Parks - IUCN

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure 1. 1. 1. 1. 1.
Manage core
areas, buffer zones
and corridors as
fundamental
components of
working bioregions.
PARKS VOL 9 NO 3 • OCTOBER 1999
programme. (The Man and the Biosphere Program is particularly suited to this
purpose.)
As illustrated graphically in Figure 1 below, the key elements of the bioregional
approach are:
❚ well-protected critical ecosystems, or core wildlands, that are often under
appropriate IUCN Protected Areas regimes (IUCN 1997); the objectives of these core
areas can include maintaining wild habitats, producing the range of ecosystem
services, and ensuring the protection of cultural and spiritual sites;
❚ buffer or transition zones that surround core areas to manage unfavourable
impacts that flow between core areas and their surrounding landscapes, including
marauding animals, invasive plants, fire, and other agents;
❚ corridors that connect critical ecosystems to encourage and facilitate migration
and dispersal; and,
❚ cooperative programmes that foster collaboration among farmers, foresters,
fishers, local governments, NGOs, and indigenous peoples who live in, utilise or own
the majority of the landscape held in private or communal ownership; the aim of such
programs is to promote policies and practices that lead to ‘biodiversity-friendly’ land
and water uses while generating livelihoods for the region’s residents.
Broadening the geographic scale of management to whole regional ecosystems,
or bioregions, implies that managers step into two significant points of conflict. First,
they will find themselves working with the people who live and work, or who actually
own the land and water beyond area boundaries. Second, they will be working out
beyond the legal jurisdiction of their agency of government. Facing these challenges
requires the establishment of new partnerships with neighbours, being responsive
to their needs and concerns, and developing incentives and other policies that will
promote the necessary cooperation among stakeholders.
The Albany workshop
The World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) of IUCN convenes the once-ina-decade
World Parks Congress, a process of professional dialogue and debate that
reviews progress and problems in protected area management and sets goals and
programs for action by the world’s protected area professionals. In 1997, WCPA and
the Government of Western
Australia convened and hosted an
inter-sessional workshop in Perth
Core protected areas
to review progress since the
Buffer zone
Caracas 4th Congress of 1992, and
Corridors
set goals leading up to the 5th
Matrix
Congress being planned for 2002
in Durban, South Africa. One
Human settlement
session featured a series of case
studies that served to focus the
debate on options for anticipating
and managing the kinds of
changes noted above. We have
selected four of these cases to
illustrate some of the more
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