1.Front section - IUCN

Making connections: the tactics, art and science of building political support for protected natural areas 12
specific threats, strengthens agency positions to
protect an area, protects the area through international
attention, encourages bilateral donors and prompts
financial assistance from emergency funds or donor
organizations. Though the UN can take action to
prompt a State to address problems within a World
Heritage Site, and the State can oppose those actions
or denounce the process, the goal of the WHC is to
build support through dialogue, funding and
constructive measures rather than confrontation and
delisting a site.
In areas such as Plitvice National Park, that was
degraded by the Serbo-Croat war, the danger listing
has allowed UN presence and an eventual recovery of
the area and infrastructure. Organizing resources and
administrative services to direct resources to Plitvice
would have been much more difficult without
international support and the credibility of the WHC.
Triggering a “danger listing” may be a difficult
process for a small NGO or community organization
but because World Heritage sites are in the
international system, a significant political process is
in place. The task for a small organization is to learn
how to connect to the WHC resources and the
responsibility of World Heritage Centre, located at
UNESCO, is to keep those resources and mechanisms
accessible.
A direct, international but non-government
response to the threat to World Heritage Sites is
funding from the United Nations Foundation.
Utilizing funds from a donation from Ted Turner, the
UN Foundation partners with local organizations
through UNESCO. Foundation funds will end in 2015
so an essential component of any agreement is that
local organizations are leveraging their own time and
effort with Foundation resources into long-term
political and financial support. Foundation funds may
support early efforts to organize, collect data, make
political connections and get a study under way for
potential World Heritage designation. The Foundation
has worked in a variety of situations. Sometimes all
parties are in agreement with World Heritage
designation and the government endorses the process.
In other situations, such as Manas NP in India, the
government did not support designation and some
conflict continues. In each case the UN Foundation
proceeded with the understanding that the benefits to
the world outweighed political obstacles.
An important and often overlooked source of PA
support is the banking community. As any PA or
advocate organization will report, the PA network is
chronically short of finances. Regional banks such as
the Asian Development Bank (ADB) may have a
corporate commitment to supporting sustainable
economic growth rather than boom and bust
extractive activities. As part of the ADB process to
make a loan, they may link PAs to strategic areas or
resources such as watersheds. Reducing poverty
depends upon clean water resources just as much as
creating jobs. Tempering idealistic goals to protect
natural areas is the reality that banks have limited
ability to influence government actions and/or
implement on-the-ground practices. However, if
establishing or supporting a PA is part of the condition
for a loan, the results of that loan have a much greater
probability to improve environmental conditions
rather than degrade a ecosystem.
A lending institution that has been under a great
deal of international scrutiny from environmental
NGOs and development organizations is the World
Bank. The Bank’s commitment to environmental
quality merits a close look at its programmatic goals
and mission. In recent years the climate has changed
within the Bank and some reports suggest that this is
in large part due to public pressure. The three pillars
of the World Bank are quality of life, quality of the
environment, and improving the standard of living for
people. Historically, opponents to the World Bank
lending policies have complained that the Bank lends
without regard for the negative consequences for
humans or the environment.
The World Bank has dedicated US$3.2 billion to
environmental issues between 1988 and 2003, with a
third of that coming from the Global Environment
Facility (GEF). One strategy to encourage politicians
to take environmental initiatives more seriously is that
the Bank requires a clear articulation of benefits to
people that encompasses both economic
considerations as well as ecosystem or environmental
health. Establishing or supporting a PA is a relatively
concrete step to protect ecosystem values and PAs
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