Setting gold standards for conservation 01 January 2012 |
Article An important role of the IUCN Congress is to showcase
the knowledge and tools we can use to better manage our natural
world. As well as being a world leader on species and their
conservation needs, IUCN offers the expertise needed to
establish and sustainably manage our protected areas—national
parks, nature reserves and so on. Covering a range of subjects
from the economic values of protected areas to training for
people working in protected areas, the Best Practice Guidelines
on Protected Areas are one of IUCN’s prime ‘knowledge products’.
They are produced by members of the World Commission on
Protected Areas (WCPA) who volunteer their expertise to condense
lessons learned using case studies from all over the world. The
Guidelines are indispensable for government agencies, protected
area planners and managers. Seventeen guidelines have been
produced so far, many of them in several languages. The series
gained greater prominence at the Conven