertise (busi-ness skills and fundraising, eco-nomics, conflict resolution, publicrelations, and so on) on top of nat-ural resource and visitor manage-ment. Now the manager is being

urged to think beyond the protect-ed area’s boundaries, to engage inbioregional planning initiatives (seebelow), and even to address widersocial problems faced by ethnicminorities in nearby cities.

There are many more such difficultquestions, and no easy answers tothem. The modern paradigm mayindeed represent the outcome of a rev-olution in protected areas manage-ment, but it greatly complicates thetask of management. Nonetheless, asthe last part of this paper shows, it isfast becoming a reality.

The Modern Paradigm in ActionThree examples of the application

of the new approach to protected areasplanning and management are brieflyexplored, with references to on-the-ground action: community-conservedareas, bioregional planning/ecologicalnetworks, and protected landscapesand seascapes (IUCN protected areamanagement category V). They allsuggest that the cutting edge of pro-tected area work has moved into verydifferent fields from those thatreceived most attention 30 years ago.

Community-conserved Areas4

Community-conserved areas(CCAs) may be thought of as naturalecosystems containing significant bio-diversity value that are conserved bycommunities that depend on theseresources, either culturally, for theirlivelihoods, or both. While conserva-tion efforts may or may not includeoutside support, the three key featuresare that the local communities:

• Are concerned about the ecosys-


tem though their relation to it;• Take effective action to maintain or

enhance biodiversity; and• Are major players (usually the

major players) in decision-makingand implementing decisions.

It is becoming clear that while suchareas provide a potentially importantnew tool in the conservation armory,they have often gone unrecognized.There are several reasons for this.Many government conservation agen-cies are just too busy running theirown protected areas, and hard pressedfinancially, to reach out to supportcommunity initiatives. Some conser-vation experts do not believe that localpeople can live alongside nature andconserve it. In some countries, legaland policy frameworks do not recog-nize the role of local people in conser-vation. Finally there are many coun-tries where indigenous peoples andrural communities have yet to securetheir full legal rights to the territoriesand resources that they have occupiedor used in the past.

Yet the importance of CCAs is con-siderable, for they are far more com-mon than was previously appreciated.In South Asia, for example, it is esti-mated that there are many such areasunder community protection(Kothari, Pathak, and Vania, 2000).They exist too in the form of sacredgroves in Africa, as “tapu” areas in theSouth Pacific, or as “hemas” reservesin pastoral communities of westernAsia. They are common also in manyparts of the world, ranging from theArctic to tropical rainforests, whereindigenous peoples have long livedclose to nature. So where the efforts oflocal people to conserve their own

environments go unrecognized andunsupported, it means that a majorcontribution to conservation (and aready-made tool for building localsupport for conservation) is beingneglected. Nonetheless, there areencouraging signs that some govern-ments are coming to see the value oftreating local and indigenous commu-nities as partners (see Table 13).

It is important to keep a sense ofproportion. Not all community-basedresource use is sustainable and notevery local group will manage naturein a responsible way. But there isenough hard evidence now, from manyparts of the world, to show that theidea of CCAs needs to be recognizedas a fourth arm of conservation, along-side the efforts of governments,NGOs, and the private sector. Thereare important lessons being learnedtoo about why such approaches workbetter in some countries than in oth-ers. For example, CCAs will thrivewhere power is devolved to local peo-ple, human rights are respected, anddecision-making is transparent andequitable. Where this happens, CCAscontribute to conserving biodiversityand landscapes but also demonstratethe integration of conservation anddevelopment, contribute to nationalprotected area systems, and are part ofecological networks and bioregionalplanning (see next section).

Bioregional Planning/

Ecological NetworksIUCN has recently published a

review of ecological networks (Ben-nett and Wit 2001). It draws in part onearlier unpublished work by Millerand Hamilton (1997). What these


overviews show is that there are initia-tives now underway in many parts ofthe world to promote large-scale plan-ning for conservation and sustainableresource use, which involve develop-ing networks of protected areas linkedwith other land and water zones, allmanaged in an integrated way. Suchinitiatives go by several differentnames that relate to similar concepts(e.g., ecological networks, bioregional

planning, landscape-scale or ecore-gion-based planning).

Bennett and Wit found 150 suchschemes in all, and studied 38 indetail. Of these, over a third werebeing implemented. Their examplesare found in all parts of the developedand developing worlds. As the exam-ples in Table 14 show, ecological net-works vary greatly in size, from countyto continental scale, and the aims

Table 13. Some examples of the successful partnerships between government and CCAs(source: personal communications as shown)

Country Initiative Brief description SignificanceAustralia indigenous protected

areas (IPAs)IPAs allow indigenouslandowners to declare thatthey will manage their landsmainly for protection ofnatural and associatedcultural resources

IPAs account for nearly 17% oftotal protected areas estate inAustraliaSource: Steve Szabo

Mexico(state ofOaxaca)

community protectednatural areas

laws recognize communityland and resources,community land-useplanning, and localdecision-making

local communities in Oaxaca(the most biodiverse richregion of Mexico) protectnearly 200,000 haSource: Gonzalo Oviedo

Ecuador(Cofan deBermejo)

negotiations overrights of indigenousgroups

transfer of responsibility ofecological reserve fromgovernment to localfederation of indigenousgroups

50,000 ha of land will bemanaged by local people withoutside supportSource: Gonzalo Oviedo

Colombia(IndiwasiNationalPark)

negotiations overrights of indigenousgroups

transfer of responsibility ofnational park fromgovernment to indigenousgroups (first of 47 inColombia)

70,000 ha of land will bemanaged by local people withoutside supportSource: Gonzalo Oviedo

Samoa(SafataandAleipataMarineProtectedAreas)

establishment ofmarine protectedareas for sustainablefisheries

local communities havetaken the initiative todefine and establish MPAs(including “no-takezones”) in the waters andcoastal areas of the DistrictCommunities of Safata andAleipata

30,000 ha + of land/sea will beprotected and managed bycustomary laws andregulations, approved bygovernment in community-prepared management plansSource: Pedro Rosabal

Isle ofEigg,Scotland,U.K.

community-basedpurchase of the island

small island community, inpartnership with Scottishconservation NGO andregional agency, boughtisland for conservation andsustainable development

7,500 hectares of highbiodiversity and scenic valuenow conserved by local peoplewho have developedsustainable forms of tourismSource: Web site


sometimes differ too. Several of theminvolve two or more countries. Rough-ly half of such initiatives are govern-ment-led, with the rest inspired byNGOs. Many form parts of interna-tional programs (e.g., biospherereserves); others are stand-aloneschemes. But while the initiatives dif-fer widely in many respects, they havecertain features in common:• They focus on conserving biodi-

versity at the ecosystem, landscape,or regional scale, rather than in sin-gle protected areas;

• They emphasize the idea of ecolog-ical coherence through encourag-ing connectivity;

• They involve buffering of highlyprotected areas with eco-friendlyland management areas;

• They include programs for therestoration of eroded or destroyedecosystems; and

• They seek to integrate economicland use and biodiversity conserva-tion.All these schemes have important

implications for the established pro-tected areas within them. Nationalparks and other protected areasbecome the “anchors” of the network,the core areas around which buffersare created and between which corri-dors are established; they also set thestandards toward which restorationschemes can aspire. Such projects,therefore, have the effect of linking theprotected areas to the surroundingland and water areas, and to theregional economy. They also provide aframework within which privately,publicly, and communally owned landcan be managed through voluntaryagreements for a common cause.While early indications of the benefitsof bioregional planning are encourag-

Table 14. Some ecological network/bioregional planning initiatives (Bennett and Wit 2001).

Title ofinitiative

Areas involved Leadingorganizations

Main objectives Maincomponents

MesoamericanBiologicalCorridor

eight Meso-americancountries(multi-national)

inter-governmentalleadership

halt biodiversity loss,ecosystemfragmentation; integratewith regionaldevelopment, includingintegrated coastal zonemanagement and MPAs

• core areas• corridors• buffer zones

(multiple useareas)

Yellowstone–Yukon

Canadian andU.S. Rockies(bi-national)

NGO alliance ensure that wilderness,wildlife, native plants,and natural processescontinue to supportnatural and humancommunities

• wildlife cores• connecting

movementcorridors

• transition areas

NetherlandsEcologicalNetwork

The Netherlands(national)

Dutch Ministry ofAgriculture, NatureManagement andFisheries

create coherent networkfor species and habitats;stimulate self-sustainingnatural processes;develop/restoreconnectivity

• core areas• ecological

corridors• buffer zones• nature

developmentareas

CheshireEconet

Cheshire County,U.K.(local)

Cheshire CountyCouncil/E.U. LIFEprogram

manage landscape forpeople and wildlife, andimprove the connectionsbetween survivingwildlife habitats

• core areas• restoring and

re-connectinglandscapefeatures


ing, a major challenge over the nextfew years will be to assess the truevalue of these initiatives for biodiversi-ty conservation and sustainable devel-opment. A particular challenge will beto establish how effective such large-scale initiatives are in linking withlocal people on the ground. (For athoughtful analysis of the relationshipbetween local participation and one ofthe largest bioregional projects, theMesoamerican Biological Corridor,see Rivera et al. 2003.)

The institutional and capacity-building implications of bioregional orecological network planning areindeed formidable. Three kinds ofchallenges arise:

• To build the capacity to plan andmanage at a scale that is unfamiliarto most protected area managers;

• To foster stakeholder participationfor a wide range of partners, whichcan be very challenging given thecomplex social and economicimplications of working at a largegeographic scale; and

• To establish cooperative institu-tions to ensure the delivery ofresults, where previously agencieswere typically more narrowlyfocused (Miller 1996).

While it is not suggested that pro-tected area managers—with their limit-ed responsibilities and geographicallycircumscribed powers—should leadsuch initiatives on their own, their fullinvolvement in them is essential.Nothing illustrates more the need forprotected area management to be out-ward-looking and connecting with the

world around than the development ofsuch initiatives.

IUCN Protected AreaManagement Category V:Protected Landscapes and

Seascapes Table 1 summarizes the IUCN

management categories for protectedareas. While IUCN insists that all cat-egories are important, traditionally thefocus of most conservation attentionhas been on categories I–IV, the so-called strictly protected areas. Theseare areas in which the human pres-ence—though it often exists—is kept ata minimal level. The need for them isgreater than ever if much biodiversityis to be protected. However, there isnow also a growing interest in protect-ed areas which are lived-in landscapes,that is categories V and VI, the so-called multiple-use protected areas.5

To promote interest in the approach,IUCN has just published guidelineson the management of Category Vprotected areas: Protected Land-scapes and Seascapes (Phillips 2002).This section draws on that advice.

In the IUCN Guidelines for Protect-ed Area Management Categories(IUCN 1994), category V, protectedlandscape/seascape, is defined thus:

[An] area of land, with coast and seaas appropriate, where the interactionof people and nature over time hasproduced an area of distinct characterwith significant aesthetic, ecologicaland/or cultural value, and often withhigh biological diversity. Safeguardingthe integrity of this traditional interac-tion is vital to the protection, mainte-nance and evolution of such an area.

With more than 50 years of experi-ence in Europe, and a growing body ofexperience from elsewhere, it is now


possible to identify with confidencethe main features of the category Vapproach. Thus it is concerned withboth people and their environment,and with a range of natural and cultur-al values. It focuses on areas wherepeople–nature relationships have pro-duced a landscape with high aesthetic,ecological, biodiversity, or cultural val-ues, and which retains integrity. Itviews communities, and their tradi-tions, as fundamental to the success ofthe approach; therefore, stakeholderand partnership approaches are need-ed. The approach recognizes the needto support the stewardship role of theprivate landowner or manager (includ-ing that of land trusts or similar bod-ies). It usually involves managementarrangements that are resolvedthrough decision-making at local gov-ernment or community levels. It canbring social, economic, and culturalbenefits to local communities, alongwith environmental, cultural, educa-tional, and other benefits to a widerpublic. It requires that managementactivities are integrated, promote sus-tainability, and help to resolve con-flicts. Properly run, such areas canoffer models of sustainability for widerapplication elsewhere in rural areas.But as with all protected areas, catego-ry V protected areas require effectivemanagement systems, including objec-tive setting, planning, resource alloca-tion, implementation, monitoring,review, and feedback.

Several reasons explain why so lit-tle international interest was shown incategory V protected areas in the past.It was seen (wrongly) as an essentiallyEuro-centric idea which had littleapplication elsewhere, and as a super-

ficial concern with how places look.Also most scientists argued that theglobal priority should be the remain-ing core “natural” areas. Such viewsprevailed also because of the domi-nance of biologists, zoologists, andother natural scientists in the conser-vation movement. Finally, there wasthe power of the essentially NorthAmerican model of a national park: asimple concept that stood in markedcontrast to the complex idea of pro-tecting environments that people hadoccupied and shaped for perhapsthousands of years. The contrast isillustrated by Table 15.

The focus is now being placedmore on outstanding, lived-in land-scapes because of important concep-tual and operational advances in con-servation and protected areas. Thus,conservation biology has shown theneed to work at the ecosystem scaleand across the wider landscape,through bioregional planning (seeabove) in which lived-in landscapesmust form a part. It is accepted toothat protected areas cannot be treatedas islands, but must be seen in theirlarger context. The existence of“paper parks”—areas protected inname only—shows that reliance onregulation and enforcement is costlyand too often fails. Also, there is a newunderstanding of the link betweennature and culture. Thus healthy land-scapes are shaped by human culture aswell as by the forces of nature; richbiological diversity often coincideswith cultural diversity; and conserva-tion cannot be undertaken without theinvolvement of those people closest tothe resources (Brown and Mitchell2000).


Although the greatest concentra-tion of category V protected areas is tobe found in Europe, under namessuch as regional nature park (France),nature park (Spain), protected land-scape area (Czech Republic), andnational park (U.K.), there are catego-ry V protected areas in many otherparts of the world. Examples are:

• The small island developingstates in the Caribbean and thePacific;

• The traditional farming lands ofthe Andes;

• The traditional coffee-growingareas of Mexico and CentralAmerica;

• The long-settled landscapes ofeastern parts of the USA andCanada;

• The growth, within the U.S.national park system, of newprotected areas relying on part-nerships with local communi-ties;

• Wildlife dispersal areas of EastAfrica;

• The ancient “hemas” reserveand irrigation systems of SaudiArabia;

• The mountain communities ofthe Himalayas, e.g., the Anna-purna Conservation Area,Nepal;

• Japan, where many nationalparks are managed as CategoryV protected areas; and

• The rice terraces of the Philip-pines.

In 1997, WCMC recorded 3,178category V protected areas in its data-base, covering in total 676,892 sqkm—that is, 23.8% in terms of thenumber of all protected areas and 11%in terms of area covered (IUCN1998a). The publication of IUCN’sguidelines for category V protectedareas (see above) is an indication thatthis is becoming a growth sector fornew protected areas.

ConclusionIt is not the purpose of this paper to

diminish in any way the value of strict-ly protected areas, nor to disparage theachievements of this kind of conserva-tion. Well-managed protected areas ofall categories are needed more thanever. Indeed, in many places biodiver-sity conservation will not be secured

Table 15. Categories II and V contrasted.

Characteristic Typical situation in CategoryII National Parks

Typical situation in Category VProtected Landscape/seascape

naturalenvironment

apparently “natural” ecosystems greatly modified ecosystems

managementobjectives

ecosystem conservation andtourism

landscape protection, tourism, localeconomy and culture, sustainable use

principal economicland uses

tourism farming, forestry, tourism

land/waterownership

mainly publicly owned mainly privately owned

managementagency

central/provincial government provincial/local government

human settlement limited (sometimes illegal) long established, “part of the scene”


without a still greater effort to protectlarge parts of the planet againstexploitation of any kind. But it isessential to adopt new ways of manag-ing these, and in any case strictly gov-ernment-owned and -managed pro-tected areas alone are no longerenough. What is called for in the 21stcentury, and what is now emerging inthe new paradigm, is a broader way oflooking at protected areas.

It is broader in three senses:• By including a wider range of

actors among those who initiateand manage protected areas, ofwhich CCAs are an example;

• By working at a far broader scalethan hitherto, as exemplified byecological networks and biore-gional planning; and

• By broadening our understand-ing of the range of possibilitiesencompassed in the definition of

a protected area and the IUCNprotected area categories, so thatwe can embrace parts of thelived-in landscape, for exampleas category V protected areas.

There have in fact been huge con-ceptual advances in thinking aboutprotected areas over the past 30–40years, as this paper has shown. In the-ory, at least, we know now what needsto be done to achieve successful pro-tected areas. The challenge, as always,is to apply the theory. This requiresthat we develop support among peo-ple and their political leaders for pro-tected areas. This in turn dependsupon us being able to show the bene-fits that they can bring to society. Thatis the theme —Benefits BeyondBoundaries—of the Fifth World ParksCongress to be held in Durban thiscoming September.

AcknowledgmentsThe author is indebted to Clive Anstey, Ed Barrow, Grazia Borrini-Feyer-

abend, Elery Hamilton-Smith, Hanna Jaireth, Ashish Kothari, Sango Mahanty,Bob Manning, Gonzalo Oviedo, Pedro Rosabal, Peter Shadie, David Sheppard,and Andrew Tilling for their helpful comments on drafts of this paper.

Endnotes1 Thus, the first title of what is now the United Nations List of Protected Areas was United

Nations List of National Parks and Equivalent Reserves. The first title of the IUCN commis-sion on the topic was the International Commission on National Parks (later Commission onNational Parks and Protected Areas, now World Commission on Protected Areas). The titleof the 1962 and 1972 congresses were “International Conference on National Parks,” the1982 event was called the “Third World Congress on National Parks” that in 1992 was enti-tled “Fourth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas,” while that which isplanned for 2003 will be the “World Congress on Protected Areas.”

2 “Paradigm” is used here to mean a prevailing pattern of concepts and attitudes which togeth-er constitute an ideal for the planning and management of protected areas.

3 The author added the titles as the originals were only numbered.4 See the IUCN/WCPA web site: http://wcpa.iucn.org/.5 This section draws in particular from material provided by Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend,

Ashish Kothari, and Gonzalo Oviedo, to whom I am therefore indebted.6 Though category V is unique among the categories in its emphasis on interaction between


people and nature, it shares with category VI the idea of multiple use. Many of the reasonsfor a growing interest in category V apply to category VI as well, for example the emphasison sustainable use of natural resources. But there is an important difference. While categoryV protected areas are lived-in landscapes that have been extensively modified by people overtime, the definition of category VI speaks of an “area of predominantly unmodified naturalsystems,” which is to be managed so that at least two-thirds of it remains that way.

ReferencesAdams, A. B., ed. 1962. First World Conference on National Parks. Washington, D.C.: National Park Ser-

vice.Bennett, G., and P. Wit. 2001. The Development and Application of Ecological Networks. Amsterdam:

AIDEnvironment.Brown, J., and B. Mitchell. 2000. The stewardship approach and its relevance for protected landscapes.

The George Wright Forum 17:1, 70-79.Castaño Uribe, C. 1997. Santa Marta Declaration. Bogotá, Colombia: El Sello Editorial.Everhart, W. C. 1972. The National Park Service. New York and London: Praeger.Holdgate M. 1999. The Green Web: A Union for World Conservation. London: IUCN and Earthscan.Holdgate M., and A. Phillips. 1999. Protected areas in context. In Integrated Protected Areas Management.

M. Walkey, I. Swingland, and S. Russell, eds. Boston: Kluwer Academic.IUCN. 1994. Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories. Cambridge, U.K., and Gland, Switzer-

land: IUCN.———. 1998a. 1997 United Nations List of Protected Areas. Cambridge, U.K., and Gland, Switzerland:

IUCN.———. 1998b. From islands to networks—Report on the mid-term expert meeting, Albany, Australia,

November 1997. Unpublished report.Jeanrenaud, S. 2002. People-Oriented Approaches to Global Conservation—Is the Leopard Changing its

Spots? London: International Institute for Environment and Development.Kothari, A., N. Pathak, and F. Vania. 2000. Where Communities Care: Community Based Wildlife and

Ecosystem Management in South Asia. London and Pune, India: International Institute of Environ-ment and Development and Kalpavriksh.

McNeely, J. A., ed. 1993. Parks for Life: Report of the Fourth World Congress on National Parks ad Protect-ed Areas Cambridge, U.K., and Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.

McNeely, J. A., and K. R. Miller K. R., eds. 1984. National Parks, Conservation, and Development: The Roleof Protected Areas in Sustaining Society. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Miller K. R. 1996. Balancing the Scales: Guidelines for Increasing Biodiversity’s Chances through Bioregion-al Management. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute.

Miller K. R., and L. Hamilton. 1997. Scaling up: Elements for a strategy for protected areas in the 21st cen-tury. Unpublished report.

National Parks Centennial Commission. 1973. Preserving a Heritage. Washington, D.C.: National ParksCentennial Commission.

Phillips, A. 2002. Management Guidelines for IUCN Category V Protected Areas—ProtectedLandscapes/Seascapes. Cambridge, U.K., and Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.

Rivera S. R., P. M. Cordero, I. A. Cruz, and M. F. Borras. 2003. The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor andlocal participation. Parks 12:2, 42-54.

Stegner W., 1983. The best idea we ever had. Wilderness (spring), 4-5.

Adrian Phillips, Senior Advisor to IUCN on World Heritage, 2 The OldRectory, Dumbleton near Evesham WR11 6TG, United Kingdom; [email protected]

3

adrian phillips turning ideas on their head

Documents