Exchange programmes - IUCN

Implementation of an Exchange Programme for Protected Areas in East Asia
Encouraging citizen diplomacy
In some cases the exchange programme actively promotes a working partnership to
address a problem confronting a protected area. Where this happens successfully, the
exchange can claim to have developed a form of citizen diplomacy. Thus the North
America/UK Exchange brings together groups of experts and community representatives
to address real life problems and to work on these together – hosts and guests
working in partnership. The benefits are considerable. Solving some kind of problems
may be susceptible to this sort of approach, especially through the catalytic effect of
introducing “outside” experts: local people will often accept advice from an outsider that
they would not be able to accept from one of their own society. Moreover, all those
involved learn social and diplomatic skills from the novel experience of working
alongside people from very different cultures.
Improving long-term prospects for conservation
Finally, exchange programmes can help – in a modest way – to improve the prospects for
conservation. One way in which this occurs is through the development of experienced
staff, a better appreciation of the global nature of many threats to protected areas, and
fuller awareness of the value of international institutions and ways of working, all of
which can result from a good exchange programme. There should be domestic benefits
from this, but also stronger links can be built with international networks (such as
WCPA) which can be exploited for conservation purposes in future.
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