Photo by Tomasz Pezold
Tb eNEWS - 11 - October 2017 - newsletter cover
Tb eNEWS - 11 - October 2017

IN FOCUS: Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland in the heart of Europe

A conservation atlas for transboundary conservation areas

Restoration of the Rio Bravo-Grande


News
05.11.2013.
Shaping the new WCPA Best Practice Guideline on transboundary conservation
Group photo/Thayatal NP
Group photo/Thayatal NP

Thayatal National Park in Austria hosted an International workshop on defining transboundary conservation principles, held from 16-18 October 2013, and organised by IUCN WCPA Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group and local host Thayatal National Park, with support of adjacent Podyjí National Park in the Czech Republic. The workshop was organised within the framework of the IUCN WCPA Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group’s project titled ‘Revision of the IUCN WCPA Best Practice Guideline on Transboundary Conservation’, and financed by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) through the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), MAVA Foundation, and WCPA.

Transboundary specialists from around the world represented diverse sectors, including practitioners, international and national NGOs, academic institutions, governments, and the workshop donor (BfN). The participants presented a variety of transboundary conservation practice and models of cooperation. They discussed key emerging issues in transboundary conservation at global level, while focusing largely on providing an improved WCPA definition of Transboundary Protected Areas and other types of transboundary conservation practice, as well as transboundary governance models. The newly agreed principles will all feed into the IUCN WCPA Best Practice Guideline (BPG) on transboundary conservation, a publication that will build on current BPG titled Transboundary Protected Areas for Peace and Cooperation (published in 2001), offer improved knowledge and suggest new global standards in the given field. The guideline will be launched at IUCN World Parks Congress (WPC), to be held in Sydney, Australia, in November 2014.

In addition to the launch of the guideline, the participants also discussed Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group’s further input to the WPC in Sydney, namely a possibility to organise a workshop feeding into the stream on governance of protected areas, and developing a motion to be considered by the Congress.

On the final day of the workshop, Thayatal and Podyjí National Parks and a Transboundary Protected Area organised a field excursion in the forests of the parks and rafting on Thaya River.

Report from the workshop, all presentations, participants list, and agenda are available here

For additional information please contact Maja Vasilijević, Chair, Transboundary Conservation SG, at maja@ekohorizont.hr.