098 - Ensuring the compatibility of human activities with conservation objectives in protected areas
098 - Ensuring the compatibility of human activities with conservation objectives in protected areas
REAFFIRMING that protected areas have a common, priority objective of ensuring the long-term conservation of nature and ecosystem services and the associated cultural values;
CONCERNED about the worsening of direct and indirect human pressure, in particular urban development, the exploitation of natural resources, which is affecting almost one third of all the world’s protected areas, to such an extent that these pressures are compromising conservation objectives;
RECALLING the preceding Resolutions and Recommendations voted at the IUCN General Assemblies on activities that are incompatible with protected areas, in particular Recommendation 102 Protected areas and other areas important for biodiversity in relation to environmentally damaging industrial activities and infrastructure development (Hawai‘i, 2016);
NOTING that there are no international guidelines that allow the compatibility of certain human activities to be assessed in line with the IUCN protected area management categories, in accordance with their nature and their intensity; and
FURTHER NOTING that very limited information is given about the IUCN management and governance categories in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), despite the commitment made by the States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity within the framework of the Programme of Work on Protected Areas (2004);
1. ASKS the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) to define in a guide a methodological approach to assess the level of compatibility of human activities in accordance with the management categories for terrestrial and marine protected areas;
2. ASKS the states to:
a. provide information to the WDPA systematically on the management categories and the types of governance of all their protected areas;
b. guarantee the respect for the protected area management objectives by clearly establishing a compatibility obligation for human activities, with the biodiversity conservation objectives assigned to protected areas;
c. reinforce the integration of protected areas into their terrestrial and marine landscapes, and to take into account the pressures that are also placed on locations outside protected areas;
d. ensure the quality of the assessment processes for the impacts created by human activities, in accordance with the highest environmental standards; and
e. establish systematic monitoring of human activities in the management plans; and
3. ENCOURAGES the organisations responsible for protected areas to include systematically information on their environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic benefits and to develop assessment mechanisms for local stakeholders.
