And Protected Areas 7 WWF — Together with Partners Strong Partnerships, Powerful Results 8 in Government, Industry, Local
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conserving nature partnering with people WWF’s global work on protected area networks a vision FOR PROTECTED AREAS “...a global network of well-managed protected contents areas, sustaining biodiversity and natural Partnerships for people resources across entire ecosystems, helping to and nature 1 reduce poverty, providing environmental WWF’s work in protected areas 2 services and resilience to long-term change, Large-scale conservation protecting threatened human cultures strategies 3 and communities, and giving space for both Targeted conservation 4 wildlife and people...” Making policy work 6 People and protected areas 7 WWF — together with partners Strong partnerships, powerful results 8 in government, industry, local Partners in conservation 12 and international NGOs, development Rewarding conservation agencies, local communities, and efforts 14 indigenous people — working to turn Challenges and future work 15 its vision into reality. Future work 1. Completing protected area networks 16 2. Improving management 17 3. Securing sustainable funding 17 4. Safeguarding against global threats 18 partnerships ECONOMIC BENEFITS FOR PEOPLE AND NATURE Coral reefs contribute US$30 billion in net benefits to global economies each year. HE CREATION OF THE while forests and freshwater BUT WE CANNOT world s 100,000 protected systems continue to deteriorate. DO THIS ALONE areas over the past 130 The reasons for this are varied. Our partners from indigenous years represents the Some protected areas are not well people, local communities, T largest conscious land-use managed. Many habitats are poorly park managers, and NGOs, change in history. Protected areas represented in the current network to governments, international now cover some 12 per cent of the of protected areas, including open organizations, development Earth s land surface more than seas and coastal areas, marshes and agencies, landowners, and India and China put together. swamps, mangroves, grasslands, industry — have always been As the number of protected and temperate forests. In addition, integral to our protected area areas has grown, so too has our there are several global threats to work. Indeed one of our guiding understanding of the benefits they protected areas, including climate principles is to build and strengthen provide. In addition to their primary change, continued conversion of working relationships for function of preserving biological natural habitat, diversion of water conservation. Only by working diversity, we now recognize that from rivers and other freshwater together can we secure the future they also perform essential systems, and overfishing. of our planet s natural areas: environmental services; maintain WWF is working harder than bringing benefits to both people natural resources; shelter local ever to establish a global network and nature. cultures and spiritual sites; mitigate of ecologically representative long-term global threats; reduce and effectively managed land, border tensions; help reduce poverty freshwater, and marine protected through providing livelihoods; and areas. With 40 years experience, PROVISION OF LIVELIHOODS provide economic benefits. targeted conservation goals, and The sustainable use of sedge However, the world s natural projects combining practical grasses for weaving allows areas remain under threat with field implementation with high- Ntuli women living around disastrous consequences. Plant and level policy work in over 100 the Mbongolwane wetland, animal species are becoming extinct countries, we are uniquely placed a Ramsar Site in faster than at any time in our to lead protected area work into Zambia, to earn history. Fisheries are collapsing, the 21st century. regular incomes. ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES Forests provide well-regulated, high-quality water to around a third of the world’s cities. The cloud forests of La Tigra National Park in Honduras provide over 40% of the water supply to 850,000 people in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. WWF’s work IN PROTECTED AREAS INCE OUR INCEPTION With our partners, we have G Field projects in more than 100 in 1961, WWF has been been at the forefront of all aspects countries to establish, restore, and working to preserve of protected area work from effectively manage protected area biodiversity. Protected planning, establishing, and networks and protect them from areas have always managing to securing financing long-term global threats S G vocacy and policy work been a key part of this. Indeed, and policy making. Our work Ad one of our first projects was to combines: G Partners, including indigenous purchase, with the Spanish G Large-scale conservation people, local communities, park government, a section of Spain s strategies to safeguard the world s managers, NGOs, land owners, Guadalquivir Delta marshes most important ecoregions governments, international and establish the Coto Do ana G Targeted conservation goals organizations, development National Park. to address key global challenges agencies, and industry. CONSERVATION FROM A NUMBER OF ANGLES WWF is working to protect the Mesoamerican Reef in a number of ways and with a variety of partners. In Belize, WWF, Friends of Nature, The Nature Conservancy, the Belize Audubon Society, Green Reef, the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment (TIDE), and the Wildlife Conservation Society secured a commitment from the Belize government to fully protect 11 spawning sites for the endangered Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus), and to close the entire fishery in Belize during the grouper’s spawning season. This will also protect more than 20 other species of reef fish that spawn in the same area. The closure came with significant support from artisanal and commercial fishers, who have witnessed the decline of Nassau grouper catches from thousands to just a handful of fish. In Mexico, WWF organized the first certification and accreditation course for whale shark tour guides. The course, attended by fishers and private tourism agencies, resulted in the development of an official government guideline for people swimming near whale sharks (Rhincodon typus). Rules for minimizing disturbance to this docile fish, the biggest in the world, include no SCUBA diving, only two people swimming at the same time, and keeping a distance of 8 metres. And in Honduras, WWF is working in the Aguan watershed, which is threatened by rapidly expanding banana and oil palm plantations, with runoff reaching the fragile Mesoamerican coral reefs. WWF is also developing the whale shark ecotourism community model in Utila, Bay Islands. 2 large scale PLANNING PROTECTED AREAS CONSERVATION STRATEGIES Ecoregion conservation strategies are needed to protect Kazakhstan’s Katon- Karagai National Park. S ISOLATED diverse land-, water-, and that are currently underrepresented pockets, protected areas seascapes, including deserts, in existing protected area networks alone cannot provide forests, grasslands, tundra, corals, — such as wetlands, marine effective conservation mangroves, marshes, rivers, and coastal areas, savannahs and Aof biodiversity. Nor can and seas. grasslands, and temperate forests they maintain viable populations of We are developing large-scale — need to be included in these species in blocks of natural habitat conservation strategies for a subset networks. large enough to be resilient to of these ecoregions in order to We see national protected areas large-scale disturbances such as complete a representative network as just one element — trans- climate change, or provide essential of protected areas to safeguard our boundary protected areas, buffer ecosystem services. A key element planet’s terrestrial, freshwater, zones, corridors, no-take zones, and of WWF’s work is therefore and marine biodiversity. These sustainable land uses within conservation of ecoregions. strategies combine protection, and outside protected areas are also WWF has prioritized 238 land, good management, and restoration parts of ecoregion conservation. We freshwater, and marine ecoregions of landscapes. One important also consider social and economic of critical importance to element of this work is to identify factors, both to integrate biodiversity — The Global 200 ‘gaps’ — areas that are not yet conservation with sustainable Ecoregions — that are the main protected but should be for development and to help tackle areas in which our conservation effective protection of the entire global issues like the causes and work is focused. These include ecoregion. In addition, ecosystems impacts of climate change. PROTECTING ECOREGIONS In order to ensure conservation of biodiversity in the transboundary Altai- Sayan ecoregion, WWF and partners in China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia carried out an analysis to identify gaps in the existing network of 287 protected areas. The analysis identified sites for 216 new protected areas (covering 9.6 million hectares) that are biologically connected through corridors and zones of limited land use. Implementation of these protected areas, corridors, and zones is now underway. 3 targeted CONSERVATION FORESTS MARINE TARGET: Creating 50 million hectares of new forest protected areas and TARGET: Effectively managed, ecologically improving management in a further 50 million hectares of forest by 2005. representative marine protected area networks ITH SO MUCH to FORESTS important wetland areas, many of be done, it is Since 1998, when the target was first which have been designated as important to focus announced, WWF has helped to