Workshop Stream III: Governance of Protected Areas
New Ways of Working Together 1
September 11-13, 2003

Overview of presentations and key participants

Governance is about power, relationships and accountability. It is about who has influence, who decides, and how decision-makers are held accountable. It can be defined as the interactions among structures, processes and traditions that determine how power is exercised, how decisions are taken on issues of public concern, and how citizens or other stakeholders have their say. Over the last decade or so, the term has progressed from relative obscurity to widespread usage. Governance improvements are advocated on issues of public information and transparency, fair treatment of social concerns, decision-making by consensus, strategic vision and actual effectiveness of performance.

In a protected area context, governance can be examined at the level of a broad conservation network as well as at a level of an individual PA. It covers a broad range of issues— from policy to practice, from behaviour to meaning, from investments to impacts. Governance has an influence on the achievement of protected area objectives (management effectiveness) but also determines the sharing of relevant cost and benefits (management equity). And it affects the generation and sustenance of community, political and financial support.

The Governance Stream will ground its work in the history of conservation up to the current broad trends in institutional change. Throughout its three days the stream will explore two crucial themes:

• What types of governance exist for a Protected Area? How do they fare in terms of conservation and equity?

• What constitutes “good governance” for a Protected Area? What principles can help us understand and evaluate it?

We will review and assess a range of PA governance types that exist throughout the world, including innovative approaches to govern individual protected areas and protected area systems. In particular, lessons will be drawn from community and private sector conservation experiences outside the official protected area systems, from region-specific practices and conditions and from mechanisms to link protected areas within broader ecosystems (e.g. regional/ landscape and global). Co-management approaches, currently flourishing all over the world, will be an important focus of discussion.

Improvements in PA governance will be identified as essential avenues for community empowerment in conservation. The stream will examine experiences in relation to customary and emerging legal frameworks of protected areas, discussing also issues of tenure and land restitution. Government PA agencies are increasingly only one among the many concerned actors, as an increasing number of protected areas are being managed in collaboration with, or directly by communities, private operators and non government organizations. A focus on the protected areas managed by indigenous peoples and local communities, or in partnership with indigenous peoples and local communities, will provide a means to address the cross cutting theme of Communities and Equity. The special governance challenges and opportunities of marine protected areas and World Heritage Sites and other international designated protected areas will also be profiled, contributing to the Marine and to the World Heritage cross-cutting themes.

The stream events will be crowned by NSENDEMILA an original theatre piece produced by the renowned SEKA Malambo Drama Group of Zambia, illustrating key PA governance issues from the perspective of a real African community. The shows will be offered on 11, 13 and 16 September at the Thabani Theatre (Durban Exhibition Centre) at 18:00-20:00. A short course on Participatory Governance Evaluation will be offered on September 14-15 to enable participants to discuss and experience key issues on the subject and possibly plan ahead for their own field-based governance evaluation.

Expected results
The stream will provide insights and tools for people in charge of governing PAs as well as for stakeholders concerned about governance issues. Besides exposure to a coherent and extremely various set of presentations and views, the stream participants will be offered two dedicated journal issues and eleven new publications and special papers—all to be launched during the stream. Participants will also have a chance to participate in the governance evaluation short course The Durban Accord and Action Plan will include provisions on governance, and a Charter on PA Governance may emerge as a vision and commitment for protected areas in the 21st century. A governance typology— possibly to be adopted as an added dimension to the IUCN PA management category system— will be discussed to assure better recognition and legitimacy to community conserved areas, private protected areas and others. Participatory evaluation and capacity building measures related to governance will be identified and included as part of forthcoming action plans and the WPC message to the CBD will include provisions on governance.

Two WPC recommendations on protected areas governance (no. 5.16 and 5.17) will be discussed and endorsed as specific stream products. Specific recommendations on Community Conserved Areas, Co-managed Protected Areas, Indigenous Peoples and Conservation and Mobile Peoples and Conservation will also be discussed and endorsed as part of the stream.

Active Participation
Participants in the stream are encouraged to actively offer their contributions and insights to the development of the concrete stream outputs. This will be possible to participation in the sessions and also through an “interactive space” where people will find information, samples of books and tools and boards to record replies, comments and suggestions on the basis of specific questions. Specific synthesis workshops will take place to finalise the stream outputs.

Click to download the Program Timetable 1 (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Click to view presentation "New Ways of Working Together" (PowerPoint Presentation)

Click to download the full WPC Rapporteur Report on the Governance Stream (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Click to view notes posted in the Stream's Interactive Space (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

1 This is a reproduction of the original program timetable, overview of presentations and key participants distributed to Congress delegates.