Towards an integrated system for measuring the social impact of Protected Areas: A discussion document Poverty and Conservation Learning Group TILCEPA UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre: Vision 2020 WCPA/CEESP Taskforce on Protected Areas, Equi
One of the desired outcomes of protected areas should be to improve or at minimum ‘do no harm’ to the livelihoods of local people living near the protected area (IUCN World Parks Congress 2003). Despite various reviews and the favourable political environment provided through the CBD’s Programme of Work on Protected Areas, rather little data have been collected in a systematic way to test whether protected areas are making a positive or negative contribution to the livelihoods of people living immediately adjacent to the protected area, or further away from it. As this is such an important issue, various agencies and individuals have started to develop or adapt methodologies to test the livelihoods impacts of protected areas. However, at present there is no standardized methodology or approach for undertaking these kinds of assessments. This has been noted as a challenge that needs to be addressed by the WCPA/CEESP Protected Areas, Equity and Livelihoods Task Force, by the UNEP-WCMC Vision 2020 project which, inter alia, seeks to expand the World Database on Protected Areas to cover socio-economic issues; and which was the subject of a working session of the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group 2007 Annual Symposium.