Conservation Processes for Protected Area Management

Socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) in Africa

The KBA Standard is formally taken to include definitions, the criteria and thresholds, and delineation procedures. It can be used by national constituencies to identify sites contributing significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity in terrestrial, inland water and marine environments. It is important that this Standard remains stable for a period of time to enable comparisons of sites qualifying as KBAs in different regions and over time. It is recognised, however, that the criteria and thresholds may need revision in the future as experience accumulates in their application and technological advances improve our measurement and understanding of biodiversity. 

Corrigan, C. and Hay-Edie, T. 2013.  A Toolkit to Support Conservation by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Building Capacity and Sharing Knowledge for Indigenous Peoples. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

This toolkit presents a selection of practical resources, developed by numerous organisations, making them readily accessible to community-based organisations who manage ICCAs. The toolkit is divided into 5 thematic areas:

This report outlines the process undertaken to define and describe the special, unique marine areas of Fiji. These special, unique marine areas provide an important input to decisions about, for example, permits, licences, EIAs and where to place different types of marine protected areas, locally managed marine areas and Community Conservation Areas in Fiji.

Full Report (Pdf)

Fraser, N., B. Crawford, and J. Kusen. 2000. Best Practices Guide for Crown of Thorns Clean-Ups. Proyek Pesisir Special Publication. Coastal Resources Center, Coastal Management Report #2225. University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, Rhode Island.

These guidelines present background information on Crown of Thorns (COTS) including morphology, behaviour, defence and life-cycle information. They then discusses how to ascertain whether or not you have an outbreak and when to initiate clean-up activities.

Shrumm, H., Jonas J. (ed). 2012. Biocultural Community Protocols: A Toolkit for Community Facilitators (Natural Justice). Natural Justice: Cape Town.

This guidebook comes in four sections which can be downloaded from the website separately. These are: understanding and using the toolkit; documenting and developing a biocultural community protocol; using a biocultural community protocol; reflecting, reporting, and revising.  It is not directly applicable to the Pacific Islands as much of the background information comes from other areas including Australia and New Zealand. However there are still some interesting and potentially useful activities that could be applied in the region.

The Nature Conservancy. 2007.  Conservation Action Planning (CAP) Handbook Developing Strategies, Taking Action and Measuring Success at Any Scale. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA.

This handbook is intended as a guidance resource to support the implementation of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC’s) Conservation Action Planning (CAP) Process , a powerful instrument for helping practitioners get to effective conservation results.

The Nature Conservancy. 2007. Conservation Action Planning: Developing Strategies, Taking Action, and Measuring Success at Any Scale. Overview of Basic Practices. Arlington, VA.

This document is an overview of the basic practices for implementing The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Action Planning (CAP) process. These practices are meant to help conservation projects develop strategies, take action, and measure their success and then to adapt and learn over time.

This document was prepared by the CAP Working Group and tested with hundreds of practitioners around the world. It has been revised in accordance with the new CAP Handbook materials.

This study identifies the importance of: acquiring robust baseline data, being fully protected (no-take), using ecosystembased management, community inclusion, and of adopting an ecologically connected network approach. These features are needed for large marine reserves to maximize achieving both ecological and socioeconomic goals, with particular attention to engagement of local communities. This study opens the possibility of refining and adapting the criteria developed through the PIMR case study as starting point for other Large- Scale MPAs, as their global expansion could benefit from comparative analysis. It also acknowledges the importance of having comparative design and management guides, contributing towards globally recognized standards for large-scale MPAs.

Corbett, J.  2009. Good Practices in Participatory Mapping.  A Review Prepared for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).  International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).  Rome, Italy.

If you are interested in working with a community to create a map of the marine/terrestrial/coastal area, this guide provides some great advice.

Maps are extremely useful as part of the management planning process but can also be contentious and have many issues surrounding them. It is therefore recommended that you read this guidance.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) presents these guidelines for undertaking rapid biodiversity assessments in its Pacific island member countries and territories: Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. These assessments are referred to as BIORAPs. The guidelines are recommended to be used by SPREP members for the planning and implementation of terrestrial and marine BIORAP surveys, and subsequent monitoring of important sites. Survey methodologies and systems selected as part of the guidelines should:

■ Take account of the IUCN Red List status of species.

■ Enable the identification of priority habitats or areas based on those species.

This is a simple guide on the Solomon Islands Protected Areas Act 2010 and how to establish terrestrial and marine protect areas through its provisions. The guide was produced and published with the assistance of the SPREP Pacific Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Change (PEBACC) project.  

WorldFish Center. 2008.  Lessons Learned and Best Practices in the Management of Coral Reefs. Lessons Learned 1804, Penang, Malaysia

WorldFish Lessons Learned briefs are executive summaries of research projects with particular focus on lessons learned. They are designed to play a role in knowledge management and sharing. This brief presents a review of lessons learned and best practices in the management of coral reefs based on the analysis of 56 coral reef and tropical marine ecosystem projects (30 of which were GEF funded). 

An increasing number of international initiatives aim to reconcile development with conservation. Crucial to successful implementation of these initiatives is a comprehensive understanding of the current ecological condition of landscapes and their spatial distributions. Here, we provide a cumulative measure of human modification of terrestrial lands based on modeling the physical extents of 13 anthropogenic stressors and their estimated impacts using spatially explicit global datasets with a median year of 2016. We quantified the degree of land modification and the amount and spatial configuration of low modified lands (i.e., natural areas relatively free from human alteration) across all ecoregions and biomes.

Rao, M., Stokes, e. and Johnson, A. 2009. Monitoring for Management of Protected Areas- An Overview’ and ‘Monitoring Wildlife Populations for Management. Training Module 6 for the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners. American Museum of Natural History and the Wildlife Conservation Society, Vientiane, Lao PDR.

Pacific Invasives Initiative. 2013.  Pacific Invasives Initiative, Resource Kit for Invasive Plant Management. Auckland, New Zealand.

The Pacific Invasives Initiative (PII) is the leading capacity development organisation for invasive species management in the Pacific region.

The PII Resource Kit for Invasive Plant Management (Invasive Plant Resource Kit) is a practical guide to assist invasive plant teams (i.e. decision makers, project managers, officers and field crews) to apply informed decision making in the prioritisation, design, development and implementation of an effective invasive plant management programme, thereby, increasing their chances of success.

Sauafea-Leau, F. 2010. Participatory Learning and Action (PLA): Resource Guide for Practitioners.  American Samoa Context.. NOAA PIRO.  American Samoa.

This guide book is the product of a collaborative process. The tools and activities developed in it were gathered from previous Participatory, Learning and Action (PLA) workshops and meetings held with various communities in American Samoa.

During the planning phase the efficacy of different strategies to manage marine resources should ultimately be assessed by their potential impact, or ability to make a difference to ecological and social outcomes. While community-based and systematic approaches to establishing marine protected areas have their strengths and weaknesses, comparisons of their effectiveness often fail to explicitly address potential impact. Here, we predict conservation impact to compare recently implemented community-based marine reserves in Tonga to a systematic configuration specifically aimed at maximizing impact. Boosted regression tree outputs indicated that fishing pressure accounted for ∼24% of variation in target species biomass.

In 2010, with the assistance of Conservation International and the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund, Birdlife International in partnership with the Cook Islands environmental NGO Te Ipukarea Society commenced a project to identify and delineate KBAs and IBAs in the Cook Islands. A Project Steering Committee was established which together with international biodiversity experts from Birdlife International and Conservation International, forms an expert network. The first task was to identify species in the Cook Islands listed on the IUCN Red List as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. Endemic species listed in the Cook Islands National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP, 2002) were added to this list because they meet the restricted range criterion.

In 2010, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, and its 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, to catalyze national and international conservation efforts and reverse negative biodiversity trends. With the plan nearing an end, and attention turning toward a post 2020 biodiversity framework, it is timely to assess the strengths, weaknesses, and effectiveness of the Aichi Targets.

full Paper [Pdf]

The first edition of the Newsletter of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Oceania (2019). IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) is the world's premier network of protected area expertise. It is administered by IUCN's Global Programme on Protected Areas and has over 2,000 members, spanning 140 countries. 

Full Newsletter (Pdf)

The Legal Aspects of Connectivity Conservation

This paper reviews the value of, especially, no-take marine protected areas (MPAs), specifically for protecting offshore areas. It describes open ocean habitats and explores the question of whether offshore MPAs can be effective in helping to ensure the future of the open ocean’s pelagic and benthic habitats and species including large, wide-ranging and migratory fauna that inhabit all depths of the ocean. 

Full paper (Pdf)