Ebook: Protected Area Governance and Management

The world’s more than 200 000 protected areas come
in many forms, on land and at sea, and occur in every
country (Bertzky et al. 2012). They are places that people
establish to conserve natural and cultural heritage and
to sustain their benefits for society. Among other values,
protected areas allow people to connect with nature for
their inspiration, education, wellbeing and recreation.
While protecting ecosystems that are essential for life,
they can support human livelihoods and aspirations
and offer nature-based solutions for the complex
challenges faced by the world today. Contemporary
systems of protected areas include a great variety of
areas established over generations by diverse actors and
for many purposes, yet they have some very important
features in common, regardless of their origins or their
direction. The International Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN) definition of a protected area creates a
common framework for understanding the essence of
the governance and management regimes that are at
the heart of every protected area as a ‘clearly defined
geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed,
through legal or other effective means, to achieve
the long-term conservation of nature with associated
ecosystem services and cultural values’ (Dudley 2008:8).

This book has been prepared as a contribution to the
IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney in 2014. The
global community is at the interface of ensuring the
quality of protected area governance and management,
together with the way that effectively managed and
equitably governed protected areas systems can support
society to meet current and future challenges. Resources
that support capacity development are a crucial
component of the value chain to enable competent
professionals and effective institutions to achieve
satisfactory outcomes. It is our hope that this learning
resource will be an excellent foundation for the major
enterprise in capacity development that must follow—
one of the important outcomes of the IUCN World
Parks Congress contributing to ‘The Promise of Sydney’.