Expansion not enough; experts look at quality of protected areas

Screengrab from the ASEAN Webinar on the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas

 

08 June 2021— The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), hosted a webinar on the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas in a bid to improve the effectiveness of the region’s protected areas.

“Now more than ever, ensuring the quality and the effectiveness of the management of protected areas, as well as integrating biodiversity concerns across other sectors, public health, and socioeconomic concerns, need our urgent attention,” ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim said in her message.

She said monitoring the effectiveness and conservation outcomes is an ongoing endeavour in the ASEAN, especially as the region gears towards building resilience from emerging diseases and climate change risks.

The ASEAN Webinar on the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas, which was held on Zoom, was supported by the European Union, German Development Bank (KfW), and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) through the Biodiversity Conservation and Management of Protected Areas in ASEAN (BCAMP) Project, Small Grants Programme (SGP), and the Institutional Strengthening of Biodiversity Sector in the ASEAN II Project, respectively.

IUCN Regional Director for Asia, Dr. Dindo Campilan, emphasised that many protected and conserved areas are not yet being effectively and equitably managed, citing the findings of the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre’s Protected Planet report released last month.

“It is not just the quantity of protected and conserved areas that matters; it is also the quality of their management and their governance,” Campilan said.

The IUCN Green List, the first global standard of best practice for area-based conservation, is a programme of certification for protected and conserved areas – national parks, community conserved areas, nature reserves, ASEAN Heritage Parks and other areas – that are delivering successful conservation outcomes through effective management and fair governance.

While the IUCN Red List highlights the world’s species in danger of extinction, the IUCN Green List recognises excellence in the management of protected and conserved areas around the world.

In Asia, interest in the IUCN Green List process is growing rapidly, according to Dr. Scott Perkin of the IUCN Asia Regional Office. Green List processes are currently underway in Bhutan, China, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, and Viet Nam. Asia already has 10 Green Listed sites and at least 25 more sites are formally engaged in the process.

The 240+ participants, many of whom were protected area authorities, experts, and representatives from the ASEAN Member States, were given a walkthrough of the Green List, including its indicators and procedures.

Representatives from Viet Nam and Malaysia also shared their experiences of Green Listing process.

In the case of Viet Nam’s first Green List site, Van Long Nature Reserve, Nguyen Duc Tu of IUCN Vietnam said the Green List process had been very useful in identifying gaps and implementing action plans according to international standards.

Van Long Nature Reserve, a lowland inland wetland located in northern Viet Nam, supports the world’s largest population of Critically Endangered Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri).

Dr. Madhu Rao, a member of the IUCN Green List Management Committee, stressed that achieving the biodiversity targets in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework will require protected and conserved areas to be more ecologically representative and to cover areas important for biodiversity.

“Expansion is not enough. Existing and new areas need to be effectively managed and located in the right places,” she said, explaining the quality elements of protected and conserved areas.

Dr. Lim likewise said lessons and insights from the Green Listing process will significantly contribute toward efforts to achieve one of the proposed goals under the post-2020 global biodiversity framework—to enhance the connectivity and integrity of natural systems that will be made part of the protected areas system.

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