Marine Peace Parks: Establishing Transboundary Mpas to Improve International Relations and Conservation
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Vol. 9, No. 9 April 2008 International News and Analysis on Marine Protected Areas Marine Peace Parks: Establishing Transboundary MPAs to Improve International Relations and Conservation Ecosystems and their wildlife do not recognize political • Acting as a symbol of ongoing cooperation between boundaries. Therefore, in many cases, management nations with a history of peace; must take transboundary conservation into account. • Creating an entry point for discussions between Efforts to achieve conservation across national borders neighboring countries that may be deeply divided are often described in the context of pursuing ecosys- over economic, social, environmental, or other tem-based management. interests; But transboundary conservation can yield other • Increasing security and control over resources in benefits, too. This month, MPA News examines the use border areas so that their rightful owners can benefit of MPAs across borders to improve international from them; relations. Whether designated explicitly as part of a peace process between nations, or as a way to broaden • Creating shared opportunities for ecotourism and an already-friendly relationship between neighbors, sustainable development ventures on a region-wide marine peace parks offer a means of promoting scale, an important step in post-conflict cooperation and better conservation. reconstruction; and • Developing a rich and resilient web of relationships What is a peace park? among protected area managers from the countries In discussions of protected areas across borders, multiple involved, other government actors, local and terms are often encountered: transboundary protected international NGOs, and the donor community. areas, transfrontier conservation areas, peace parks, and so forth. Often practitioners use these terms inter- The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has tallied changeably. For the purpose of this article, MPA News the number of transboundary protected area “com- Table of Contents will generally do that as well. plexes” currently in existence, both terrestrial and marine. According to UNEP, there are 227 of these Marine Peace Parks: IUCN defines “parks for peace” as: (see www.tbpa.net/tpa_inventory.html). Some of the Establishing Trans- complexes are enormous, consisting of dozens of boundary MPAs to Transboundary protected areas that that are formally Improve International dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological individual protected areas. One complex that features the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, for example, is Relations and diversity, and of natural and associated cultural re- Conservation ............... 1 sources, and to the promotion of peace and cooperation. considered by UNEP to include 80 protected areas among the countries of Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. A Conversation with Referring to a site as a “peace park” does not necessarily At this scale, the term “peace park” may be less Willem van Riet, Peace imply that the nations involved were previously in applicable: in these large complexes, not every one of Parks Foundation ......... 4 conflict. As a case in point, the site generally considered the individual protected areas may have been designated to have been the first peace park is the Waterton-Glacier with transboundary cooperation as a specific goal. Facing the Challenges of International Peace Park, designated in 1932 by the Next 50 Years: traditional allies Canada and the US. Rather, a There are several transboundary MPAs designated Interview with Russell transboundary protected area contributes to a culture of expressly to further international cooperation and Reichelt — Chair, Great peace and cooperation between nations, as explained by conservation. The Wadden Sea International Protected Barrier Reef Marine Park Anne Hammill of the International Institute of Region — consisting of multiple MPAs and other Authority ...................... 5 managed areas in Denmark, Germany, and the Sustainable Development and Charles Besançon of the Notes & News .............. 6 World Conservation Monitoring Centre. In an essay Netherlands — is a leading example of ecosystem-based 2 published in the 2007 book Peace Parks: Conservation management (MPA News 8:4). The 100,000-km and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press), Hammill and Pelagos Sanctuary for cetaceans in the Ligurian Sea Besançon suggest a transboundary protected area can requires cooperation among France, Italy, and Monaco play any of the following geopolitical roles: (MPA News 5:3). The Eastern Tropical Pacific continued on next page Corridor initiative, including portions of the EEZs of coral reef ecosystem parameters. All data from the Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama, is monitoring have been entered into an open database of another example (MPA News 7:4). The Southern Program-related information. (For a full description of Ocean, managed as an enormous protected region by the RSMPP Program, including lessons learned, go to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic www.cnps.org.tw/park-03/WPC-EA4-2002/2%20Session%20B/ Marine Living Resources, is one more. B01.pdf.) In terms of existing for the specific purpose of further- The RSMPP has no budget, per se. Instead, each ing peace, however, the foremost example in the marine country funds its own component of the RSMPP. realm might be in the Red Sea. Aqaba Marine Park, for example, is 90% funded by the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority, a Jordanian Red Sea Marine Peace Park statutory institution. The remaining funds for the site The term “peace park” applies quite literally to what are generated by various user fees in the park, such as Israel and Jordan have designated in the northern Gulf from registration and the testing of air tanks for diving. of Aqaba, a semi-enclosed sea shared by these nations. Notably, the two individual sites are not contiguous: the As part of their peace treaty signed in 1994 to normal- no-take Aqaba Marine Park is 17 km from the Jordan/ ize relations, Israel and Jordan developed the bi- Israel border. But they share common natural resources national Red Sea Marine Peace Park (RSMPP), (including nearly 1000 species of fish) and are affected embodying two existing by the same environmental stresses. Both Jordan and MPAs: Jordan’s Aqaba Israel are promoting the northern Gulf of Aqaba as a Marine Park and Israel’s tourism destination center, with water projects and Types of transboundary Coral Reef Reserve in other coastal infrastructure developments accelerating protected areas Eilat. The designation of the regional growth rate, causing various environmental the RSMPP called on the impacts. Following the World Parks Congress in 2003, the nations to partner in IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas research efforts on coral “If the RSMPP had not been established, the Aqaba established a Global Transboundary Protected Areas reefs and marine biology, Marine Park (AMP) would not be what it is today,” says Network to promote biodiversity through peaceful and implement compa- Abu Awali, the marine park’s manager. “The RSMPP cooperation across borders (www.tbpa.net). That rable policies and Program had a significant role in establishing the AMP network has defined several different types of regulations to protect management plan, and several regulations and guide- transboundary protected areas: those reefs. lines suggested by the RSMPP have been implemented by the AMP. These regulations and guidelines have promoted • Two or more contiguous protected areas across a This resulted, in 1999, in national boundary. and encouraged environmentally sustainable use of launch of the RSMPP natural inter-tidal resources, and ensured long-term • A cluster of protected areas and the intervening Program — a full economic benefits.” land or water. partnership between resource management Korea Marine Peace Park • A cluster of separated protected areas without agencies and marine Lessons from the RSMPP, as well as from various including the intervening land/water. research institutions in terrestrial peace parks, are being applied in efforts to Jordan and Israel. • A trans-border area including proposed protected establish a marine peace park on the Korean Peninsula. Facilitated by the US areas (such as when a transboundary initiative starts In 2005, the South Korean government issued a National Oceanic and with protected areas in one country or region, with Presidential Executive Order to initiate a marine peace Atmospheric Administra- the hope of extending protection across the border). park with North Korea in the countries’ disputed tion, the Program aimed western sea. Although the initiative would be unilateral • A protected area in one country aided by to provide resource for the time being — prepared with no input from the sympathetic land/water use over the border. managers of both North Korean government — it was intended to help countries with scientific ensure the goal of sustainable and peaceful development understanding of the in the region, symbolized by the “3 Ps”: protection of basic physical, chemical, ecological integrity, peace, and economic prosperity. and biological processes in the Gulf of Aqaba, and the impacts of human activities on those processes. Study Unlike on land, where the Koreas have a 4-km-wide, teams and management teams from the respective heavily-fortified demilitarized zone to keep people from national agencies participated in joint meetings and crossing, their sea boundary has no physical barrier. workshops twice a year or more, sharing information,