World Parks Congress

Our last session of the conference (or a session in the last block of events) focused on the emerging agenda for the World Parks Congress.

• 1962: definitions and standards for representative systems leading to the UN list of PAs;
• 1972: conservation of ecosystems, genesis of World Heritage and Wetlands Conventions;
• 1982: PAs in sustainable development, development assistance in PAs
• 1992: Global change and PAs; PA categories and management effectiveness;
• 2003: Governance, sustainable finance, capacity development, linkages in the landscape and seascape, equity and benefit sharing.
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Just as the George Wright Conference is the de facto North American Parks Congress, the IUCN World Parks Congress is THE global forum on protected areas. The first World Parks Congress was convened by the US National Park Service over 50 years ago, in Seattle, and the second was held at Yellowstone in 1972. The World Parks Congress has been convened roughly every decade ever since, so the upcoming Congress will be the sixth. As the world’s most influential gathering of people involved in protected area management, it sets the global agenda for the following decade.

Panelists were:

Left to right, Alan Latourelle, Parks Canada; Sally
Barnes, NSW, Australia; Brent Mitchell, GWS president;
Ernesto Enkerlin, WCPA (standing) photo: John Waithaka

Ms. Sally Barnes, Chief Executive, Office of Environment and Heritage, Government of New South Wales, Australia; and as such the host of the next World Parks Congress

Mr. Alan Latourelle, CEO of the Parks Canada Agency. I want to say publicly to Alan that we always value the participation of Parks Canada in the George Wright Conference, but never more so than this year!

Dr. Ernesto Enkerlin, Technical University of Monterrey; former Commissioner of CONANP, the parks agency of Mexico; Last fall Ernesto was elected as chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas. Having just organized this conference, I do not envy the job of putting together the Congress!