Protected Area Management Effectiveness

Background

Protected areas have become a major instrument to reduce the rate of worldwide biodiversity loss. As a result, the assessment of protected area management effectiveness (PAME) received a new emphasis on the agenda of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), whose Programme of Work on Protected Areas now states the ambitious goal of assessing more than 30% of the world's 120,000 protected areas by 2010 (terrestrial) and 2012 (marine), respectively.

Over the last decades, a remarkable increase in the number of PAME assessments and methodologies could be observed around the world. In order to synthesize these experiences, the IUCN World Commission of Protected Areas (WCPA), in partnership with the University of Queensland, WWF International, The Nature Conservancy and UNEP-WCMC, carried out a Global Study of PAME assessments. From 2005 to 2008, the research team identified more than 6,300 assessments in 100 countries, published a number of reports (see below) and created a Protected Area Management Effectiveness Module linked to the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA).

While the Global Study generated relatively comprehensive insights for many world regions, data for European countries remained somewhat unsatisfactory: Only for less than half of European countries could data be acquired, with a number of large-area countries (e.g. Austria, France, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and Portugal) even being completely absent.

In the context of a 2008 European PAME workshop jointly organized by EUROPARC Federation and the International Academy for Nature Protection, attendees realized that Europe had a more profound experience in PAME methodologies and evaluation than the Global Study had observed. It also became clear that the specific geographical and political context of European protected area policy would require a particular set of methodologies tailored to the needs of European protected area managers and agencies.

Link to the 2008 workshop report

Exploring Europe's experience in management effectiveness evaluation

As a reaction to this demand, the University of Greifswald, Germany and the University of Queensland, Australia in cooperation with UNEP-WCMC (United Nations Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre) and EUROPARC Federation, launched a follow-up study in early 2009, whose aim was to create more profound insights into how and where PAME assessments have been and are being carried out in Europe - and to find out how they can be improved.

Outcomes will be used to track European progress towards meeting the CBD 2010 target, and to draft recommendations for future PAME evaluations adapted to the European context.

For more information on the PAME Europe project and related information, please visit the project website or contact Diana Gallrapp