Side Event
International Cooperation for Protected Areas at border regions
Organizer
ministry of the environment
Date and Time
28 March 2006 18:30 - 20:15
Cross-border cooperation is an excellent opportunity for enabling integrated sustainable development with other South American countries. Natural environment, although crossed by geopolitical borders, functions systemically, in such a way that environmental externalities may influence its individual components, bringing negative effects of biodiversity loss. Biodiverty conservation activities should then be coordinated and cooperatively developed among countries which share ecosystems across its borders. National sovereign should always be taken into account. It is in this context that means of management of adjacent protected areas in neighbour countries should be discussed. Transboundary management may have different approaches: technical agreements are the baseline for management and cooperative actions, but more formal legal documents may legitimate the process at a higher political level, facilitating implementation of planned actions. Important mentioning that transboundary protected areas is part of the CDB Programme of Work on Protected Areas and it is also being included in Brazilian PA´s National Plan. This issue is not yet a consensus among many countries, though. There are many protected areas cooperative initiatives ongoing in South America in transboundary ecosystems. The aim of this side event is to present some of these experiences and lead to a discussion on possible and viable mechanisms and instruments for an effective and successful cooperation. One of the initiatives already confirmed is the established cooperation between Brasil and France in its overseas territory, Frech Guiana. Another interesting initiative which deserves to be presented is the binational Park of El Condor of Ecuador and Peru. These two countries will be invited to participate on this side event. We will identify a third successful initiative to also participate.