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Comments on the Implications of the Revised IUCN Protected Area Category System

The new protected area management guidelines, which WILD and the IUCN-WCPA Wilderness Task Force contributed to heavily, were recently launched at IUCN’s World Conservation Congress in October of 2008 http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/PAPS-016.pdf, and endorsed by a number of resolutions passed by IUCN’s Members Assembly.

We are pleased to be able to report that his document contains a number of important breakthroughs.

• First, it defines a protected area as an area set aside primarily for nature conservation. While protected areas may have other key management objectives, including promoting sustainable development, these other objectives are only valid so long as they do not undermine the nature conservation goal. Achieving consensus on this point provides much needed clarity for protected area professionals – in our view it represents a major step forward.
• The new guidelines (as well as a resolution) also emphasize that all protected area categories make valuable contributions to conservation, and that the choice of protected area category should be based on local context/conditions. In effect, this prevents Category 1b – Wilderness from ever being marginalized within IUCN. There have been efforts in the past to emphasize certain protected area categories over others as a matter of policy, and this will no longer be possible.
• Finally, the wilderness protected area category was updated. The essence of a wilderness protected area – an area that is mainly biologically intact, does not have industrial infrastructure, and that is protected so that people may experience wild nature, was clarified and strengthened. The next text for Category 1b wilderness provides flexibility on several key points. It continues the policy that wilderness designations are in no way incompatible with indigenous peoples living traditional lifestyles. It also provides flexibility on the issues of how large and how intact an area must be to qualify for a wilderness designation.

Given that this document is not likely to undergo any new revisions until the next World Conservation Congress in four years at the very earliest, IUCN will have a strong protected areas and wilderness policy for the foreseeable future. IUCN has asked WILD to prepare a more in-depth IUCN publication on wilderness to supplement the new management guidelines, which will allow WILD to continue to advance wilderness policy within IUCN and around the world. We will be in touch with the Wilderness Task Force going forward on this publication.

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