Canada is recognizing 23,061 hectares of a military training base in western Canada as an Other Effective area-based Conservation Measure (OECM). The military training base in the mixed-grass prairie ecosystem of south-central Manitoba is home to 17 at-risk species and a myriad of other wildlife in a prairie environment in mostly pristine conditions. Canada currently protects 11.2% of its lands and inland water and is committed to reaching the 17% target by 2020.

Five years after making a commitment at the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014, South Africa had fulfilled its promise by establishing 20 new marine protected areas. The South African National Biodiversity has set up a new website to explain that these new protected areas not only fully represent the marine biodiversity of South African waters in both the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, but also are designed to support economic and social development.

Peter Hitchcock will be greatly missed in the World Heritage family, as well as for his major contributions to nature and forest conservation. With decades of contributions, both internationally and in his native Australia, he served over many years as a senior World Heritage advisor for IUCN. He undertook numerous missions throughout the globe to monitor and evaluate sites.

An analysis of the economic impact of tourism was developed to measure visitor spending around PAs in Brazil and revealed the economic magnitude of an important ecosystem service provided by PAs. The initiative reinforced that economic impacts of tourism benefit directly the PAs, as well as indirectly other businesses and the local communities, generating greater economic benefits for local communities that have a higher household dependency on the surrounding natural resources.

The Regional Resource Hub (RRH) is the regionally tailored name for the BIOPAMA regional observatory for Eastern and Southern Africa hosted by RCMRD, the Regional Centre for Mapping Resources for Development. The Regional Resource Hub covers the 24 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa and its work starts with piloting the activities in three countries, one from each of the sub-regions: the Indian Ocean, Southern Africa and Eastern Africa.

What difference is BIOPAMA making for biodiversity and protected areas management? What is the BIOPAMA Reference Information System? How is it different and complementary with other protected area databases? How is BIOPAMA supporting the evidence-based decision-making processes in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific? Learn the answers to these questions and more in the interview with the BIOPAMA lead at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

Indigenous peoples and local communities around the world protect and care for their collective territories, lands and waters as a matter of survival, health and wellbeing. These territories and areas, known as ICCAs, are cradles of biological and cultural diversity and crucial for all life on Earth. On the International Day for Biological Diversity, the ICCA Consortium released a short film to celebrate and advocate for ICCAs.

IUCN recommends listing four new World Heritage sites in Brazil, France, Iceland and Iran, and approving the extension in Albania of a site listed in North Macedonia. If this advice is followed, the total area of land and sea protected by natural World Heritage will go up by nearly a quarter, from 302 to 371 million hectares, mostly due to one site – the Terres et mers australes françaises, green-listed in 2018.

PANORAMA now collaborates with WWF Western Balkans and its natureforpeople.org platform, exchanging and cross-promoting success stories from protected areas in the region. The first batch of solutions now published on the PANORAMA web platform are from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They tell of brave citizens defending a national park region against hydropower development or of the “Nature Academy”, which turns school children into park ambassadors.

A capacity-building workshop was held in the Shouf Biosphere Reserve in Lebanon (Green Listed in 2018) for seven Green List candidate site managers, and representatives of protected areas administrations in the Maghreb countries of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The workshop was organised by the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation and the World Commission on Protected Areas in collaboration with the IUCN French Committee and Al Shouf Cedar Society.

The results of the brainstorming session of the Kenyan Green List retreat are all included in the Green List 2019-2021 roadmap for Kenya. The roadmap can certainly be helpful to other established or future Green List countries and will contribute to build an EAGL network aiming at sharing lessons learnt and optimize the use of the Green List to support protected areas in achieving better conservation impacts.

The IUCN World Conservation Congress is where the world comes together to set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action. IUCN’s 1300+ government, civil society and indigenous peoples’ Member organisations vote on major issues, action which guides humanity’s relationship with our planet for the decades ahead.

Open Opportunities to participate

Regional Fora
27-31 May – ORMACC, Antigua, Guatemala 
24-26 June - MED Office, Monastir, Tunisia 
24-25 June – WAS Office, Washington, USA  
1-3 July - EUROPE & ECARO, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
9-11 July – PACO, Bissau, Guinea Bissau
23-25 July - ESARO, Johannesburg, South Africa
30 July – 2 August – OCEANIA, Suva, Fiji
12-14 August – SUR. Cuidad del Este, Paraguay
9-11 Sept - ROWA, Kuwait
6-8 Nov – ARO, Islamabad, Pakistan
TBD - WAS, Ottawa

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Papers in this issue address issues around people’s relationships and interactions with protected areas covering mobile pastoralism, promoting positive interactions between people and protected areas, collaborative management, and a global study of affordability of national park entrance fees. Other papers in the issue address restoration in protected areas with papers on wetland restoration in Vietnam and another on governance issues in forest restoration. This issue also sees the introduction of Short Communications to the journal. These contributions up to 2000 words are reviewed internally by Editors and can focus on a specific case study that illustrates an issue of general interest or a short commentary on a protected area issue.

This award recognises and promotes innovative approaches to conservation and ecosystem protection. Named for the late Dr.Kenton R. Miller, an outstanding global leader in protected area conservation and management, theaward honours innovation in communications, planning and management, finance and economics, assessment, monitoring, and evaluation, learning, capacity development and governance.

Since its establishment in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. IUCN’s new legacy gift options will help ensure IUCN keeps playing this essential role for years to come.