IUCN Criteria for "Protected Landscape/seascape"

IUCN Criteria for "Protected Landscape/seascape"

Published: October 13, 2009, 4:04 pm

Topics:

Parks & Public Lands (main)

Introduction

A protected area where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant ecological, biological, cultural and scenic value: and where safeguarding the integrity of this interaction is vital to protecting and sustaining the area and its associated nature conservation and other values. (IUCN Criteria for "Protected Landscape/seascape")

Primary objective

To protect and sustain important landscapes/seascapes and the associated nature conservation and other values created by interactions with humans through traditional management practices.

Other objectives

• To maintain a balanced interaction of nature and culture through the protection of landscape and/or seascape and associated traditional management approaches, societies, cultures and spiritual values;
• To contribute to broad-scale conservation by maintaining species associated with cultural landscapes and/or by providing conservation opportunities in heavily used landscapes;
• To provide opportunities for enjoyment, well-being and socio-economic activity through recreation and tourism;
• To provide natural products and environmental services;
• To provide a framework to underpin active involvement by the community in the management of valued landscapes or seascapes and the natural and cultural heritage that they contain;
• To encourage the conservation of agrobiodiversity and aquatic biodiversity;
• To act as models of sustainability so that lessons can be learnt for wider application.

Distinguishing features

Category V protected areas result from biotic, abiotic and human interaction and should have the following essential characteristics:

• Landscape and/or coastal and island seascape of high and/or distinct scenic quality and with significant associated habitats, flora and fauna and associated cultural features;
• A balanced interaction between people and nature that has endured over time and still has integrity, or where there is reasonable hope of restoring that integrity;
• Unique or traditional land-use patterns, e.g., as evidenced in sustainable agricultural and forestry systems and human settlements that have evolved in balance with their landscape.

The following are desirable characteristics:

• Opportunities for recreation and tourism consistent with life style and economic activities;
• Unique or traditional social organizations, as evidenced in local customs, livelihoods and beliefs;
• Recognition by artists of all kinds and in cultural traditions (now and in the past);
• Potential for ecological and/or landscape restoration.

Role in the landscape/seascape

Generally, category V protected areas play an important role in conservation at the landscape/seascape scale, particularly as part of a mosaic of management patterns, protected area designations and other conservation mechanisms:

• Some category V protected areas act as a buffer around a core of one or more strictly protected areas to help to ensure that land and water-use activities do not threaten their integrity;
• Category V protected areas may also act as linking habitat between several other protected areas. Category V offers unique contributions to conservation of biological diversity.

In particular:

• Species or habitats that have evolved in association with cultural management systems and can only survive if those management systems are maintained;
• To provide a framework when conservation objectives need to be met over a large area (e.g., for top predators) in crowded landscapes with a range of ownership patterns, governance models and land use;
• In addition, traditional systems of management are often associated with important components of agrobiodiversity or aquatic biodiversity, which can be conserved only by maintaining those systems.

Issues for consideration

• Being a relatively flexible model, category V may sometimes offer conservation options where more strictly protected areas are not feasible.
• Category V protected areas can seek to maintain current practices, restore historical management systems or, perhaps most commonly, maintain key landscape values whilst accommodating contemporary development and change: decisions about this need to be made in management plans.
• The emphasis on interactions of people and nature over time raises the conceptual question for any individual category V protected area: at what point on the temporal continuum should management focus? And, in an area established to protect values based on traditional management systems, what happens when traditions change or are lost?
• Since social, economic and conservation considerations are all integral to the category V concept, defining measures of performance for all of these values is important in measuring success.
• As people are the stewards of the landscape or seascape in category V protected areas, clear guidelines are needed about the extent to which decision making can be left to local inhabitants and how far a wider public interest should prevail when there is conflict between local and national needs.
• How is category V distinguished from sustainable management in the wider landscape? As an area with exceptional values? As an example of best practice in management? Category V is perhaps the most quickly developing of any protected area management approaches.
• There are still only a few examples of the application of category V in coastal and marine settings where a “protected seascape” approach could be the most appropriate management option and more examples are needed (see e.g., Holdaway undated).

References and Further Reading

• Category V Protected Landscape/Seascape IUCN
  Glossary

Citation

Nature, T. (2009). IUCN Criteria for "Protected Landscape/seascape". Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/IUCN_Criteria_for_"Protected_Landscape/seascape"