AUTHOR: Marianne Kettunen
This event highlights the central role of rangers in managing protected and conserved areas in a way that brings benefits to both biodiversity and people. It follows the launch of a pioneering, action-oriented guidance demonstrating how area-based conservation can help to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across the world.
Tuesday 22 June
15:00-17:00 CET
Register here
About the event
Effective area-based conservation can provide a powerful contribution to delivering multiple benefits across SDGs, simultaneously contributing to several sustainability objectives on the 2030 Agenda.
IEEP is delighted to team up with the Thin Green Line Foundation UK to host an online event on the importance of protected and conserved areas, shining a spotlight on the people whose day-to-day job it is to bring these areas to life.
Around the world rangers play a central role in ensuring that protected areas provide benefits to both biodiversity and people, managing not only habitats and species but also the relationship between nature and local communities. Consequently, while area-based conservation can become – and in many places already is – a centre piece for delivering wide-ranging sustainability benefits, it often requires rangers as “key workers” to help to deliver those benefits.
This event discusses the role of rangers in protected area management from the perspective of supporting the implementation of the sustainable development agenda. It highlights common challenges, shares success stories and identifies best practise – and puts forward a call for action to improve support for rangers under the future biodiversity policy framework, at global and national level, especially in the ongoing aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Agenda and speakers
- Opening remarks by Abi Gatty Irving, Director, Thin Green Line Foundation UK
- Panel Round I: Experiences by, and working with, rangers around the world
- Nyaradzo Hoto, Sergeant at the Akashinga program, International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF), Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe
- Luso Dostibegian, ranger, Georgia [TBC]
- Florin Halastauan, Ranger Leader in the Bison Reintroduction Project in the South Western Carpathians, Former Vice President of the International Federation of Rangers (IRF) and IRF Representative of European Rangers
- Claudel Tshibangu, Planning, Monitoring & GIS Analyst, Forgotten Parks Foundation (FPF), working at Upemba National Park, DR Congo
- Joseph Tambwe Musimbi, Bureau d’Appui aux programmes d’Education et de Developpement (BAPED), working at Nganja Wildlife Reserve, DR Congo
- Panel Round II: Improving the support framework for rangers
- Mike Appleton, Vice-Chair, Capacity Development Initiative, IUCN WCPA
- Ana Maria Gonzalez, Senior Environmental Specialist and coordinator of the Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Programme (ASL), Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy, the World Bank Group
- Mandy Cadman, Senior technical adviser for ecosystems and biodiversity (Africa) and UNDP lead for the GEF-financed, World Bank-led Global Wildlife Programme, UNDP
- Sean Willmore, Founder and Managing Director of the Thin Green Line Foundation
Context
On 31 May, a guidance on area-based conservation as a tool for sustainable development was published by IEEP and partners. This pioneering, action-oriented guidance demonstrates how the designation and effective management of protected and conserved areas can benefit sustainable development, playing a key role in delivering Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and supporting the 2030 Agenda globally.
The guidance identifies myriad ways in which effective area-based conservation can be a pro-active tool for delivering SDGs. Furthermore, it documents 30 detailed case studies that illustrate how existing protected and conserved areas around the world are already delivering various SDGs in practice. Finally, guidance and tools are provided to explain how governments, industry and civil society can integrate protected and conserved areas into their SDG strategies and reporting processes.
The guidance has been developed in a global partnership by IEEP, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and global leading conservation organisations the Nature Conservancy (TNC), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
In the run up to the UK-led Climate COP26 meeting in November and the Biodiversity COP15 in October, the global partners behind the guidance call on the international processes, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) along with UN agencies and bilateral and multilateral donors, to give more explicit recognition of – and support to – the role protected and conserved areas play in delivering the 2030 sustainability agenda.
