The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
volume) and the integrated conservation and development programmes of the African
‘Heartlands’ (Muruthe, 2000) are good illustrations of this.
Thus the protected landscape model has a very wide application, and is now recognised as
reflecting the attributes of what has become known as the “new paradigm for protected areas in
the twenty-first century” (Beresford and Phillips, 2000, and see Phillips in this volume).
However, the management approach it represents has yet to be universally acknowledged and
professional development for this complex approach is still in its infancy.
Protected landscape management
Protected landscape management represents a strategic and integrated “package” of manage -
ment activities, which aims to link local development needs to the sustainable use of resources
and the conservation of cultural heritage and biological diversity. As argued by Beresford and
Phillips (2000), the management objectives of protected landscapes can only be achieved
through an inclusive approach “where local communities are treated as central to the future of
the area” and where its management “is directed at enabling them to share in both the
responsibility and benefits of designation.” Furthermore, working at the individual level,
building and supporting a sense of landscape stewardship among land-users may be as
important in some cases as working at the community level. Multi-sectoral and multi-level
partnerships are by implication essential to this inclusive approach.
Thus, while necessarily visionary and strategic in its approach, protected landscape manage -
ment is extremely complex and has also to be highly adaptive, and sufficiently flexible to meet
the needs and priorities of each and every area to which it is applied.
In the IUCN publication Management Guidelines for IUCN Category V Protected Areas:
Protected Landscapes/Seascapes, Phillips (2002) has developed practical guidance for
protected landscape managers to help them in the application of this intricate web of concepts
and principles. Certainly, never before has protected area management been so complex,
embracing a wide range of disciplines, requiring multiple skills, involving many interest groups
and often demanding a highly sensitive approach.
It is clear, therefore, that one of the most critical issues for protected landscapes is building
the new professionalism required for the effective implementation of this challenging conser -
vation approach. Given that our landscapes are now under enormous pressure from the
seemingly immutable pace of modern development, it is only by providing conservation
profes sionals with the appropriate conceptual framework, tools and techniques, that we can
hope to manage change and conserve the best of what we have, for generations to come.
As long ago as 1993, Parks for Life: Action for Protected Areas in Europe (IUCN, 1993)
highlighted the critical need for professional development of protected area staff in general. It
argued that “staff are vital to the effective management of protected areas and their training
should be a top priority” (IUCN, 1993). It recommended that “each country should prepare and
implement a training programme to provide regular training to staff of protected areas” …and
that “the programme should ensure that staff at every level (including volunteers) are well
trained initially and that their skills are continually developed and updated.” More than a
decade on, there has been relatively little progress in this regard and it is certainly true to say (as
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