1.Front section - IUCN

15
Friends for Life: New partners in support of protected areas
Converting the potential benefits of protected areas
into real and perceived goods and services for society
at large (and especially local people) requires a
systems approach, as supported by the Convention on
Biological Diversity (Article 8a). Elements of this
approach include:
● At the national level, each country should have a
protected area system plan that presents a
coordinated strategy clarifying objectives and
goals for individual protected areas and the
protected area system, and identifies priorities for
investment. A system plan enables protected areas
to be integrated fully within all key planning
frameworks, including land use and development
plans, national biodiversity strategies and action
plans, and strategic plans for all relevant sectors
Orang utang, Ketambe, Northern Sumatra, Indonesia.
(including tourism, health, energy, transport,
forestry, agriculture, and even the military). The
protected area system needs to include examples
of the full range of habitats, communities and
other landscape features of the country as well as
areas of particular biological significance, such as
the habitat of rare species. A protected area system
needs a strong legal component as well.
● Within each country, the approach to conservation
should include core areas that include national
parks and other categories of relatively strict
protection located within larger landscapes
comprising whole ecosystems that surround the
core areas, where voluntary cooperative
agreements can be established with stakeholders
and other interested parties in a decentralized
manner, and where various forms of land use
(including agriculture, forestry, mining, and
energy development) can be managed to support
the continuing delivery of ecosystem services.
● At the site level, each protected area should have
a management plan which specifies its
management objectives, sets up effective
mechanisms for reconciling any conflicts with
neighbouring lands, and establishes a framework
for partnerships with potential interest groups
such as those identified in this book. Ideally, each
management plan should be very specific about
its relationship with any agricultural lands that
may be found within the protected area, and
forestry, resource extraction, and agricultural
lands in the surrounding matrix.
© Jeffrey A. McNeely
● Effective links need to be established with the
social, political, economic and ecological
processes which affect the protected areas,
helping to put into practice the Millennium
Development Goals. Ultimately, solutions for
many of the threats facing protected areas belong
in the realm of national and international politics.
Important influences on the demand for park
resources, such as local land ownership patterns,
credit and income inequities among agricultural
producers, and indigenous peoples’ rights to land
and resources, are politically volatile and often
beyond the power of park managers and
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