Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

Protected Areas

Sep 8 2003 (IPS) - There are 100,000 protected areas around the world, which together would cover an area larger than China and India combined. But very few provide benefits to the communities that inhabit them. Some 2,500 delegates are meeting in Durban, South Africa until Sep. 17 to discuss the problem, under the auspices of the Fifth World Congress on Protected Areas.

Organized by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), it is the largest forum for drafting an international agenda on protected areas. The main objective is to promote national policies to preserve biodiversity, with “benefits beyond borders.”

Land and water ecosystems of biological importance — due to their species diversity — have been included in the category of national parks, landscapes, reserves, or natural monuments, set aside to protect a country's biological heritage.

But the latest concept of “protected area” takes into account wildlife areas and the notion of sustainable use reserves, according to the World Commission on Protected Areas, comprising a network of environmental experts.

In May 1997 the first Latin American Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas was held in Santa Marta, Colombia, where participants assessed progress and limitations in applying the concept of the Biosphere Reserve in Latin America.

In March of this year, the First Mesoamerican Congress on Protected Areas took place in Managua, Nicaragua, under the theme of “promoting conservation for development and integration.”