research initiatives and collaborations
Where possible the Learning Group will support - or engage in - research and other activities around three key thematic areas: policy processes, governance, impacts. Our resources for this kind of work are currently very limited but we hope to eventually establish a mechanism for supporting Learning Group members to develop activities - including workshops, dialogues and research - under these themes.
- SAPA (Social Assessment of Protected Areas)
The Protected Areas, Equity, and Livelihoods (PAEL) Taskforce, the UNEP-WCMC Vision 2020 project, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Poverty and Conservation Learning Group, CARE International and The Nature Conservancy have joined forces to identify and develop methodologies for assessing the social impact of protected areas, with the potential to incorporate these assessments into national and international protected areas policy. The goal of the overall process is to: ‘identify/develop and evaluate a range of methodologies and tools for assessing the social impacts of protected areas that enable conservation policy and practice to better adhere to the globally accepted principle that 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’.
For more information on this process see the documents below.
See:- PDF: Social assessment of conservation initiatives: A review of rapid methodologies (1049k)
- PDF: Livelihood impacts of protected areas: a global analysis of assessments and methodologies - Contribution to the May 2008 workshop (1072k)
- PDF: Towards an integrated system for measuring the social impact of Protected Areas - November 2007 (141k)
- PDF: Workshop to Review Approaches, Methodologies and Tools for Assessing the Social Impacts of Protected Areas - May 2008 (982k)
- PDF: Assessing the Human Impact of Protected Areas - Background report for the February 2007 workshop (614k)
- PDF: Assessing the Human Impact of Protected Areas Workshop Report - February 2007 (207k)
- Linking Great Apes Conservation and Poverty Reduction
Great ape range states provide a classic example of the conservation-poverty debate in practice. Since 2009 the PCLG has received additional support from the Arcus Foundation to help achieve three goals:
1. To promote ongoing learning and dialogue on poverty-conservation linkages at the international level.
2. To increase attention to mainstreaming poverty concerns within conservation policy and programmes – particularly at the national level – and to build better and stronger linkages with existing initiatives that are focusing on development policy.
3. To introduce a great ape component to PCLG - by including ape-specific elements within our core networking and information dissemination activities and by focusing our mainstreaming efforts on conservation policies, programmes and locations that are relevant to great ape conservation.
To date, a report has been produced to document current efforts to link great ape conservation and poverty reduction in the African, ape range states. Also, a learning event took place in Masindi in November 2010 for ape conservation organisations to share experiences on their attempts to link conservation and poverty reduction. The next steps will involve:
- South-South learning exchanges / events around key issues where knowledge gaps are the major problem.
- Establishment of multi-stakeholder learning groups in selected countries, potentially building on existing groups where there is interest, and using models of good practice.
- Facilitating a high-level workshop in at least one country to encourage mainstreaming of biodiversity into development policy / practice – in coordination with the UNDP/UNEP Poverty Environment Initiative.
See:- PDF: Masindi Workshop Report (762k)
- PDF: Linking Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: The case of Great Apes (959k)
- PDF: Development AND gorillas? (1729k)
- WCPA Task Force on Protected Areas and Equity
Following on from a side event held at CBD COP8 in March 2005, the PCLG Secretariat has worked with Care International, TILCEPA and the World Commission on Protected Areas to develop the framework for a new WCPA Task Force on Protected Areas and Equity which will have a particular emphasis on promoting social equity provisions within the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas. Ongoing support will be provided to the Task Force for regional and global meetings, information synthesis and dissemination.
A meeting of the African regional taskforce was held in Uganda in January 2007 and a workplan developed which you can download here. Meetings of the Asia group and the Latin America group will be held in June 2007 and September 2007 respectively. Please contact Phil Franks at Care International for more information about these meetings (phil@ci.co.ke).
See: - Conservation and Poverty Principles
The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) organised a workshop on the Isle of Vilm in November 2006 to discuss the links between nature conservation and poverty reduction. During this event, a gap for principles to guide conservation activities in relation to poverty issues was found, and the need for further work on this issue recognized. Based on this, a second meeting was held on the Isle of Vilm in November 2007. During this second meeting, a draft document for guiding principles on the interface of nature conservation and poverty reduction was developed and their potential integration into key policy processes discussed. The PCLG Secretariat took part in the second meeting, and has been supportive of this process since.
See: - Biodiversity in Development Policy
The PCLG Secretariat is tracking the degree to which biodiversity is integrated into national and international development policy and poverty reduction strategies.
See:
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