Next Page
Previous Page
Contents

World Parks Congress: a boost for the Park

Michelle Nel

Outcomes of the Vth World Parks Congress will have a direct bearing on the Park, reinforcing many of the strategies already in place: stronger protected areas in neighbouring Mozambique, more marine protected areas on Africa’s east coast and a larger voice by indigenous people in protected area management.
The Congress concluded with three main outputs: the Durban Accord and Action Plan - a high-level vision statement and an outline of implementation - 32 recommendations, approved by workshops; and a Message to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Other outcomes include: the UN List and State of the World’s Protected Areas; the Protected Areas Learning Network (PALNet), a web-based knowledge management tool; and specific outputs on Africa’s Pas, and the Durban Consensus on African Protected Areas for the New Millennium.
New PAs were announced in countries like Madagascar, Senegal and Brazil, covering 200,000 sq km; a total of US$ 35 million was pledged for conservation on land and sea.
Mozambique set aside 700 000 hectares of the Zambezi Delta as a Ramsar Site, and South Africa and Mozambique jointly announced four new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) totalling more than 8 000 square kilometres on Africa Day at the Congress.
The Mozambican government is in the process of ratifying the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance and intends declaring 700 000 ha of the Zambezi River Delta as a Ramsar Site. The Worldwide Fund for Nature will work with
Mozambique to ensure sustainable management of 400 000 ha of coastal mangroves.
SA will proclaim three new MPAs later this year: off the Cape Peninsula, along the Pondo coastline, and KZN’s Aliwal Shoal. Mozambique announced its commitment to establishing three new MPAs.

All these initiatives will have strong community involvement and opportunities for poverty alleviation.
A Durban Consensus on African Protected Areas for the New Millennium was released with proposed a 10-point agenda for action. These included:
• Build public support: Africa needed to mobilise politicians and business to support conservation
• Make protected areas a central part of poverty reduction strategies
• Improve regional and national conservation policies
• Increase the importance of protected areas in development planning
• Strengthen technical capacity and financial support for Pas
• Improve management of existing protected areas
• Improve biodiversity coverage to include more threatened species
• Promote a landscape approach to PAs so that local communities, grassroots organisations and private landowners could benefit from PAs.
• Foster international recognition for African protected areas.

For the first time, the Congress had significant representation from indigenous communities living around parks. There were about 120 indigenous representatives – ranging from Native Americans from North and South America; Maasai, San, Nama and various other African communities, Iranian mobile peoples, Saudi Arabian Bedouins, Maoris, Aboriginal people from Australia and representatives from the Philippines.

The most startling proposal from the indigenous people’s lobby was to create a high level, independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission, based on the commission that heard confessions of political crimes after South Africa became a democracy in 1994. Indigenous peoples suggested that such a commission could investigate and respond impartially to historical cases of violations and abuses of indigenous peoples’ rights associated with the creation of parks. It would promote healing and have appropriate mechanisms for restitution.

In an opening Declaration to the WPC, indigenous peoples said their knowledge and systems of natural resource management pre-dated the imposition of western concepts of protected areas. Although all states had international obligations to promote indigenous peoples’ rights there was often insufficient protective legislation or application of legislation at national levels.

“We call upon the WPC to uphold civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in all protected area policies and activities,” said the declaration. “Indigenous peoples best practices at grassroots level proved that rights-based approaches to sustainable development and natural conservation were the way forward.”
Indigenous people welcomed the Durban Action Plan which recognised the rights of indigenous peoples, mobile peoples and local communities in relation to biodiversity conservation. A key target of the action plan proposed that participatory mechanisms be implemented for the restitution of indigenous people’s traditional lands when these were taken without prior informed consent.

Lessons from an expert. Bob, one of the community representatives from Australia shows the art of playing the didgeridoo to local community delegates from the Wetlands Park