A year in images: 2018
The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management -
BIOPAMA Programme
The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management Programme (BIOPAMA) aims to improve the long-term conservation and sustainable use of natural resources in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, in protected areas and surrounding communities. BIOPAMA provides a variety of tools, services and funding to conservation actors in the ACP countries.
In 2018, the BIOPAMA programme engaged with a significant number of stakeholders to ensure that BIOPAMA’s activities support the needs of the countries and their actors, as well as assist them in achieving their conservation objectives and international commitments.
Significant effort was dedicated to successfully launching the programme in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific - through the organisation of regional inception workshops and extensive consultations with the key audiences – and to implementing activities: capacity development trainings, protected area data collection and countries engagement technical missions, networking facilitation, enhanced engagements and negotiations for the BIOPAMA regional observatories, and new ACP protected areas analysis. The launch of a new version of the BIOPAMA Reference Information System and the design of a new grant mechanism are also among the programme’s highlights for 2018.
BIOPAMA looks forward to continuing working with you in
February 2018
IUCN's Oceania Regional Office and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) sign the renewed agreement for the implementation of the BIOPAMA Regional Observatory, the Pacific Islands Protected Area Portal (PIPAP). The Regional Observatories for Protected Areas and Biodiversity are the central pillar of BIOPAMA’s work.
March 2018
IUCN's Regional Office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and the University of the West Indies (UWI), sign the renewed agreement for the BIOPAMA Regional Observatory, the Caribbean Protected Areas Gateway. The regional observatories support data collection, analysis, monitoring and reporting, develop the capacities of staff and organisations to manage this information and provide policy guidance for better decision making on biodiversity conservation.
March 2018
BIOPAMA convenes Caribbean protected area stakeholders from 21 countries from the region and beyond, to launch the BIOPAMA programme’s second phase in this region. The workshop took place in New Kingston, Jamaica and its results are guiding the programme's priority activities.
April 2018
BIOPAMA gathers 70 Southern African governmental and technical stakeholders in a series of two workshops to launch the new programme's phase in Johannesburg, South Africa. The participants issued key recommendations to guide BIOPAMA's action plan for this region on protected area governance and equity and management effectiveness. Those recommendations were consolidated in a workplan for Eastern and Southern Africa.
April 2018
BIOPAMA supports the Training of Trainers Regional Course on Marine Protected Area Management (MPA) organized by the Caribbean MPA Management Network and Forum (CaMPAM). With its first staging in 1999, the 2018 programme trained 20 protected area professionals from 13 Caribbean countries on ecological and socio-economic research and monitoring, marine spatial planning, participatory Geographic Information System (GIS), communication tools for MPAs and sustainable financing, among other subjects.
May 2018
Eastern African stakeholders representing governmental and non-governmental actors gather in Nairobi, Kenya, for BIOPAMA's new phase. The 70 participants recommended actions on protected area governance and equity and management effectiveness: policy and legislation, improving financing solutions and business capacity, the integration of these areas of work into multiple sectors and relevant policies, among others.
June 2018
Regional workshop on protected area management effectiveness was convened in St. Lucia for representatives of the 15 Caribbean States. The 35 participants were trained on a number of tools and framework for assessing protected area management effectiveness. This training was preceded and followed by three webinars where the key concepts were presented to a larger Caribbean audience representing governmental and non-governmental organisations.
June 2018
Léonidas Nzigiyimpa is rewarded with the National Geographic/Buffet Award for Leadership in Conservation.
Léonidas has been chief warden in charge of the protected areas in the southern region of Burundi since 2001, he is an active stakeholder in shaping the activities of the BIOPAMA programme and one of the 27 coach of the Integrated Management Effectiveness Tool (IMET).
June 2018
A regional inception workshop taking place in Apia, Samoa, launches the new BIOPAMA programme phase in the Pacific Islands region. The gathering of more than 100 protected area and conservation actors of the region was also an opportunity for showcasing the achievements and lessons learnt from protected areas in the Cook Islands, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Kiribati through effective peer to peer exchanges.
July 2018
BIOPAMA participates at the annual SADC TFCA (Southern African Development Community, Transfrontier Conservation Areas) annual meeting. The priorities of the TFCA network align well with the broader regional priorities identified during the BIOPAMA inception phase and are incorporated into the workplan for 2018-2023, particularly as relates to capacity building and data management.
September 2018
The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC) hosted the BIOPAMA All-hands annual meeting at the headquarters in Ispra, Italy. The meetings allowed the global BIOPAMA team from IUCN and JRC, as well as donors’ representatives, to coordinate the joint action for each region and thematic subjects.
September 2018
The BIOPAMA team visits RCMRD (Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development) in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss potential collaboration for the BIOPAMA regional observatory for Eastern and Southern Africa.
September 2018
The Pacific Islands Protected Areas Portal (PIPAP) accomplishes a technical mission in the Cook Islands on protected area data and information. A similar mission took place in October in Tuvalu. The missions collected and collated information on a range of protected areas and advised the countries on data sharing; this information is consolidated and shared in the PIPAP (sprep.pipap.org).
September 2018
IUCN and the Commission for Central African Forest (COMIFAC) convene the BIOPAMA regional inception workshop for Central Africa in Douala, Cameroon. The workshop informed the group of more than 70 stakeholders about the programme and facilitated discussion to identify priorities for action.
September 2018
BIOPAMA Caribbean leveraged its network of protected areas managers, conservationists, researchers, and associated multilateral agencies, to undertake the first State of Protected Areas (SoPA) report for the Caribbean region in over two decades. This initial meeting succeeded in developing an initial framework for the SoPA report structure and content, defined geographic scope, thematic areas, potential authors, information sources and production timeline.
November 2018
As a result of the highly engaged regional workshop on protected area management effectiveness (PAME) held in Saint Lucia in June 2018, BIOPAMA facilitates follow-up workshops on the topic in Antigua and Barbuda and St. Vincent and the Grenadines in November 2018. BIOPAMA provided technical support to these countries by assisting the reviewed of the PAME framework and tools in the context of their protected areas and guiding management effectiveness assessments in specific protected areas.
December 2018
The IUCN BIOPAMA team convenes seminar on the action component, a novelty of the programme's second phase and it will grant a total of 20 million EUR for targeted actions on the ground in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
December 2018
The BIOPAMA Reference Information System (RIS) 2.0 was launched. It is an web-based, open-source information system for protected areas across the 79 countries of the Africa, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) Group of States. Explore it at rris.biopama.org.
The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) Programme assists the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to address their priorities for improved management and governance of biodiversity and natural resources. It is an initiative of the ACP Group of States financed by the European Union’s 11th European Development Fund (EDF), jointly implemented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC).
www.biopama.org
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This publication has been produced with support of the 11th EDF. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of IUCN and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union nor of the ACP Group of States.
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