By
Jeffrey A. McNeely
Chief Scientist
IUCN-The World Conservation Union
1196 Gland, Switzerland
email: jam@iucn.org

China has the world's fastest growing economy, but many rural areas are being left behind. Entry into the World Trade Organisation may worsen this disparity. The impressive system of protected areas now being established may offer an important focus for economic development that delivers benefits to the rural poor. This paper explores some of the challenges in doing so.

1. INTRODUCTION

The government of China has a remarkable record of lifting its people out of poverty, experiencing annual GDP growth rates of over 10% in recent years. However, the benefits of this economic growth have been uneven, with urban areas and the southeast growing the most quickly. In 2003, Chinese farmers averaged an income of RMB 2,622 while urban residents averaged RMB 8,500, more than three times more than rural people. The disparity is made even greater by the need for farmers to pay relatively high taxes and allocate 20% of income to seeds and other materials for the subsequent year's farming, leaving a farmer's disposable cash income at less than RMB 1,000. Urban residents have few such calls on their income, and benefit from better medical facilities and even unemployment insurance. Some 900 million of China's 1.3 billion population live as farmers in the countryside, putting considerable pressure on the remaining natural and semi-natural habitats that are included in the country's protected areas system.

What are the implications of rural economic development for China's protected areas? Will a focus on poverty alleviation increase the effectiveness of protected areas, or reduce it? How can improved resource management provide real benefits to rural people? Can protected areas contribute anything useful to discussions of rural poverty? How can linking poverty issues to protected areas lead to better conservation of biodiversity in China? This paper will seek to address such questions.

The Vth World Parks Congress, meeting in Durban, South Africa, in October 2003, recognised the ethical and practical imperative to consider the linkages between poverty and protected areas, contrasting the desire of conservationists for no net loss of biodiversity with the demand from development interests for no net negative impact on human livelihoods from biodiversity conservation measures. It adopted as a principle the following statement: "Protected area establishment and management should contribute to poverty reduction at the local level, and at the very minimum must not contribute to or exacerbate poverty." The Congress basically felt that protected areas should at least do no harm to the communities living in and around protected areas, recognising that many such communities had been significantly disadvantaged in the past (see Annexes 1 and 2).

But this is far too modest for the needs of modern China. While "do no harm" is certainly a useful starting point, work needs to go far beyond this bare minimum and start to deliver actual benefits to rural people, in ways that also enhance the value and relevance of the protected areas. This paper explores the hypothesis that making protected areas a useful contributing element in comprehensive programmes for addressing rural poverty will enable them to earn greater support from rural people. A further element in this hypothesis is that linking protected areas to poverty alleviation enables a more convincing case to be made for greater investment in protecting the natural assets that can benefit the rural poor, and the rest of society. Additional government funds would then become available for protected area management.

Building a more mutually-supportive link between poverty and protected areas has strong international support. For example, the Convention on Biological Diversity, in its preamble, recognises that "economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing countries." The Convention is also very clear in its objective "to conserve and sustainably use biological diversity for the benefit of present and future generations," an explicit link to development. And in its article 8, on in situ conservation, the CBD calls for systems of protected areas and various measures to conserve and sustainably use biological diversity, as well as promoting efforts to support "environmentally sound and sustainable development in areas adjacent to protected areas, with a view to furthering protection of these areas." This provides an international legislative justification for considering poverty issues along with the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The CBD offers more detailed guidance as well. Its article 10 addresses the sustainable use of components of biological diversity, including a call to "protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices that are compatible with conservation or sustainable use requirements." While recognising that local people have control over the fate of biological resources and have developed, in many cases, effective ways of managing these resources, we also must recognise that changing conditions can undermine traditional management approaches, or even make them obsolete. With growing population, increasing perception of poverty, and growing contacts with the larger world, the rural poor may put biodiversity under increasing pressure and perhaps strengthen the voice of those calling for stronger law enforcement as the primary conservation tool.

Two fundamental points will guide this review of options for balancing the needs of protected areas and the rural poor. First, poverty needs to be seen not only in terms of low income or malnutrition, but rather to include lack of assets and opportunities, lack of power and political influence, exposure to social and economic vulnerability, and lack of capacity to promote and defend interests. It can be seen that some individuals living in remote areas as part of a traditional subsistence economy may not be living in poverty as defined here, even though they earn virtually no cash income. And some who earn more than the World Bank's US $1 or $2 per day definition of poverty may still be in deep poverty according to the definition used here. That said, many poor people by any definition wish to change their situation, and this paper looks to protected areas to assess how they can contribute to providing opportunities for the rural poor to build up their assets, better influence decision-making processes of institutions that affect their livelihoods, and reduce their vulnerability to natural disasters, ill-health, and economic shocks. This more comprehensive view of poverty may clarify how protected areas can better contribute to poverty alleviation.

Second, protected areas often are located in remote parts of the country, and such remote areas also tend to be areas where levels of poverty are high. Addressing poverty through generating more income from natural resources in such areas may result in increasing pressure on the natural resources the protected area system is designed to conserve. On the other hand, forms of development based on other options may reduce the dependence of the poor on products from the wild and therefore benefit biodiversity. Wise choices need to made now if conservation and development are going to be partners for China's future, or instead remain competitors for limited resources.

This issue is above all a critically important domestic policy issue for China, affecting the distribution of the benefits of economic growth, and seeking ways of ensuring that new infrastructure and agricultural investments in the rural parts of the country that are most important for biodiversity do not damage the very sites that most need protection.

2. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

Among the rural people of China, those living in mountains tend to have lower levels of income than those in the lowlands (which generally have better agricultural land). About 80% of the 331 officially-designated poverty counties identified in the 7th Five-Year Plan (1986) were located in the western parts of the country. A 1991 study found that 43% of these counties were considered minority nationality counties and about 70% of the households belonged to minority nationalities. In short, poverty in China is predominantly rural, centred in the west plus many scattered mountainous areas elsewhere, and concentrated among minority nationalities (Zhu and Jiang, 1996). These pockets of poverty are also the areas that tend to be most important for conserving biodiversity, indicating a relationship between poverty and protected areas that needs to be understood if the protected areas are to be managed in ways that will enable them to continue delivering biodiversity benefits.

After China becomes a full member of the World Trade Organisation, urban-rural inequalities may further increase as manufacturers benefit from improved access to world markets and farmers find their incomes further depressed by increased agricultural imports. Already, the price of Chinese grain is 15-20% higher than in world markets, so food imports could well become a major competitive problem for farmers. Rural unemployment is likely to become an increasing problem: OECD has estimated that between 1997 and 2010, agricultural employment in China will fall by around 78 million, with accompanying implications for protected areas. Farmers who migrate to cities often work illegally, but without a residence permit (hukou) they are unable to educate their children, earn pension benefits or have access to health care. Because they cannot buy housing, they remain dependent on village land. The pressure on village and township officials to report high peasant income means that the reported incomes often are inflated, and taxes are levied on the basis of these inflated incomes. According to The Economist, inflated income reports, taxes and arbitrary fees mean that farmers may need to pay more than a quarter of their income as tax, trapping them in a situation where they either must borrow to pay taxes or engage in illegal activities such as poaching trees, wildlife, or non-timber forest products from protected areas.

China is going to be facing more environmental challenges in the coming years, and these will pose increasing threats to the protected areas that have been established in a time of rapid economic growth. For example, in 2003, the wheat harvest in China fell short of consumption by 19 million tons at the same when 11 million people were being added to the country's population. And as China becomes more prosperous, people are moving up the food chain and eating more grain-fed livestock products such as pork, poultry, eggs and even beef and milk (Brown, 2004). Part of the shortfall has been due to a shrinking of the land where grain is harvested, from 90 million ha in 1998 to 76 million ha five years later. The shortage of irrigation water, expanding deserts, conversion of crop land to non-farm uses, a shift to higher-value crops such as fruits and vegetables, and a decline in double-cropping due to the loss of farm labour in the more prosperous coastal provinces have all contributed to the problem. In the less prosperous North and West, water tables are falling as aquifers are depleted and irrigation wells go dry, contributing to increasingly severe annual dust storms. The land available for crops is shrinking due to urban growth, industrial expansion and highway construction, all of which will pose new challenges for the protected areas, whose land may become more attractive for uses other than conserving biodiversity.

Despite warnings about China's food production deficit (Brown, 2001), the reality has been that the prices of agricultural products have been falling over the past several years, a reflection of production in excess of demand. The reduction in land sown to grain crops (100 million hectares in 2002, 15 million hectares less than in 1998) is more a reflection of falling prices than of shortages of land or water (at least for now). This situation has both positive and negative implications for protected areas: positive because less land is being used to grow crops, and therefore may be used to conserve biodiversity; but negative in that the farmers are becoming poorer, and therefore may increase their demands on the remaining natural habitats.

Currently, about 40% of the income of farmers comes from non-agricultural sectors, including commerce, transportation and services. While certainly not a panacea for the problem of rural poverty, protected areas may be managed in ways that both achieve conservation objectives and offer rural people additional options for non-agricultural income.

3. COSTS OF PROTECTED AREAS TO RURAL PEOPLE

One aspect of the relationship between protected areas and the rural poor is that protected areas can reduce assets and opportunities for rural people through excluding them from access to resources. Yet history has shown that rural people are remarkably resilient and will find ways to acquire the resources they need. It therefore is essential to find appropriate ways to meet the resource needs of rural people in ways that do not threaten protected areas, and may even enhance them. An important first step is to identify the costs of protected areas to rural people.

All of China is occupied by people, and has been for many centuries. The relative population density has shifted over time, with depopulation following environmental degradation in at least some of the drier parts of the country. But in any case, establishing a protected area will inevitably have implications for the people who believe they hold at least historical rights to the resources in the area proposed to be protected against continued exploitation. Economists refer to such restrictions on resource extraction as "opportunity costs", in this case, the benefits foregone by conserving rather than exploiting the natural resources.

Because most protected areas are in remote areas, the people most likely to be affected are also likely to be poor. Many argue that the opportunity costs of protected areas forced on the rural poor is an issue of moral responsibility that needs to be addressed by conservationists. When rural people lose rights to resources that they have relied upon for many generations, considerable resentment is likely to ensue, often causing a backlash that can harm the protected area. Social justice calls for appropriate compensation to the rural people who are paying these opportunity costs.

Some direct economic costs of protected areas to people living in surrounding lands also need to be recognised, for example crop raiding by monkeys, deer, wild pigs, and birds moving out of the protected areas (because wildlife populations will tend to expand beyond the carrying capacity of the protected area when poaching is controlled). One perspective is that such direct costs in the form of damage to crops or livestock generate poverty, while opportunity costs perpetuate poverty through denial of access to productive assets.

However, it is worth keeping in mind that protected areas are not the only land-use changes that affect rural people in China. For example, the collective ownership of land has led to reduced individual responsibility for sound resource management (Tso, 2004). The hundreds of thousands of people who have been moved as a result of dam-building operations undoubtedly are even more dramatic than the far fewer moved to establish protected areas (though the likelihood of their returning is far less). Timber and minerals also are treated as national assets, with the rural poor receiving only a modest proportion of the economic benefits of harvesting by state corporations. The opportunity costs of protected areas therefore need to be seen against the backdrop of current patterns of rural development in China. But in any case, the rural poor often are expected to make sacrifices when protected areas are established for the benefit of the nation, urban tourists, or even the international community. Small wonder, then, that social responsibility aspects of conservation are becoming an increasingly important issue.

4. BENEFITS OF PROTECTED AREAS TO THE POOR

On the positive side, protected areas provide substantial goods and services that can potentially improve livelihoods of the poor, or in some cases are even essential for their survival. These goods and services can have both use and non-use values, and are explained in considerable detail in Harmon and Putney (2003).

4.1. Use Values

Use values of protected areas cover a spectrum of uses, by the local communities or external users. Examples include:

¡¤ harvesting of renewable resources (honey, timber, medicinal plants, subsistence hunting, in protected areas permitting such harvest);
¡¤ food security: protected areas can provide a safety net of resources that could provide emergency products in extreme conditions (such as famine).
¡¤ tourism: protected areas are often the centre for tourism investments in remote areas, and provide one of the relatively few economic options for developing remote rural areas;
¡¤ sport or trophy hunting (possible only when abundant prey species are available, and only in some categories of protected areas);
¡¤ health: including through providing clean drinking water, and a source of medicinal plants, collected under permit.

4.2. Non-use values

Protected areas provide significant benefits to local communities in terms of ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment divides these services into four categories: provisioning services (products obtained from ecosystems, such as food, fresh water, fuel wood, fibre, biochemicals, and genetic resources); regulating services (benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem processes, such as climate regulation, disease regulation, water regulation, water purification, and pollination); cultural services (nonmaterial benefits obtained from ecosystems, including spiritual and religious values, recreation, tourism, inspiration, education, sense of place, and cultural heritage); and supporting services (services necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services, such as soil formation, nutrient cycling, and primary production). The provisioning services provide numerous use values, while the regulating, cultural and supporting services provide essentially non-use values (MEA, 2002). Such beneficial services are provided to the general public, including the poor.

Some of the benefits of these services go to the local communities neighbouring the protected area (e.g. cultural value, or the value of ameliorating local climate), some are important for society as a whole (e.g., protection of watersheds), and some benefit the entire globe (e.g., conserving wild ancestors of food crops). Some people believe that the global and national values of protected areas present real opportunities for generating benefits for the rural poor by recognizing their stewardship role in protecting the systems that provide such values, and providing payments to them for their stewardship. However, the means for arranging such transfers are not yet in place, except in a few externally-funded projects.

These services are important for the long term well-being of the living environment of the poor, and for their spiritual well-being. However, they provide little concrete poverty relief. They can be considered as part of "sustainable development" and the long term health of the environment, but are unlikely to influence the agenda of decision makers faced with meeting the urgent needs of the poor. Further, it is challenging to provide differential benefits from ecosystem services to the poor, and in fact the relatively well-off often are more likely to earn the largest share of the non-use benefits from protected areas.

Some ways of addressing these challenges will be discussed below.

5. DELIVERED BENEFITS FROM PROTECTED AREAS TO RURAL PEOPLE: SOME EXAMPLES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The growing interest in providing benefits from protected areas to rural people is leading to numerous examples from many parts of the worlds. This section includes a few examples that highlight some of the challenges.

In Madagascar, the Malagasy National Association for the Management of Protected Areas (ANGAP) initiated a policy in 1993 of sharing half the entrance fees from Ranomafana National Park with local entities to demonstrate the benefits of conservation. A management committee comprised of local area villagers is responsible for reviewing and selecting village proposals for development micro-projects to be funded by the park entrance fees, and a general assembly with locally-chosen village representatives from the surrounding areas is responsible for formal dialogue between the residence population and the management committee. The income from entrance fees is relatively modest, amounting to just over US$10,000 in 1992 (Peters, 1998). Other tourism-related sources of funding amount to around US$20,000, and about half of the total income was distributed to local people in terms of 37 full time jobs and 28 part time jobs. However, it remains to be seen whether this level of benefits and their distribution are sufficient to change local attitudes to the protected area.

One study used Madagascar's 230,000 hectare Masoala National Park to assess the possibility of using economic incentives for conservation by working with local communities to develop forest products from the buffer areas and nature-based tourism in the park. It also assessed economic incentives at national and global scales, especially to assess the opportunity cost of conserving biodiversity as opposed to large-scale industrial forestry concessions. Growth benefits to Madagascar from the conservation option ranged from US$ 7 million to US$ 84 million, though the immediate financial benefits from industrial logging are likely to be higher (Kremen et al, 1999; 2000).

At the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, the TransMara County Council, a communal land owner, has contracted a Kenya-based NGO, the Mara Conservancy, to manage its portion of the reserve, including ticketing, revenue collection, tourism management, security, and wildlife conservation. In a letter to Nature (25 October 2001), Walpole and Leader-Williams reported that in the first few weeks of operation in June and July, the NGO generated more than five times the amount previously collected by the Council over an entire year, as well as attracting additional donor funding. Benefits to the local communities are also beginning to flow, demonstrating the utility of this approach to generating revenue from tourism to a attractive protected area.

A grass-cutting programme in Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal was designed to build support among the local people for the national park. During the ten days of open access in 1999, almost 50,000 tons of biomass were removed from the park, with a total gross economic value of over US$1 million. While the benefits were considerable, so were the costs to the park in terms of illegal extraction of fuel wood. A review of the programme recommended that access should be provided in different areas at different times instead of opening the whole park at the same time; and because the buffer zone community forestry programme has not been able to substitute fuel wood from the park, other ways to address the needs of local people for energy need to be considered (Straede and Helles, 2000). Park-people conflicts in Chitwan National Park have not been solved by allowing access to grass-cutters, but only postponed, especially by compromising forest conservation and threatening the possibility of the grass-cutting programme to supply villagers with essential products in the future.

Finally, since 1992, the State Government Parana in Brazil has allocated 2.5% of the value-added taxes it collects to the Municipal Governments of the State, based on how much conservation area they have and how well they protect it. Half of Parana's Municipalities receive such payments, which they are free to apply to anything they wish. Such payments have encouraged local governments to enlarge the area devoted to conservation, leading to an increase in protected areas of 165% in Parana. Many of these sites are not fully protected, but contain certain restrictions on resource use and may include privately-owned protected areas.

Many other examples can be found in West and Brechin (1991), Western and Wright (1994), McNeely (1995), Kemf (1993), and McNeely (1999).

6. DELIVERING BENEFITS TO THE RURAL POOR IN CHINA: ISSUES AND OPTIONS

Protected areas cannot be expected to solve the problem of China's poor, but they can contribute to poverty reduction in the rural landscape if appropriate policies and management measures are put in place. The international acceptance of the "ecosystem approach" developed under the Convention on Biological Diversity will help to link poverty reduction and protected areas. Protected areas can also be linked to the Millennium Development Goals, especially MDG7 on ensuring environmental sustainability, as well as contribute to MDG goals related to health and education; such links can earn protected areas a place at the table where development issues are being discussed.

Forming a more effective link between protected areas and poverty reduction might include measures such as:
¡¤ improving knowledge of the values of ecosystem services to build the case of the contribution of protected areas to the rural poor;
¡¤ designing management systems that permit certain subsistence activities in some categories of protected areas and provide a safety net for poverty reduction strategies;
¡¤ making local protected area agencies more aware of poverty issues in order to ensure that their management activities do not inadvertently contribute to greater poverty;
¡¤ ensuring that the finance and economic planning ministries are well aware of the values of protected areas and the goods and services they provide (aiming to ensure that poverty reduction strategies do not lead to inappropriate activities in protected areas);
¡¤ ensuring that decisions about an individual protected area and its relations with surrounding communities involve those communities as interested parties with clearly-defined rights;
¡¤ providing access, under a permit system, to certain limited use of resources that are harvested in a non-destructive manner (such as medicinal plants, seeds, or grass);
¡¤ providing goods in the form of fish, birds, and mammals, that disperse out of the protected areas and are subsequently harvested by local communities outside the protected areas;
¡¤ providing opportunities to develop a tourist industry based on the protected area; and
¡¤ providing access to infrastructure, such as roads, electricity, improved communications and health care associated with supporting the protected area infrastructure.

As part of China's drive toward privatisation, many protected areas are being turned over to the private sector, for the provision of at least some services. For example, in Anhui province the Huangashan National Scenic Area is managed by the Huangashan Tourism Development Company, owned by the city of Huangashan and numerous shareholders in China, the US, and Japan. Because the executives who run the firm are also senior government officials responsible for overseeing the protected area, conflicts of interest are a matter of considerable concern. The private sector firms sell admission tickets and run hotels, gift shops, restaurants, and other such facilities. The danger of inappropriate development of infrastructure is appearing in at least some protected areas, as incompatible buildings are constructed to house more tourists, or even offices. The danger is that national parks established for the benefit of all Chinese now essentially belong to a few concession holders for whom poverty alleviation is a secondary consideration.

One option to consider is direct payments to individuals or communities for carrying out conservation activities instead of logging or converting habitats to agriculture. So-called "conservation contracting" can reduce the number of variables that protected area agencies must control to achieve conservation objectives, permit more precise targeting and more rapid adaptation over time, and strengthen the links between individual well-being, individual actions, and habitat conservation (Ferraro 2001). Such direct payments will create a significant local stake in ecosystem protection. Guiding the economic development process toward paths that are compatible with ecosystem protection is fundamentally sound, because the people living in and around protected areas often are the principal agents of change, or at least are in the best position to protect the ecosystem. But the profitability of logging and agriculture, no matter how marginal, drives habitat conversion, so only the greater profitability of conservation can stop the expansion of habitat alteration, especially as demand for food and wood continues to increase.

Several specific measures can be taken to link protected area management to improving the livelihoods of rural people. Four general measures are described below.

6.1. Prepare protected area systems plans at provincial and national level

Converting the potential benefits of protected areas into real and perceived goods and services for local people requires a systems approach, as supported by the Convention on Biological Diversity (Article 8a). Elements of this approach:

¡¤ At the national level, an integrated set of protected areas encompassing various levels of management and administration, including the national, provincial, and local governments, non-governmental organizations, local communities and indigenous peoples, the private sector, and other stakeholders.

¡¤ Core areas that include national parks and other categories of relatively strict protection located within "bioregions", which are large areas comprising whole ecosystems that surround the core areas, where voluntary cooperative agreements can be established with stakeholders and other interested parties in a decentralized manner (Miller, 1996).

¡¤ Within the framework of the market-based economic systems that are becoming increasingly widespread in China, greater participation by the civil society in economic development that extends to the management of protected areas, especially for tourism and the sustainable use of certain natural resources.

A protected area system plan presents a coordinated strategy that clarifies objectives and goals for individual protected areas and the protected area system, and identifies priorities for investment. It enables protected areas to be integrated fully within all key planning frameworks, including land use and development plans, provincial and national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and strategic plans for all relevant sectors (including tourism, energy, transport, forestry, agriculture, and even the military). The protected area system needs to include examples of the full range of habitats, communities, and other landscape features of each province as well as areas of particular biological significance, such as the habitat of rare species. A protected area system needs a strong legal component as well.

One of the key institutional issues is to ensure that the appropriate tasks are undertaken at the appropriate levels. A strong central authority is often required to ensure that an effective protected area network is designed, protected area concerns are built into national development priorities, the national legal and policy framework is appropriate, management performance is assessed and monitored, and information is built into the national data management system. More local approaches are required to manage the protected areas, provide benefits and incentives to local communities, design appropriate buffer zone activities, seek alternative sources of income for local people, and carry out other activities to reduce the pressure of local people on protected areas. Decentralization and local autonomy are good principles, but the responsibility for conserving biodiversity also has national dimensions.

A programme for national protected area systems needs to include both firm governmental action and alliances with the other stakeholders. The national government cannot delegate its role of guarantor of the conservation of China's cultural and natural heritage, but civil society can share certain rights and responsibilities regarding the management of protected areas after careful preparations and an adequate definition of roles and responsibilities. Given the interests of NGOs, business, and local communities who live within or close to protected areas, alliances should be created among stakeholders enabling each to play an appropriate role according to clear government policies and laws.

6.2. Prepare a management plan for each site

Each protected area needs to have a management plan which specifies its management objectives and sets up effective mechanisms for reconciling any conflicts with neighbouring lands. Ideally, each management plan should be very specific about its relationship with any agricultural communities that may be found within the protected area, and with agricultural lands in the surrounding matrix. The management plan can be very specific about how the protected area will be managed to deliver ecosystem services that support development in the region.

Protected areas can be designed and managed to better support the rural poor, including through enabling them to influence decision-making processes; receive an equitable share of costs and benefits; develop pro-poor mechanisms to reward environmental stewardship; minimize and mitigate damages, and provide fair compensation for losses; respect customary uses and access rights, especially for the most vulnerable sectors of society; improve accountability and transparency of decision-making processes related to protected areas; and ensure that poverty and social impact assessments are routinely involved in monitoring and evaluation of protected areas. Where protected areas include traditional sacred sites for national minorities, the local communities may be given a stronger voice in how these assets are to be managed and displayed, as has already happened in Australia, Canada, Brazil, and elsewhere.

While each site has its own unique features, some general principles that management plans might consider for delivering benefits to the nearby communities include:

¡¤ Involving local communities in demarcating boundaries can help to ensure that the boundaries are appropriate and respected by the local people.
¡¤ When local people are part of the tourism economy, they may be able to participate in a consolidated regional approach to the industry.
¡¤ Hire local people as guides and rangers, and provide training to enable them to carry out their assignments effectively.
¡¤ If the rural poor are enabled to contribute their knowledge of wildlife behaviour, they can help minimise negative interactions between people and wild life, especially in the form of crop-raiding.
¡¤ Establish a quick response unit within the protected area to deal with problems of wildlife moving out of the protected area and raiding economic assets of surrounding villages.
¡¤ Establish a fund for compensating for wild life damage, including from predators on flocks of domestic animals (as has been done in the case of snow leopards in Pakistan and tigers in India and Nepal).
¡¤ If management policy enables local people to have some harvesting rights, their negotiations over levels of harvest can also provide a sense of participation, and even empowerment.
¡¤ Given that many of the rural poor are from national minorities who may have tenure rights that are inconsistent with national land ownership legislation, the establishment of the protected area may offer an opportunity for regularising tenure and access issues, though in such cases it is important to ensure that the new approaches do not undermine traditional approaches that have worked for hundreds of years.
¡¤ Enter into management agreements with adjacent communities to establish and patrol sections of the protected area boundary.
¡¤ Establish a protected area Board of Advisors that includes representatives from surrounding villages and other interest groups.
¡¤ In remote areas, ensure that the communications and health facilities for protected areas staff are made available on emergency basis to local people.
¡¤ Provide licences to local people for harvesting limited amounts of medicinal plants, seeds, and other renewable resources whose harvest would not be detrimental to the protected area management objectives.
¡¤ Identify and publicise the benefits to surrounding villages of the pollinators who spend at least part of their time within the protected area.
¡¤ Identify and publicise the pest control measures of wildlife contained in the protected area, such as seed eating birds.
¡¤ Develop contingency plans for dealing with emergency situations, such as floods, famines, earthquakes, typhoons and so forth, that might require the protected area to provide additional goods and services to local people.
¡¤ Pay farmers for conservation services, such as maintaining forests in lands adjacent to protective areas (as has been done in Costa Rica, for example).
¡¤ Consider paying royalty agreements for medicinal plants harvested from within the protected area based on traditional knowledge of the local people.
¡¤ Establish a new fiscal mechanism to compensate rural communities for any loss of employment or tax receipts associated with the creation of a protected area, as has been done in Brazil through its ICMS Ecologico (Pagiolla et al 2002).

Each protected area needs to be managed in an adaptive manner, with on-going monitoring programmes contributing to improving the way the site is managed, and the way benefits are delivered to rural people. This approach, commonly called "adaptive management", depends on the availability of information to track results of actions so that the effectiveness of management can be evaluated, including by the rural people affected.

6.3. Adopt a landscape approach

Because protected areas will be unable to conserve biodiversity if they are surrounded by degraded habitats that limit gene-flow, alter nutrient and water cycles, and produce regional and global climate change, it is essential to think of protected areas in terms of the context within which they are found. And if the protected areas are surrounded by poor people who are earning a living directly from the harvesting of biological resources, then clearly ways of working together must be found. If the surrounding matrix is managed with biodiversity in mind, agricultural areas can make a positive contribution to biodiversity.

Encouraging landscape-wide compatible land use adjacent to protected areas is important for both conserving species in protected areas and stimulating local economic development. Thus conservation initiatives need to be linked to other approaches that address management challenges that arise outside protected areas. For example, efforts to control poaching of valuable plants or animals in protected areas may require better law enforcement within protected areas and improved management of agriculture in the buffer zones, but also favourable pricing and marketing systems for agricultural products in distant urban areas (Newmark and Hough, 2000).

Current thinking in conservation planning is that protected areas need to be considered as one element among many within a much larger landscape, with different land uses within the landscape all contributing to the overall flow of goods and services from the region. Different land uses within the region can be complimentary, and draw from each other. As one obvious example, a protected area in an upper watershed can provide water benefits to downstream farmers, power generators and fisher folk. And within such a landscape, different kinds of protected areas can play different roles. This is the foundation of the IUCN system of protected areas, which has been endorsed by the CBD (Box 1). These categories are established on the basis of objectives for management, suggesting that some categories of protected areas (for example, categories I and II) need to be protected against resource harvesting on a commercial scale, while other categories (such as V and VI) can be established around the strictly protected area to prevent them from becoming biologically impoverished islands, or can stand by themselves to make important contributions to systems of land management. These latter categories can include sustainable utilisation of renewable resources as a management objective, to conserve biological diversity, provide sustainable benefits to local human communities from the use of those resources, and maintain significant cultural relationships between people and the rest of nature. Such categories have an obvious relevance to the rural poor.

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BOX 1: THE IUCN SYSTEM OF PROTECTED AREAS CATEGORIES I. Strict Nature Reserve/Wilderness Area. Areas of land and/or sea possessing outstanding or representative ecosystems, geological or physiological features and/or species, available primarily for scientific research and/or environmental monitoring; or large areas of unmodified or slightly modified land, and/or sea, retaining their natural character and influence, without permanent or significant habitation, which are protected and managed so as to preserve their natural condition. Ñϸñ×ÔÈ»±£»¤Çø/×ÔÈ»»ÄÒ°Çø£¨Strict Nature Reserve/Wilderness Area£©£ºÓµÓÐijЩÌØÊâµÄ»ò¾ß´ú±íÐÔµÄÉúÎïϵͳ£¬µØÀí»òÉúÀíÌØÉ«¼°/»òÎïÖֵĽµØ»òº£Ñ󣬿ÉÓÃÓÚ¿ÆѧÑо¿¼°/»ò»·¾³¼à²â¡£»òÕß´óÃæ»ýδ¾­¸ÄÔì»òÂÔ¾­¸ÄÔìµÄ½µØ»òº£Ñó£¬ÈÔ±£³ÖÆä×ÔÈ»ÌØÉ«¼°Ó°Ï죬ÉÐδÓйýÓÀ¾Ã»ò´óÐÍÈËÀà¾Óס£¬ÓÃÓÚ±£»¤ÆäÌìÈ»Ìõ¼þ¡£ II.National Park: Protected Areas Managed Mainly for Ecosystem Conservation and Recreation. Natural areas of land and/or sea, designated to (a) protect the ecological integrity of one or more ecosystems for this and future generations, (b) exclude exploitation or occupation inimical to the purposes of designation of the area, and (c) provide a foundation for spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational and visitor opportunities, all of which must be environmentally and culturally compatible. III.Natural Monument: Protected Areas Managed Mainly for Conservation of Specific Features. Areas containing one or more specific natural or natural/cultural feature which is of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative or aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. IV.Habitat/Species Management Area: Protected Areas Managed Mainly for Conservation Through Management Intervention. Areas of land and/or sea subject to active intervention for management purposes so as to ensure the maintenance of habitats and/or to meet the requirements of specific species. V.Protected Landscape/Seascape: Protected Areas Managed Mainly for Landscape/Seascape Conservation and Recreation. Areas of land, with coast and sea as appropriate, where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant aesthetic, cultural and/or ecological value, and often with high biological diversity. Safeguarding the integrity of this traditional interaction is vital to the protection, maintenance and evolution of such an area. VI.Managed Resource Protected Area: Protected Areas Managed Mainly for the Sustainable Use of Natural Ecosystems. Areas containing predominantly unmodified natural systems, managed to ensure long term protection and maintenance of biological diversity, while providing at the same time a sustainable flow of natural products and services to meet community needs.Source: IUCN, 1994a

The biosphere reserve approach, developed by UNESCO and IUCN over the past 25 years, provides a valid expression of a bioregional approach. Ideally, biosphere reserves serve three functions: conservation of biological diversity and ecosystem services; logistics (including research, monitoring of environmental parameters, training, and environmental education); and the development of regions immediately adjacent to the reserve. Biosphere reserves demonstrate the linkages between conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable socio?economic development of surrounding regions. Each biosphere reserve consists of core, buffer, and transition zones. The core is a minimally disturbed ecosystem, which is legally protected and has management objectives consistent with IUCN Categories I, II or III. A clearly delineated buffer zone surrounding the core also has legal protection, but is managed in ways consistent with IUCN Categories IV, V, or VI, to accommodate a greater variety of resource use strategies than is permitted within the core. Management strategies for the buffer zone are designed with the long?term goal of minimizing the resource dependency of local people on the core. The outermost part of this ideal biosphere reserve is the "transition zone", an area of active cooperation between reserve management and the local people for promoting sustainable development that will help both the protected area and the local people (Ishwaran, 1992; Batisse, 1986). China has 24 UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserves (Box 2), but many regions with protected areas can be managed on this general model.

BOX 2: BIOSPHERE RESERVES OF CHINA
Location	Year Established
Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve	1979
Dinghu Nature Reserve	1979
Wolong Nature Reserve	1979
Fanjingshan Mountain Biosphere Reserve	1986
Fujian Wuyishan Nature Reserve	1987
Xilin Gol Natural Steppe Protected Area	1987
Bogdhad Mountain Biosphere Reserve	1990
Shennongjia	1990
Yancheng	1992
Xishuangbanna	1993
Maolan	1996
Tianmushan	1996
Fenglin	1997
Jiuzhaigou Valley	1997
Nanji Islands	1998
Shankou Mangrove	2000
Baishuijiang	2000
Gaoligong Mountain	2000
Huanglong	2000
Baotianman	2001
Saihan Wula	2001
Dalai Lake	2002
Wudalianchi	2003
Yading	2003

6.4. Promote capacity among the rural poor

Protected areas are often established in remote areas, bringing forms of development that are novel to the region. In order to minimise conflicts with local people, and indeed to deliver benefits from protected areas to them, other associated forms of development should accompany the protected area. Among the most important for many rural people is education, and if new schools are explicitly linked to the protected area, and the curriculum in the school emphasises the values of the protected area, then capacity can be built at the same time as a new ethic of protection for the adjacent protected area.

Given that a protected area may bring new forces of modernisation into the region, adults too need to be made aware of the implications of these new developments for them. Bringing a once-remote protected area to the attention of the tourist industry, for example, can easily lead to over-exploitation of plants and animals unless appropriate measures are put in place.

Capacity for dealing with local people also needs to be built among protected area managers. Some protected area managers may prefer to focus on internal management issues, but protected areas today need to give far greater attention to the surrounding communities and at least consider ways of ensuring that local people are able to earn their appropriate share of benefits from the protected area, in ways that may enhance the value of the site (or at least do no harm to it).

All of the potential benefits listed above depend very much on the management approach being taken by the protected area authorities. When the needs of people in the surrounding villages are given significant attention during the process of preparing a management plan, then the protected area is far more likely to provide significant benefits to local people and experience fewer conflicts with them.

7. ARGUMENTS AGAINST LINKING RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND PROTECTED AREAS

The ideal approach to protected area management outlined above involves partnership between protected area management authorities and local human communities for the benefit of both the protected areas and biodiversity. But this approach faces formidable challenges in China and elsewhere. Many protected area staff believe that the cooperative approach could ultimately reduce the quality of the protected area, and that strong legislation supported by vigorous law enforcement is the best option for long?term conservation. And indeed, experience has shown that local people are as likely to misuse privileges under cooperative management as anyone else. Even so, given the insufficient staff and logistics support available to most protected areas, the "strict preservationist approach" is impossible to implement in China, has significant social equity problems, and may even be questioned on conservation grounds. The cooperative approach advocated here may be the only viable option in today's conditions.

But those opposing this view should also be heard. As the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, Richard Leakey has been an outspoken critic of community-based conservation. While agreeing that friendly relations with communities near the protected areas were and are essential, he also felt that the full implication of "Parks Beyond Parks" was to give over the parks themselves to communities experiencing enormous poverty and that such a move would be disastrous (Leakey and Morell, 2001).

Conservation faces real challenges in trying to deliver benefits to people. Based on his experience in Africa, Prins (1992) contends that "Nature reserves have little to do with wise use of natural resources: we are closing our eyes when we think that allowing people to invade protected areas can result in a harmonious relation between them, their livestock, and wildlife. It is not easy to find a solution to the problems of under-development, but what has the possible development of protected areas into over-stocked and degraded pasture-lands to do with economic development or with nature conservation? Why should conservationists advocate the opening up of protected areas for which two generations of conservationists and politicians have fought so hard? What is needed especially is investment in schools, in women's programmes, etc., to curb illiteracy and population growth, and create jobs in modern industry and horticulture outside the protected areas, so that the density of people can be higher there. The rich countries have to show their willingness to pay for all the in absentia benefits. This is what conservationists have to address, and not how to dissolve the world's national parks and other protected areas in the tropics under the guise of 'development'."

As a final example of this line of argument, Terborgh et al. (2002) say, "Experience shows that parks become cherished national treasures only after they have existed long enough to acquire popular constituencies. In the formative stages, nearly all parks are established against fierce local opposition". They also contend that the survival of nature "almost uniquely in parks is inevitable where there are no firm mechanism in place to prevent unprotected wild lands from being converted to human use".

However, the choice may not be so stark: exclude local people, or open the gates to exploitation. Many less confrontational options may also be available, though not necessarily simple to implement. Wells et al., (1992) examined 23 projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America which had development components linked to protected areas and had been in operation for at least three years. A careful examination of these case studies revealed no clear successes in terms of diminished pressure on protected areas. It seems apparent, therefore, that activities in and around protected areas need to focus on the specific requirements of protected area management that are in conflict with the needs of local people, and seek ways to resolve those specific conflicts. Clearly, it is not sufficient to simply try to raise rural living standards in the optimistic hope that wildlife and protected areas will somehow benefit.

One source of conflict mentioned earlier is that rural people resent protected areas because they are not allowed to harvest resources from these areas without restriction. On the other hand, conservationists argue, such restrictions only cause hardship in a relatively short-term view, because such policies are not prohibitions as much as rationing; if the resources of the protected area are openly available, it is likely that few, if any, of the desired resources would remain available at all. For example, Chitwan National Park in Nepal is the only source in the region of grass used for thatch and other construction purposes because all of the unprotected grassland in the region is now densely settled and cultivated.

Threats to protected areas cannot be understood in isolation from the social, political, economic, and ecological processes which surround them. The key to explaining environmental degradation lies in a combination of physical and social sciences. Ultimately, solutions for many of the threats facing protected areas belong in the realm of national and international politics. Important influences on the demand for resources, such as local land tenure patterns, credit and income inequities among agricultural producers, and the rights of national minorities to land and resources, are politically volatile and often beyond the influence of protected area managers and conservationists. Often other government ministries may be directly at odds with the goals of conservation. Frontier settlement programmes, planned colonization of protected areas for national security reasons, and commercial exploitation of natural resources to raise incomes, result from government decisions that may be oblivious of protected area objectives.

CONCLUSIONS

A healthy environment is not sufficient in itself to alleviate poverty, but equally, any attempt at poverty alleviation that ignores environmental realities will soon be undermined. This paper therefore advocates regional approaches that recognise the complimentarity of different kinds of land use that range from agricultural production and fisheries to areas that are more strictly protected.

Discussing poverty with protected areas may well lead to trade-offs between poverty reduction and conservation interests, but these need to be addressed in a positive way that does not disadvantage either of the two perspectives inappropriately. This discussion will also force protected area managers to better articulate their policies and their contribution to the wellbeing of society (not just the poor).

For protected areas to play their proper role, they need to be better understood for their contributions to sustainable development generally, and poverty alleviation more specifically. It has become increasingly apparent that protected areas are not islands of conservation surrounded by a sea of environmental degradation. Instead, protected areas are part of the social, economic and cultural context within which they are located. If poverty, land degradation, and hunger are surrounding protected areas, these processes can undermine their likelihood of survival.

Some have argued that protected areas need not give much attention to issues of local people, instead advocating strict law enforcement. On the other hand, while law enforcement undeniably is both necessary and a critical part of protected area management, it is best carried out as part of a programme of community inclusion that clarifies the rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders. This enables law enforcement to build on the standards accepted by local communities. Such a collaborative approach to protected area management can enhance political support for the protected areas and minimise political pressure that could ultimately undermine the site. Increasing the benefits of protected areas for the local people, and reducing their costs, can help mobilise public support, reduce conflicts and reduce the costs of law enforcement for protected area managers.

Modern development analytical tools, such as livelihood-based approaches, can be applied to protected areas, avoiding the dangers of a purely sectoral approach to protected area management. Protected areas can be the focus for forest landscape restoration, community-based approaches to forest fires, carbon sequestration projects that deliver social and environmental benefits, inclusion in larger landscape management approaches, and redirection of subsidies from resource exploitation into resource conservation.
The point is not to expect to make protected areas themselves responsible for reducing poverty, but rather to design appropriate policies that will ensure more equitable sharing of the costs and benefits of achieving national and global conservation objectives. This requires a combination of actions at the protected areas level, the provincial level, the national level, and even at the global level.

Protected areas certainly were not originally designed to alleviate poverty. But this does not mean that protected areas are therefore isolated from sustainable development and the alleviation of poverty. The challenge is to define an appropriate role for protected areas that will enable them to continue to make their fundamental contribution to conserving biodiversity at a time when demands for development are urgent. This paper has suggested many possible approaches that can be taken in China to deliver a greater share of the benefits of conservation to the rural poor, and thereby strengthen public support for protected areas.

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Acknowledgements:

This paper has benefited greatly from discussions with Kent Redford, who has been an outspoken, but constructive, voice for the sanctity of protected areas; Lea Scherl, Rob Wild, Phil Franks, and Tom McShane, who have led the move to link people with protected areas; Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend, who has been a steadfast supporter of the rural poor; and Taghi Farvar, a long-time colleague who has been another champion of the rural poor. Frederik Shutyser helped with research and Elise Jueni provided the secretarial support.

ANNEX 1:

World Parks Congress Resolution: Poverty and Protected Areas

Protected areas play a vital role in sustainable development through protection and maintenance of biological diversity and of natural and associated cultural resources. Protected areas cannot be viewed as islands of conservation, divorced from the social and economic context within which they are located. Poverty, displacement, hunger and land degradation have a profound impact on bio-diversity and protected areas, and pose a very serious threat to their survival. Poverty is multi-dimensional (lack of assets / opportunities, vulnerability, and lack of power or voice), and protected areas have a powerful potential to make a significant contribution to poverty reduction and to the broader development framework established by the Millennium Development Goals and the WSSD Plan of Implementation.

Protected areas generate significant economic, environmental and social benefits. These benefits are realised at local, national and global levels. Unfortunately, a disproportionate amount of the costs of protected areas are borne locally. As with other forms of large-scale land use, many local communities have been marginalised and excluded from protected areas. Given that their natural and cultural wealth often constitutes an important asset for local communities, denying rights to these resources can exacerbate poverty. Protected Area establishment and management cannot be allowed to exacerbate poverty.

However, given the fact that many local communities living in and around protected areas have limited development opportunities, protected areas offer a currently untapped opportunity to contribute to poverty reduction while continuing to maintain their vital function in conserving biodiversity. Recognising the importance of people in conservation, we need to support poor communities to act as the new front-line of conservation. This implies new ways of working with local communities to act as custodians of biodiversity through working with Protected Area authorities, and to build their ability to manage their own areas.

Increasing the benefits of protected areas and reducing their costs to local people can help mobilise public support and reduce conflicts and the enforcement costs of Protected Area management, particularly in areas of widespread poverty. The long-term sustainability of Protected Area networks (including their growth through new forms of protected areas) and the achievement of poverty reduction are inextricably linked. The practical implications of realising this linkage will require new investment to enhance benefits and reduce costs. There is a need for strengthening existing and developing new financial mechanisms that can provide fair reward for stewardship of nationally and globally important biological resources. The convergence of the poverty reduction and Protected Area agendas represents a real opportunity to generate new and additional resources for conservation.

Therefore, PARTICIPANTS in the Stream on Building Broader Support for Protected Areas at the Vth World Parks Congress, in Durban, South Africa (8-17 September 2003):

1. CALL ON governments, inter-governmental organizations, private sector and civil society to adopt the following overarching principles on the linkage between protected areas and poverty:

a. In order to achieve their potential both to conserve biodiversity and to assist in reducing poverty, protected areas should be integrated within a broad sustainable development planning agenda;
b. Protected areas should strive to contribute to poverty reduction at the local level, and at the very minimum must not contribute to or exacerbate poverty;
c. Biodiversity should be conserved both for its value as a local livelihoods resource and as a national and global public good;
d. Equitable sharing of costs and benefits of protected areas should be ensured at local, national and global levels;
e. Where negative social, cultural and economic impacts occur, affected communities should be fairly and fully compensated; and
f. A gender perspective should be incorporated that encompasses the different roles of women and men in livelihood dynamics, thus contributing to equitable benefit sharing and more effective governance systems;

2. RECOMMEND that local actors, communities, governments, Protected Area authorities, inter-governmental organizations, private sector and conservation agencies develop policy, practices and forms of inclusive government for Protected Area management that enhance opportunities, reduce vulnerability, and empower the poor and vulnerable, especially in areas of severe poverty, based on:

a. Building partnerships with poor communities as actors and shareholders in Protected Area development;

b. Strengthening mechanisms for the poor to share actively in decision making related to protected areas and to be empowered as conservators in their own right;

c. Developing pro-poor mechanisms to reward environmental stewardship, including payments for environmental services, minimise and mitigate damages to both biodiversity and to livelihoods, and provide fair compensation for losses incurred from human-wildlife conflicts and from restricted access and decreased environmental services;

d. Respecting and recognising customary ownership, use and access rights for local people, particularly for the poor, during the negotiation and decision making processes, and preventing further loss of customary rights;

e. Improving accountability and transparency of decision making processes related to protected areas;

f. Developing more inclusive interpretations of Protected Area categories that reflect the interests and initiatives of the poor, including the role of community conserved areas;

g. Fostering programmes of restoration to deal with modified and degraded areas that yield biodiversity benefits as well as providing goods and services to improve livelihoods within protected areas and in the landscape surrounding them; and

h. Encouraging governments to reflect the above principles regarding local rights and opportunities related to protected areas in their legal and regulatory frameworks;

3. RECOMMEND that Governments, donors and other development partners consider how to maximise the contribution of protected areas to sustainable development, and in particular poverty reduction efforts, by:

a. Mainstreaming protected areas into national and international development planning and policy, particularly poverty reduction strategies and the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals;

b. Develop innovative financial and governance systems to optimise synergies between Protected Area management and poverty reduction efforts;

c. Increasing financial resources available for rewarding poor communities and poor countries for their stewardship of global public goods; and

d. Improving knowledge and understanding of linkages between protected areas and poverty reduction, and specifically the impact of protected areas on the livelihoods of the rural poor, negative and positive; and

4. RECOMMEND that the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity:

a. Develop guidelines on the management of protected areas based on the principles mentioned in paragraph 1 and 2, and ensure that National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans are aligned with poverty reduction strategies; and

b. Extend the principle of equitable benefit sharing to include all components of biological diversity.

 

ANNEX 2

World Parks Congress Resolution: Community Conserved Areas

A considerable part of the earth's biodiversity survives on territories under the ownership, control, or management of indigenous peoples and local (including mobile) communities. However, the fact that such peoples and communities are actively or passively conserving many of these sites through traditional or modern means, has hitherto been neglected in formal conservation circles.

Such sites, herein called Community Conserved Areas (CCAs), are extremely diverse in their institutions of governance, objectives of management, ecological and cultural impacts, and other attributes. Two primary characteristics distinguish them:

1. Predominant or exclusive control and management by communities, and
2. Commitment to conservation of biodiversity, and/or its achievement through various means.

In this context, CCAs are natural and modified ecosystems, including significant biodiversity, ecological services and cultural values, voluntarily conserved by indigenous and local communities through customary laws or other effective means. The term as used here is meant to connote a broad and open approach to categorizing such community initiatives, and is not intended to constrain the ability of communities to conserve their areas in the way they feel appropriate.

Various international instruments dealing with environmental and human rights have recognised the role of communities in relation to natural resource management, such as:

1. The emphasis provided by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to the biodiversity-relevant knowledge, skills, innovations, and practices of communities; or

2. The Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which acknowledges the right of such peoples to control and manage their territories.

Today, most CCAs remain unrecognised in national and international conservation systems, and are largely outside the official protected area networks of countries. This may be because the resource management systems of CCAs are often based on customary tenure systems, norms and institutions that are not formally or legally recognized in many countries.

CCAs as they exist today serve the management objectives of different protected area categories.

Nevertheless, CCAs everywhere are facing threats, including:

1. Those resulting from unclear and insecure tenurial arrangements;
2. Unsustainable developmental projects;
3. Delegitimization of customary rights;
4. Centralized political decision-making processes;
5. Social, economic and political inequities;
6. Loss of knowledge and cultural change; and
7. Commercialization of resources.

It is therefore recognized that communities need support and facilitation to respond to these threats, and to enable them to reach greater security in their conservation and sustainable use practices.

Mindful of these points, participants in the cross-cutting Theme entitled "Communities and Equity" have deliberated on CCAs in several sessions of the 5th World Parks Congress, and have concluded that national and international recognition of such areas is a urgent necessity.

Therefore, PARTICIPANTS in the Communities and Equity Cross-Cutting Theme at the Vth World Parks Congress, in Durban South Africa (8-17 September 2003):

1. RECOMMEND governments to:

a. PROMOTE a multisectoral process for recognizing, enlisting, evaluating, and delisting CCAs;

b. RECOGNIZE and PROMOTE CCAs as a legitimate form of biodiversity conservation, and where communities so choose, include them within national systems of protected areas, through appropriate changes in legal and policy regimes;

c. ENSURE that official policies, guidelines, and principles, recognise diverse local (formal or informal) arrangements developed by communities on their own or in collaboration with other actors, for the management of CCAs;

d. FACILITATE the continuation of existing CCAs, and their spread to other sites, through a range of measures including, financial, technical, human, information, research, public endorsement, capacity-building, and other resources or incentives that are considered appropriate by the communities concerned, as well as the restitution of traditional and customary rights;

e. ACKNOWLEDGE that it may be appropriate for some existing protected areas to be managed as CCAs, including the transfer of management of such areas to relevant communities;

f. PROVIDE protection to CCAs against external threats they face, including those mentioned in the preamble;

g. RESPECT the sanctity and importance of CCAs in all operations that could affect such sites or the relevant communities, and give particular attention to applying the principles of Prior Informed Consent, participatory environmental impact assessments, and other measures as elaborated in decisions and documents of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD);

h. SUPPORT self-monitoring and evaluation of CCAs by the relevant communities, and participatory monitoring and evaluation by outside agencies or actors; and

i. PROVIDE impartial information when and where needed and/or asked for by the relevant communities;

2. ALSO RECOMMEND communities to:

a. COMMIT to conserving the biodiversity in CCAs, maintaining ecological services, and protecting associated cultural values;

b. CONSIDER extending the network of CCAs to sites not currently being conserved or sustainably managed;

c. STRENGTHEN or initiate measures to respond to forces that threaten CCAs, including those mentioned in the preamble above;

d. RECOGNIZE the ecological, cultural, and other values of the CCAs and species that are within territories the communities are controlling and managing;

e. SEEK public recognition for the CCAs they are managing where it is appropriate, including from governments; and

f. COMMIT to strengthening or developing effective mechanisms for internal accountability;

3. FURTHER RECOMMEND conservation agencies and other non-government organizations (NGOs), donor agencies, private sector, and other actors:

a. RESPECT the sanctity and importance of CCAs in all their operations that could affect such sites or the relevant communities, and in particular activities that could adversely affect them; and

b. PROVIDE support of various kinds to CCAs, where considered appropriate by the concerned community, including to help build capacity;

4. CALL on international organizations to:

a. RECOGNIZE CCAs in all relevant instruments and databases, including in the United Nations List of Protected Areas, and the World Protected Areas Database;

b. PROVIDE adequate space for consideration of CCAs in relevant documents, such as the State of the World's Protected Areas Report, and Protected Areas in the 21st Century;

c. PROMOTE 0CCAs through appropriate programmes of work, in particular the Programme of Work of the CBD on protected areas; and

d. INTEGRATE CCAs into the IUCN Protected Areas Category System, through the introduction of a dimension of governance, appropriate interpretations and additions to the definitions and guidelines especially regarding cultural values, and work towards identifying CCAs that would fit into each of the six IUCN Protected Areas Categories.

Sar/Jampaps/Poverty and Protected Areas in China/CCICED/Apr15 04