Transboundary protected area

A transboundary protected area (TBPA) is an ecological protected area that spans boundaries of more than one country or sub-national entity. Such areas are also known as transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) or peace parks.
TBPAs exist in many forms around the world, and are established for various reasons. The preservation of traditional animal migration patterns, ensuring sufficient food and water sources for population growth, is a critical reason for the creation of TBPAs. However, TBPAs also encourage tourism, economic development and goodwill between neighbouring countries, as well as making it easier for indigenous inhabitants of the area to travel.
TBPAs exist in various types of geographic configuration, with various levels of ecological protection, and with various levels of international cooperation. Additionally, different organizations employ different definitions for TBPAs. Julia Marton-Lefevre broadly defines TBPAs as "areas that involve a degree of cooperation across one or more boundaries between (or within) countries." The Southern Africa Development Community's Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement defines Transfrontier Conservation Area as "the area or the component of a large ecological region that straddles the boundaries of two or more countries, encompassing one or more protected areas, as well as multiple resources use areas." The Global Transboundary Protected Areas Network (GTPAN) lists four types of "transboundary conservation areas:"
GTPAN defines a transboundary protected area as "a clearly defined geographical space that includes protected areas that are ecologically connected across one or more international boundaries and involves some form of cooperation." GTPAN defines a transboundary conservation landscape and/or seascape as "an ecologically connected area that includes both protected areas and multiple resource use areas across one or more international boundaries and involves some form of cooperation."
GTPAN defines a transboundary conservation migration area as "wildlife habitats in two or more countries that are necessary to sustain populations of migratory species and involve some form of cooperation."
GTPAN defines a "park for peace" as "any of the three types of transboundary conservation areas [that is] dedicated to the promotion, celebration and/or commemoration of peace and cooperation."
In many instances, individual TBPAs are part of broader international environmental or cultural programs. TBPAs can be World Heritage Sites, Ramsar Wetlands, and/or UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.
In 1932, the governments of Canada and the United States passed legislation creating the first international peace park: Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. This action followed from a joint resolution of the Rotary Clubs of Montana and Alberta calling for the creation of the peace park.
On 1 February 1997, Anton Rupert, together with Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and Nelson Mandela, founded the Peace Parks Foundation as a nonprofit organisation to facilitate the establishment of transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs).
A 2001 study by the World Conservation Union found "there were 166 existing transboundary protected area complexes worldwide comprising 666 individual conservation zones."
In 2007, the Global Transboundary Conservation Network published a global inventory of transboundary protected areas identifying 227 transboundary protected areas.
Of the world's twenty transboundary UNESCO biosphere reserves, twelve are in Europe. Spain, Portugal, Poland, and Ukraine each contribute to three reserves.
TBPA advocates by 2006 had identified additional sites for protection. Professor Saleem Ali of the University of Vermont noted that "numerous ecologically sensitive areas remain unprotected" and cites a 2006 "geographic information systems (GIS) study" that "found 104 transboundary wild areas involving 61 countries that are not formally part of any conservation park." Specific sites for proposed TBPAs include:
As awareness of the importance of conserving the pristinity and ecology of Arctic region has increased, there has been a global call to declare the Arctic region as a global sanctuary/international peace park. The Save the Arctic campaign by Greenpeace, an environmental nonprofit organisation, has received online support from more than 5 million citizens from around the world.
Transboundary protected areas are also termed peace parks. They are supposed to facilitate cooperation and exchange between (adversary) countries, to improve livelihoods of local populations, to demonstrate the possibility of positive-sum interactions, and hence to support more peaceful international relations. There are several cases documented in which trans-boundary conservation contributed to conflict resolution (although it was not the main driver), such as in the Virunga region between the DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, around the Trifinio region between El Salvador and Honduras, and in the Cordillera del Cóndor region between Ecuador and Peru. According to a statistical analysis published in 2014, states that share a trans-boundary protected area are slightly less likely to engage with militarized disputes with each other. But the question remains whether the TBPA is a driver or consequence on better interstate relations in these cases. A more recent analysis triangulates data from various sources to show that international environmental cooperation (in the form of TBPAs and water treaties) increases the likelihood for reconciliation between states in conflict. The effect is, however, modest and contingent on a number of context factors such as high levels of environmental attention, internal political stability, a tradition of environmental cooperation and already ongoing processes of reconciliation.
However, a number of authors criticize that peace parks have a very limited impact on formal relations between states, but can accelerate conflicts on the local level, for instance by extending (authoritarian) state control, by prioritizing business and tourism over the interests of local populations, and by excluding local people from the protected areas. TBPAs can also stimulate (low-level) international conflicts, for instance about the sharing of revenues or the presence of human populations in the parks.
A Massive Online Open Course on Peace Park Development and Management was developed by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD), its Peace and Biodiversity Dialogue Initiative in partnership with UNDP and the NBSAP Forum. This free three-week course offered in five languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. Financial support is provided by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity's Peace and Biodiversity Dialogue Initiative funded by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea.
This course will:
The course is designed for Peace Park development practitioners and environmental peacebuilding enthusiasts but is open to everyone. Participants must create an account on Learning for Nature before registering for the course.
Media related to Peace parks at Wikimedia Commons