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Participants to the Vth IUCN World Parks Congress (WPC) met in seven workshop streams throughout the day to address: linkages in the landscape and seascape; building broader support for protected areas (PAs); PA governance; developing the capacity to manage PAs; evaluating management effectiveness; building a secure financial future; and building comprehensive PA systems. All workshop streams held plenary and break-out sessions throughout the day. Side meetings and special events were also held.

This report follows the thread of the cross-cutting themes on world heritage, communities and equity, and marine PAs (MPAs), focusing on plenary sessions and selected break-out groups of the workshop streams.

Natjaran Ishwaran, UNESCO, highlighted the issue of managing the transition from single to multiple PA sites, and of using world heritage certification as a standard-setting mechanism for PA management. Kulani Mkhize, KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, outlined the business strategy applied to conservation in the province, and reviewed the province-wide rapid assessment tool incorporated into regional decision making. Presenting the Latin American situation, José Courrau, Costa Rica, noted a need for standardized models, and emphasized that regional differences exist in: stakeholder participation; the scale and system of evaluation; and those responsible for evaluation. Kathy MacKinnon, World Bank, and Leonardo Lacerda, WWF, presented experiences with using a quick, inexpensive and site-focused tracking tool for ME evaluation, and identified factors that promote and impede ME.

Ishwaran advocated a flexible approach to evaluation. Rosa Lemos de Sá, WWF- Brazil, noted a correlation between the quality of management and that of the PA ecosystem. Moses Mapesa, Uganda Wildlife Authority, described a national management information system that enhances managers’ performance, the hiring of skilled staff, and effective resource allocation and budgeting. Caroline Stem, Foundations of Success, identified key factors for ME, including clear and practical measures and guiding principles. Stressing the need to promote feedback between managers and government, Hockings called for integrity in assessing performance, and for locally-based management. Bud Ehler, US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, called for accountability, adaptive management and increased availability of baseline information.

Participants raised several issues, including: inadequate training of park managers; limited local applicability of global management standards; poverty alleviation; and stakeholder participation and responsibility. Regarding PA governance, participants highlighted the need for: flexibility in the institutional scale of management; cooperation with, and independence from, governments; and the inclusion of local communities.

Achim Steiner, IUCN Director General, called for a focus on the relationship component of governance, and stressed the need to address dysfunction and past mistakes towards communities and nature.

Ashish Kothari, Kalpavriksh, presented historical perspectives on conservation and noted that current conservation strategies ignore history. He stressed oral community history as a source of knowledge on nature management and institutional traditions, and outlined the social and ecological impacts on traditional systems of a paradigm shift to state-owned resources and inappropriate development models. Noting that the PA concept has ignored community needs and knowledge, he recommended new conservation models based on a revival of community systems, including through the restitution of land rights.

Janis Alcorn, The Field Museum, US, addressed global changes affecting PA governance. She focused on globalization and democratization, and noted increasing opportunities for new alliances and legal frameworks for PAs, as well as new tools for PA managers. Bruce Amos, Institute on Governance, presented PA governance principles: legitimacy and voice; direction; performance; accountability; and fairness. Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend, IUCN, presented PA governance types, noting the worldwide abundance of conservation actors and initiatives. She described government, private, community and co-managed PAs, and stressed the advantages of recognizing different conservation governance types.

Participants discussed: the difference between governance and management types; integrating cultural values in governance models; involving the private sector; and recognizing indigenous rights.

Mario Jacanamijoy, indigenous representative, Ignacio Giraldo, Colombia’s Institute of Ethnobiology, and Juan Carlos Riascos, Colombia’s Ministry of Environment, presented the case of Alto Fragua - Indi Wasi, a PA co-managed by the government and indigenous communities. Riascos addressed policy aspects of the park’s establishment, focusing on interdependencies between biological and cultural diversity, and on management through intercultural governance. Giraldo described the process to establish the park, including its biological and cultural characterization according to the Colombian legislation and indigenous customary laws. Jacanamijoy said that trust between indigenous communities and the government is the most important aspect for establishing co-managed PAs.

Nancy Anilniliak, Auyuiltuq National Parks of Canada, and Elizabeth Seale, Parks Canada, presented on a co-managed national park in Canada’s Nunavut territory. They focused on ways to manage different value systems, and the positive and negative aspects of cooperative management.

Livingston Makuleke, local community representative, introduced a video on a case of land restitution and co-management in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. He described the establishment of a joint management board, commercial use of the area by local communities, and benefit-sharing arrangements. Noting the complexity of involving communities in land reform, James Murombedzi, Ford Foundation, stressed that poverty had been induced by colonial social engineering systems, and concluded that restitution projects would be successful if poverty were addressed.

Gonzalo Oviedo, IUCN, presented South American experiences, noting the increasing importance of community and co-managed PAs. Solis addressed lessons learned in Mesoamerica, stressing the need for participation, recognition of collective rights, and a legal, political and conceptual framework for PA governance. Claudio Maretti, WCPA, presented Brazil’s framework for PAs and indigenous land management, and stressed the need for incorporating different visions of conservation and nature.

Introducing the Murcia workshop held in March 2003, Francisca Baraza, Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Water and the Environment of Murcia, Spain, presented the Mediterranean experience. She focused on the region’s special features and their effects on PAs, legal framework and identified gaps.

David de Vera, Philippine Association for Intercultural Development, introduced the Southeast Asian experience. He said problems include: forced relocation; non-recognition of community rights; and a lack of communities’ prior consent in PA establishment.

Participants raised questions regarding the geopolitics of high seas regulation, enforcement techniques and costs, and the extension of continental shelves’ limits.

Describing management challenges, Notarbartolo di Sciara, WCPA, presented the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals, the first MPA beyond national boundaries. Henning von Nordheim, German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, outlined the development of MPA networks in the Northeast Atlantic and the Baltic Sea, and elaborated on interactions with regional conventions. Introducing the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, John Croxall, BAS, highlighted biological and management implications of over- and illegal fishing, and bycatch.

Simon Cripps, WWF-International, stressed defects in the current high seas governance and the need for political will and recognition by the international community. Noting that HSMPAs’ costs have been exaggerated, Lundin recognized that monitoring and enforcement present financial and technical challenges. Kristina Gjerde, IUCN, introduced the Draft 10 Year Strategy to Promote the Development of a Global Representative System of HSMPA networks, calling for the establishment of at least five HSMPAs by 2008.

Participants discussed: addressing flags of convenience; involving developing countries in HSMPA discussion; adopting a moratorium on deep sea trawling; and promoting the ratification of relevant global instruments.