Wednesday @ GWS

We settled into a full schedule of concurrent and focus sessions today, with content as diverse as:

• Geography, Minority Visitation, and the Accessibility of “America’s Best Idea” in a Multi-cultural Nation
• From Education to Impact: The Effects of Messaging on Environmental Conditions in Acadia National Park
• Connecting Urban Populations to Protected Areas (Rouge National Urban Park)
• Interagency Wilderness Fellows: Post-Graduate Students Assess Wilderness Character
• Protected Areas on Private Land: Shaping the Future of the Park System in Australia
• The Importance of Darkness and the Night Sky to National Park Visitors
• Non-Recognized Tribal Communities Protecting Cultural & Natural Resources
• Shifting the Focus to Results: Ecological Restoration in Canada’s National Parks
• Badlands National Park Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment
• Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and A Land Ethic for Our Time (film)

I spent too much of my day in business meetings, but did catch interesting sessions on protected area databases, both global and US; and on food for and from national parks.

The global protected area network is increasing: for terrestrial sites from 8.8% of global area in 1990 to 12.7% in 2010 (0.9% to 4% marine) according to the World Conservation Monitoring Center. But this is a long way from the goal of 17% terrestrial and 10% marine by 2020 set by the Aichi targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Expanding the extent of protected areas to Aichi targets is estimated at 3-6 times the current running costs.

The protected areas estate is also diversifying rapidly in management arrangements and governance structures, posing a problem for tracking and monitoring. Most data is provided by governments, which most often have no facility for documenting areas protected by indigenous communities or private protected areas.  In a positive development, the Protected Areas Database of the US now accesses the National Conservation Easement Database. Assessing management effectiveness at a global scale is yet more complex, though progress is being made. Protected area data is publicly available on http://www.protectedplanet.net/

Meanwhile, the World Heritage program of IUCN is taking steps to move from a “unremittingly negative” monitoring system to a proactive posture of documenting and providing guidance on best practice for natural sites. The World Heritage Convention, celebrating 40 years, had its genesis in the United States; the US was the first signatory, and both the US and Canada were among the first six sites listed (Yellowstone and Nahanni). In contrast, the US is not a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Parks and Protected Areas Where Farms and Food Matter took a page from Emma Marris’ gardening metaphor, quite literally. The conversation in the round discussed initiatives around the US and the world in which protecting agro-biodiversity, agricultural heritage, historic landscapes, food security, and community support for parks are priorities. Chief among the examples cited was Cuyahoga National Park in Ohio, where farming is being reinstated through a private conservancy, restoring both a local food system and community relations in a park situated between two urban areas.

Much of the discussion centered on connecting traditional agriculture and protected areas, and converting supply chains into value chains, that is, mechanisms to ensure that economics of food systems support environmental and landscape values as well. A central point was that protected landscapes, as defined by global protected areas definitions, can contribute to biodiversity conservation and provide common cause with local communities, particularly in ecoregions such as temperate grasslands that are underrepresented in protected area systems. Such protected landscapes complement other, more familiar and more restrictively protected areas.

Related but distinct for food from parks is work on food for parks led by the Institute at the Golden Gate. The focus is on how concessions and parks are coordinating to make sure that food in the parks is of high quality. After a series of projects and reports, the work has resulted in draft guidelines for 25% of food provided by park concessions to be “healthful and sustainably sourced.” Compliance is a point of market distinction for concessionaires, and results in food served to visitors that is of a quality consistent with the other aspects of the national park visitor experience.