Issues that received little disagreement

Three formerly controversial issues were accepted by virtually all the > 1,000 IUCN member organizations with little further debate: the applicability of a wider range of governance types, assigning categories to zones within protected areas, and the role of small reserves.

Governance types The question of different governance models for protected areas has been the subject of intense debate (Redford & Maclean Stearman, Reference Redford and Maclean Stearman1993; Noss, Reference Noss1997). Although the IUCN definition of a protected area always encompassed the potential for different governance models, through inclusion of the phrase ‘legal or other effective means’ (IUCN, 1994), in practice almost all protected areas listed on the WDPA have been state owned and managed. In particular, full recognition of indigenous territories, community conserved areas and sacred natural sites as protected areas remained controversial, despite publication of IUCN guidance (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., Reference Borrini-Feyerabend, Kothari and Oviedo2004; Wild & McLeod, Reference Wild and McLeod2008). In the event, the decision to incorporate different governance types within the IUCN framework received little or no comment in the meetings, electronic debates or written responses during the revision. The question seems to be moving away from whether or not they should be included, to under what conditions such areas should be recognized and managed as protected areas. This debate is ongoing but it seems likely that management approaches such as state forest reserves, various indigenous and community conserved areas (e.g. village forest reserves, wildlife management areas, community fisheries) and sacred natural sites will often but not always be equivalent to protected areas. Decisions will depend on analysis of the management aims and also on the desires of the managing body. For some community managed areas and sacred sites there may be good reasons for not wishing to be officially recognized and listed on the WDPA; for example, this could result in extra legal restrictions or attract visitors to sacred sites that are culturally private. A number of countries have made efforts to distinguish protected areas within some of these management approaches; for example, Uganda identified which forest reserves were also protected areas (Howard et al., Reference Howard, Davenport and Kigenyi2003). Although some of these approaches will tend to fit into certain IUCN management categories (e.g. many sacred sites will be in Category Ia or III) there could be examples in any category. Questions about when private reserves have sufficient long-term security to qualify as protected areas differ between countries and general guidance still has to be developed.

Zoning A second long-running issue concerned zoning in protected areas and whether zones can be ascribed different categories (Agardy et al., Reference Agardy, Bridgewater, Crosby, Day, Dayton and Kenchington2003). This seemingly arcane issue is significant for countries with very large protected areas. It has been a particular source of contention in the case of the Great Barrier Marine Reef in Australia (Day, Reference Day2002), which until now has been listed as Category VI, a sustainable use reserve, but contains within it zones that represent one of the largest strictly protected marine areas in the world. The debates regarding category designation for zones seem to have more or less concluded before the current revision and proposals (Dudley, Reference Dudley2008); the proposal that zones could have their own categories only if they were legally and permanently designated (thus eliminating temporary management zones) passed without comment.

Small reserves There has long been frustration, especially in Europe, that many small reserves, such as protected pools or forest fragments, fell outside the IUCN system, not being strict reserves, wilderness, ecosystem or natural monuments and not receiving regular management intervention. In the past the practical role of such small reserves has been called into question (Woodroffe & Ginsberg, Reference Woodroffe and Ginsberg1998) and many have never been listed in the WDPA. In the 2008 guidelines the definition of Category IV (habitat/species management area) is changed from one based around process (protection that involves regular management intervention) to the objective of protecting particular species or habitat fragments. This implies that regular management will often be required because the site does not contain a fully functioning ecosystem but it is not an essential prerequisite (Dudley & Borrini-Feyerabend, Reference Dudley and Borrini-Feyerabend2006). This issue was also dealt with in the new guidelines without controversy and allows thousands of protected areas to be added to the WDPA.

Issues that were subject to intense discussion

Continuing debates focused on more fundamental questions: what constitutes a protected area, whether all the management approaches included within the categories should be regarded as suitable for use in protected areas, whether management objective is the right basis for a typology and questions relating to the role of indigenous reserves.

The definition The first important question was about the definition of a protected area. The revised definition of a protected area gives greater weight to nature conservation, long-term security and management effectiveness. The 1994 IUCN protected area definition contained some ambiguity, probably because of differences in opinion during development of the 1994 guidelines. There was disagreement, even within IUCN, about whether ‘maintenance of biological diversity’ was always the, or at least a, primary objective of a protected area or whether it could be secondary to ‘natural and associated cultural resources’. The 1994 guidelines stated that values other than conservation of biological diversity could be the primary objective in some categories: specifically that ‘wilderness protection’ was a primary objective of management in Category Ib and ‘preservation of species and genetic diversity’ a secondary objective; similarly that ‘maintenance of traditional/cultural attributes’ was a primary objective in Category V and ‘preservation of species and genetic diversity’ a secondary objective. However, these important points relating to priority of management were made in a single small matrix within the text; many users missed this and in practice assumed that biodiversity conservation was always a primary objective in protected areas. In effect, two interpretations operated in tandem with no resolution.

The debate hinges on whether protected areas should be confined to a relatively narrow spectrum of uses, all focused on biodiversity conservation, or whether instead they can represent a wider set of non-industrial interests that can include landscape values, local community needs and spiritual and cultural aspects. On the one hand, there are fears that protected areas will be diluted and their conservation values lost, on the other that overemphasis on narrow conservation aims will undermine other legitimate interests. Resolving this issue involved making a judgement based on what appeared to be a majority view, and a clear majority of IUCN members who took part in the debates favoured a new definition that moves the emphasis of management more closely towards conservation. Importantly, this is now accompanied by a set of principles, the most significant being ‘For IUCN, only those areas where the main objective is conserving nature can be considered protected areas; this can include many areas with other goals as well, at the same level, but in the case of conflict, nature conservation will be the priority’ (Dudley, Reference Dudley2008). This principle recognizes that many protected areas will have other values of equal importance, at least to some stakeholders (e.g. spiritual values), but that in the event of conflicting interpretations, nature conservation must take precedence. This is a clear way to distinguish a protected area recognized by IUCN from other management practices that are beneficial to conservation but where the management body is not prepared to give precedence to conservation. On the other hand, the focus of management in the definition has changed from ‘biological diversity’ to ‘nature conservation’, a broader term that embraces geodiversity and is more generally open to different cultural interpretations of what constitutes nature. Reaching a consensus within IUCN on this issue was the hardest part of the whole process.

Categories V and VI The second major debate related to whether Category V (protected landscapes/seascapes) and Category VI (protected areas with sustainable use of natural resources) are really protected areas at all and, if so, how they should be managed. In an influential article Locke & Dearden (Reference Locke and Dearden2005) proposed that management in many of these areas paid so little attention to conservation that they should be removed from the WDPA. This would be highly significant as, for example, in Europe over half the area of protected areas is in Category V (Gambino, Reference Gambino2008). Locke & Dearden (Reference Locke and Dearden2005) drew responses arguing that landscape approaches are the most effective conservation mechanism in some situations (e.g. Mallarach et al., Reference Mallarach, Morrison, Kothari, Sarmiento, Atauri, Wishitemi, Dudley and Stolton2008) and initiated a debate about the value of Categories V and VI. The WCPA asked task forces on both categories to help to determine how the new guidelines would influence interpretation of these approaches.

There were also questions about the criteria for, and management of, these areas, particularly with respect to Category VI. In 1994 this was defined as an area that must be at least two-thirds completely natural (IUCN, 1994), with some kind of simple management (such as collection of non-timber forest products) in the remainder. However, practical application has never been as stringent as the guidelines suggested and during the review three very different proposals emerged: (1) keep the 1994 criteria of having two-thirds of the area completely natural; (2) remove or drastically reduce the requirement to have two-thirds of the area in a natural state while retaining the ban on industrial-scale activity (e.g. large-scale stock grazing or forestry); (3) open up the category dramatically to include sustainable large-scale logging and grazing (Dudley & Stolton, Reference Dudley and Stolton2008).

Many of the criticisms of Categories V and VI were addressed by the new definition, which in effect closes a loophole that previously allowed vague management designations to be listed as protected areas under these categories and ensures that all such areas should have clear conservation objectives. As a result all the categories were included in the guidelines without opposition and the importance of all the categories was the subject of a successful motion at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October 2008.

Debates about the approach to conservation adopted in Category VI protected areas took more time to resolve. A meeting of conservationists in Latin America concluded that the 1994 controls were overly restrictive on an area that was supposed to combine conservation and sustainable use and this view was echoed by representatives from Small Island States in the Pacific. However, conservation organizations in Canada and Australia were afraid that eliminating the requirement would result in many spurious claims of protected area status for logging concessions and livestock ranches. The new guidelines are a compromise between these extremes, in effect allowing decisions regarding degree of naturalness to be taken at the national level. They state that Category VI is not suitable for areas where large-scale industrial activity takes place and suggest that national governments should determine if a proportion of the area needs to be in a natural condition for the category to apply and, if so, what this proportion should be.

Some other issues concerning these categories remain undecided. A more detailed set of guidelines on Category VI is planned, similar to that already available for protected landscapes (Phillips, Reference Phillips2002), which should help to resolve remaining questions about this approach. In addition, further research is needed on the role of IUCN Categories V and VI to determine under what conditions they are effective for biodiversity conservation and to develop case studies and guidance to help governments and others in establishing such approaches.

Management objectives Just as controversial was a proposal that the IUCN typology using management objectives be replaced by a system based on conservation outcomes (Boitani et al., Reference Boitani, Cowling, Dublin, Mace, Parrish and Possingham2008). The proposal suggested that the category system be changed in three ways: (1) Have the category designation tied to defined outcomes for the biodiversity elements for which the protected area is recognized or was designated: for example, a Category I protected area would be essential for the long-term viability of a targeted species, community or ecological system and would protect source populations and ecosystem occurrences. (2) Link categories to quantified goals for the biodiversity elements for which the protected area was designated: for example, Category I would require meeting requirements of strict size and naturalness to maintain populations or ecosystem processes; Category VI would make partial contributions to the maintenance of selected biodiversity. (3) Link protected area categories to the context of conservation planning frameworks and to the monitoring and evaluation of protected area management effectiveness.

Boitani et al. (Reference Boitani, Cowling, Dublin, Mace, Parrish and Possingham2008) believed that a typology based on management objectives was fundamentally flawed and called for IUCN to abandon this in favour of one more closely linked to conservation outcomes. The WCPA countered that using a typology based on management objectives was a more practical method of categorization and had already been repeatedly endorsed by IUCN members. Rather than argue for management objectives vs biodiversity outcomes, there has been recognition that both may have their place as classification schemes and management tools. There are now at least four actual or potential typologies for defining protected areas: management objectives, governance types, biodiversity outcomes and management effectiveness. In theory other classification systems would be possible, for instance based around size or major biome. The WCPA and the IUCN Species Survival Commission are setting up a joint programme to look at options for categorizing protected areas by conservation outcomes.

Indigenous lands and waters Finally, there is general agreement that lands and water under the control of indigenous people can be regarded as protected areas if their management objectives meet the IUCN definition of a protected area. However, disagreement remains within indigenous peoples’ movements about whether indigenous reserves should have their own separate category in the World Database on Protected Areas or, as at present, be potentially categorized under any of the management objectives (and listed as a separate governance type within the IUCN governance typology; Borrini-Feyerabend at al., Reference Borrini-Feyerabend, Kothari and Oviedo2004). Proponents believe that indigenous protected areas are unique in several respects and therefore require distinguishing from others. Opponents believe that adding a separate category is unnecessary and would present methodological difficulties by, in effect, providing a separate classification over that defined by management objectives, leading, in the case of its use in data management, to risks of double counting. At present there is a distinct category among governance types (indigenous peoples’ protected areas and territories, established and run by indigenous people; Dudley, Reference Dudley2008) but not a separate management category. However, there is as yet no consensus among indigenous peoples’ groups, either about classification or more generally about the potential relationship between official protected areas and official and unofficial indigenous territories.

This issue is still a long way from resolution. It will be important to build on the emerging consensus about the positive and potentially mutually beneficial role of indigenous and community conserved areas to work with stakeholders in identifying management frameworks and other practical steps, including long-term funding mechanisms.