Appendix II Management effectiveness evaluation to support protected area management

V^th World Congress on Protected Areas: Recommendation 18

The V^th World Congress on Protected Areas in 2003 called on states and protected area managers to adopt, as a routine component of protected area management, systems for evaluating management effectiveness that accord with the principles set out in this Best Practice Guideline. The recommendations from the Congress are reproduced below in full.⁸²

Effective management is needed to ensure that the values of protected areas are maintained or restored now and in the future. Evaluation of management effectiveness is a vital component of adaptive and cooperative protected area management, where managers and stakeholders work together and learn from experience.

Environmental, socio-economic and institutional monitoring and auditing in protected areas is an essential part of protected area management. It can provide useful information for assessing and tracking change in both protected areas and the wider environment, and can provide information to serve as an early warning system for environmental challenges, to recognise and replicate conservation success, and to enable effective responses to this change.

Evaluation of management effectiveness can increase the transparency and accountability of protected area management, thus assisting in cooperative management and enhancing community support. It can also provide a more logical and transparent basis for planning and for allocating resources.

At the same time there is increasing interest by governments, management agencies, NGOs and others to develop and apply systems to evaluate the effectiveness of management of protected areas.

There is also an increasing number of international institutions, governments, donors, non-governmental organisations and members of civil society that are asking for more rigorous guarantees of effective management; however there has been little enthusiasm for any overall “certification” scheme for protected areas.

In this regard, Recommendation 17 (Protected area categories, management effectiveness, and threats), paragraphs c, d, and e, adopted at the IV^th World Parks Congress (Caracas, 1992), called inter alia for IUCN to develop a system for monitoring management effectiveness of protected areas and for managers and others to apply such a system and report on the findings of monitoring. In response, IUCN has prepared the publication Evaluating Effectiveness: A framework for assessing management of protected areas (IUCN, 2000), which provides a framework and principles for evaluation of management effectiveness.

Therefore, PARTICIPANTS in the Workshop Stream on Evaluating Management Effectiveness at the V^th IUCN World Parks Congress, in Durban, South Africa (8–17 September 2003):

1. AFFIRM the importance of monitoring and evaluation of management effectiveness as a basis for improved protected area management and more transparent and accountable reporting;

2. CALL on states and protected area managers (including government, private sector, NGOs, indigenous and local community managers) to adopt, as a routine component of protected area management, systems for evaluating management effectiveness that accord with the principles set out in the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Best Practice Series publication No. 6 Evaluating Effectiveness: A framework for assessing management of protected areas;

3. RECOMMEND that IUCN's members, in considering the IUCN Quadrennial Programme Framework for 2005–2008, ensure that it fosters cooperation with relevant partners for the purpose of undertaking a work programme on management effectiveness evaluation, which would include:

   • Mechanisms to facilitate research and development on appropriate indicators, standards and methodologies for assessing aspects of protected area management (e.g. biodiversity conservation, ecological integrity, social, economic and governance aspects). This research should incorporate experience of protected area managers and take account of differences in various environments and parts of the world;

   • Development of an overall minimum standards system for protected area management effectiveness globally. This system should allow for differences in capacity, conditions for measurement, and methodologies across the globe, yet provide a consistent overall indicator of management effectiveness that can complement measures of protected area coverage and distribution across nations and across biomes around the world;

   • Development of a database of management effectiveness assessment initiatives and experts in management effectiveness assessment, This information should be made available to State Parties, protected area managers, relevant NGOs and other protected area institutions;

   • Analysis of the results of management effectiveness evaluations to identify common regional or global trends and dissemination of findings to states/management agencies;

   • Preparation of advice and best practice guidelines to states and protected area agencies on the most effective means of addressing significant and widespread threats to protected areas such as alien invasive species, unsustainable resource harvesting and climate change;

   • Development and promotion by IUCN of minimum standards for evaluation systems and practices for assessing management effectiveness; and

   • Inclusion of management effectiveness tracking in global databases of protected areas;

4. RECOMMEND that WCPA, on request and subject to availability of relevant experts and necessary resources, provides guidance in selection of evaluation systems and/or undertakes review of evaluation systems for protected area agencies;

5. ENCOURAGE states, protected area managers and NGOs to report on the outcomes of management effectiveness evaluations in an open and transparent way. Such reporting will help to build an informed (and hence more supportive) community and will assist in regional, national and global priority setting;

6. RECOMMEND that WCPA provide guidance on the similarities and differences between management effectiveness evaluation and State of Environment and State of Protected Area Reporting in order to enhance application of these tools in the appropriate circumstance;

7. CALL on states, protected area managers, funding bodies and NGOs to use strategies for meaningful community involvement in management effectiveness evaluation, and to include analysis of the impact of protected areas on local and indigenous communities, and the effectiveness of their involvement in management as part of the evaluation;

8. RECOMMEND that funding bodies promote the use of transparent, appropriate and credible management effectiveness evaluation in protected areas or systems where support is being provided and provide financial and other necessary support for implementation of such systems;

9. ENCOURAGE and support the establishment and strengthening of international efforts to undertake global assessments and tracking of threats to protected areas as a basis for more informed national and international policy and action;

10. RECOMMEND that the WCPA task force on certification of protected areas investigates and makes recommendations on the suitability of and options for developing a process to move forward toward a proactive monitoring, auditing and evaluation including:

    • Development of guidelines for minimum standards for each IUCN protected area category – with encouragement for individual countries and/or regions to adapt these to their own situations;

    • Development of certification or verification schemes relating to management effectiveness for protected areas to give guarantees that these are meeting minimum standards to be included in national protected area networks; and

    • Explores a certification scheme for management effectiveness for the CBD;

11. RECOMMEND that The World Heritage Centre and WCPA management effectiveness theme develop a process to strengthen the reactive monitoring scheme and to investigate options for a more formal certification scheme for Natural WH Sites;

12. RECOMMEND that WCPA works with partners to investigate options for outlining benefits and costs of certification and encourages protected area effectiveness assessment methods and certification schemes to include wider benefits from protected areas such as environmental services;

13. RECOMMEND to the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) include policies and actions relating to evaluation of management effectiveness when they develop policies and a work program on protected areas. These policies and work programmes could encourage Parties to the CBD to:

    • ADOPT and INSTITUTIONALISE periodic system-wide protected area management effectiveness assessments by 2005, where:

    • The results of such assessments are integrated into CBD reporting requirements; and

    • The reports are based on credible assessment systems;

    • PROMOTE the adoption and implementation of best practice systems for assessing management effectiveness of protected areas at the local, national and regional level and support this through appropriate capacity building activities;

    • ENCOURAGE states, protected area managers and relevant NGOs and protected area institutions to methodically and transparently use the outcomes of management effectiveness evaluation and state of parks reporting to improve management of protected areas at local, regional and state/national level; and

    • CO-OPERATE with IUCN and WCPA in research, development and promotion of best practice systems and indicators and standards for evaluating management effectiveness of protected areas

14. RECOMMEND that the Secretariats of relevant Conventions such as the World Heritage Convention and the UNEP Regional Seas Conventions, adopt a consistent and compatible reporting framework that includes the results of management effectiveness evaluation.

⁸²All the recommendations can be downloaded at: www.iucn.org/themes/wcpa/wpc2003/english/outputs/recommendations.htm

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