The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
Experience with Protected Landscapes, IUCN Category V
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, there has been an increasingly widespread recognition that
although national parks and other publicly owned reserves are important contributors, they
alone are not sufficient for heritage conservation. Within the last two decades, there has been a
growing interest in IUCN Category V Protected Landscapes and Seascapes and its applicability
in the Canadian and US context (for Canada see Munro and Willison, 1998; Swinnerton 2001;
Turner and Wiken, 2002; for USA see Sonoran Institute, 1997; Tuxill, 2000; Machlis and
Field, 2000; Tuxill and Mitchell, 2001; Brown, Mitchell and Tuxill, 2003).
The 2003 United Nations List of Protected Areas reveals that the 765 Category V sites in
Canada account for 14% of the total number of sites in IUCN’s database with a combined area
of over 1 million hectares (Chape et al., 2003). The data for the USA are similar, as there are
1,319 sites or approximately 17% of the sites listed, covering over 12 million hectares (Chape
et al., 2003). Both of these percentages are double the 6.4% of the world’s 6,555 protected areas
that are listed as Category V (Chape et al., 2003). Category V areas in Canada, that are included
on the IUCN List, embrace a considerable diversity of designations including provincial parks,
conservation authority areas, wildlife management areas, regional parks, recreation sites, and
the National Capital Green Belt around Ottawa (Swinnerton and Buggey, 2004; Swinnerton in
Phillips, 2002). The US sites included, as in Canada, are very diverse. To examine the
experience with protected landscapes in both countries, the following set of case studies
demonstrates the application of Category V in practice.
These case studies, drawn from many different regions, illustrate a range of approaches to
landscape protection. Some of these places are listed as protected landscapes by IUCN in the
United Nations List of Protected Areas database, while others are not but share many of these
characteristics. While each has its own unique characteristics and responds to specific land -
scape values and stakeholders, there are a number of commonalities in these successful
examples of conservation. Taken together they illustrate participatory governance models and
best practice tools being used today in Canada and the United States.
John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage
Corridor, Massachusetts and Rhode Island
Designation of national heritage areas, geographically large regions with a distinctive identity,
began in the US in 1984 and these areas now number twenty-four. 1 Today, heritage areas
represent an important direction in conservation in the USA, with numerous proposals for
designation to Congress every year from communities across the country (Barrett and Mitchell,
2003). This designation has been particularly effective in working on large-scale landscapes
and estab lishing a framework to integrate strategies along ecosystem boundaries even when
they cross political ones (see Box 1 on the proposed designation of the Champlain-Richelieu
Valley). While the US National Park Service is involved in national heritage areas by providing
technical and financial support, designation does not generally include any additional federal
government landownership or management of resources.
1
See National Park Service Heritage Area web site www.cr.nps.gov/heritageareas/
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