Using the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas to promote conservation impact through marine protected areas

1. With the number of marine protected areas (MPAs) growing rapidly and progress being made towards protecting 10% of the ocean, as called for by the Convention on Biological Diversity, there is equally a need to increase efforts and provide incentives for effective management of these sites. 2. The IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas (GLPCA), a voluntary global standard that protected areas and their agencies may decide to commit to working towards, has been set up to contribute to this. 3. Protected areas can achieve Green List status by demonstrating a certain performance level and by meeting outcomes measured against a set of defined criteria. An assured verification process is followed before sites are recognized. The GLPCA will thus encourage and identify those protected areas (both terrestrial and marine) that are effectively managed, have equitable governance and achieve significant conservation impacts. 4. The GLPCA pilot phase announced the first 25 protected areas to meet the criteria at the IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney in November 2014. These included four MPAs: Iroise Natural Marine Park, Cerbère-Banyuls Natural Nature Reserve, and Guadeloupe National Park in France, and Gorgona National Park in Colombia. Italy and China also participated in the pilot phase and each has an MPA that is continuing to work towards GLPCA status. 5. The experiences of these sites are described, as well as three other programmes (two regional and one global) that are being developed to promote improved management of MPAs. This information will be useful for other MPAs considering participation in the GLPCA initiative

¿Para qué sirven los parques naturales? Legibilidad estatal en e Parque Alto Fragua Indi Wasi, Colombia"

Object/context: Natural parks are usually presented as the most important state-led strategy to promote the environmental conservation of a particular area. However, scarce anthropological and political science literature on this topic suggests that natural parks contribute to consolidate state power as well. This article explains how natural parks achieve said goal by studying the declaration and the initial years of the Alto Fragua-Indi Wasi Natural Park (located in Caquetá, Colombia). Methodology: The data for this study was gathered from official documents, historical archives and at least twenty in-depth interviews with state officials and social leaders. Conclusions: The article argues three central points. First, natural parks favor state power because they tend to make population and territories more legible. Second, there are six types of state legibility (convergent, denied, agreed, imposed, stopped and indifferent), which correspond to the historical moment and the social actors that relate to the state. Third, state legibility in the Alto Fragua-Indi Wasi Natural Park increased as the result of a political process characterized by the convergence of state and social interests. Contribution: The article provides conceptual and empirical tools to illustrate how natural parks strengthen the state and make state-society relations more complex. In general terms, this research paper is an invitation to study problems related to the state’s environmental and territorial planning from the optic of political science. © 2019 Universidad de los Andes, Bogota Colombia. All rights reserved