Training to assist Pacific island countries fulfil management effectiveness element of protected area reporting obligations

9 June 2021

Protected Area Management Effectiveness (PAME) evaluations determine how well protected areas are being managed against their agreed management goals and objectives. The recommendations of these assessments inform adaptive and improved management of protected areas. The Global Database on Protected Area Management Effectiveness (GD-PAME) captures information about completed management effectiveness assessments for protected areas and currently documents close to 29,000 evaluations from 177 countries.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) together with the IUCN Oceania Regional Office and the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) co-organised and delivered an online virtual training workshop on Introduction to the Global Database on Protected Area Management Effectiveness (GD-PAME) and related data flows from the 27th to the 29th of April 2021.

“The assessment of protected area management effectiveness is in the early stages of uptake within the Pacific islands’ region and while PAME evaluations have been completed for some Pacific countries, the majority have not undertaken these yet.” Said Vainuupo Jungblut, Protected Areas Officer at SPREP.

“This training is timely as it has increased understanding and buy in to the benefits of conducting PAME evaluations.”

The training, led by UNEP-WCMC facilitated understanding of the importance of protected area management effectiveness information at an international, regional, national, and site-specific scale. The training familiarised participants with the background, role and purpose of the GD-PAME. Furthermore, the training captured important feedback from participants that will contribute to establishing a practical workflow for updating protected area management effectiveness data across all Pacific ACP countries.

“The outcomes of this training will contribute to enhancing the regional framework for capturing, managing and sharing site-based information on effectiveness of management measures. This will help to support national efforts to update protected area data and report on international obligations”. Said Mr. Paul van Nimwegen, Protected and Conserved Areas Programme Coordinator, IUCN Oceania Regional Office.

During the training, discussions focused on extracting national and regional level experiences on challenges faced with data collection and collation as well as identifying likely solutions to address these (eg – existing data inconsistencies and gaps), including opportunities for maximising dataflows in the region and improving national and regional coordination mechanisms for the collation of PAME data.

“I found the training very useful and informative. It has provided me with a good understanding of the importance of assessing management effectiveness of our protected areas and the role that this plays in improving management of these sites. Furthermore, it was good to learn more about the global tools for managing information generated from these assessments and how we can contribute to their accuracy. I look forward to engaging in the next steps of this training and how it can benefit the management of protected areas in the Cook Islands” said Ms. Hayley Weeks of the Cook Islands National Environment Service.

The main outcome of the training was in the form of a ‘Roadmap’ intended to inform the design of a workflow to initiate and sustain the regular collection and periodic update of management effectiveness data for the region. The participants actively engaged and provided input to define the next steps for developing an agreed workflow.

“The workshop generated many great suggestions from all of the participants that we will take on board to ensure that the data we have in the GD-PAME for the region better represents the work that is ongoing on the ground.” Said Claire Vincent, Programme Officer at UNEP-WCMC.

The virtual training was funded through the BIOPAMA Programme, an initiative of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific (OACPS) Group of States financed by the European Union 11th European Development Fund. The training was co-organised and co-implemented by SPREP, through its BIOPAMA- assisted Regional Programme of Support for Protected Areas (SPREP-PA), thus fulfilling its role to deliver capacity building initiatives and training programmes in the use of BIOPAMA supported tools and services. BIOPAMA in the Pacific is implemented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in partnership with SPREP and the European Commission Joint Research Centre. This partnership has seen significant enhancements of the Pacific Islands Protected Area Portal, the region’s one-stop resource for protected area information.

For more information on the BIOPAMA regional resource and data hub, please contact Mr. Vainuupo Jungblut, Protected Areas Officer on email: vainuupoj@sprep.org

To learn more about the BIOPAMA Programme, please contact Mr. Paul van Nimwegen, Protected and Conserved Areas Programme Coordinator / BIOPAMA Regional Coordinator, IUCN ORO on email: Paul.vanNimwegen@iucn.org

For more information on the GD-PAME, you can visit the website at pame.protectedplanet.net, or email us at protectedareas@unep-wcmc.org

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