Darwin Initiative: ICPL/CEAD Africa Programme

Conservation Management Training and Capacity Building in Sub Saharan Africa

A Project supported by DEFRA through the Darwin Initiative:

logo Darwin Initiative

This Project directly addresses: The Millennium Development Goals; the Durban Action Plan and Durban Consensus on African Protected Areas for the New Millennium, Vth World Parks Congress 2003; Recommendations of the 3rd World Conservation Congress 2004; Article 8, COP 7 of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2004.

Africa has 1200 national parks, reserves & other protected areas (PAs) - 30% of global biodiversity. Yet the capacity & resources to conserve biodiversity & manage these protected areas effectively are lacking (GEF 2003). The 2003 Convention on the Conservation of Nature & Natural Resources highlights the central role for protected areas in conserving biodiversity. Likewise the African Protected Areas Initiative (2003), endorsed by the African Union and NEPAD, seeks to develop for Sub-Saharan Africa a well designed & managed system of protected areas that will meet the environmental & social needs of each country. Both of these initiatives were strongly endorsed by the World Parks Congress 2003. This project feeds into these regional initiatives & into implementation of national strategies, by establishing an Africa-led, vocational education facility that will offer high quality training in protected area management to professionals throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Aim of the project, therefore, is to build capacity within the Sub-Saharan region in approaches to biodiversity management that recognise and support the integration of conservation and development, and that promote inclusive and sustainable natural resource management as an essential tool for poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods for rural people.

To achieve this aim, ICPL is working in partnership with the Centre for Environment, Agriculture and Development (CEAD), University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa to design, develop and deliver a new, voactional, distance learning masters' programme in integrated approaches to protected area management.

CEAD ICPL partners
Members of the CEAD / ICPL partnership

The purpose of the programme is to develop a new cadre of Protected Area Managers with the management, leadership and research skills to enable them to effectively integrate biodiversity conservation, people and economics and to research these dynamics within their own management practice. The programme specifically targets in-post professionals who are unable to leave their positions for residential or full-time study. Coursework is specifically designed to 'interact' with students' professional activities, enabling them to understand and implement their learning directly within their own professional context. The approach has added value for students' employers in terms of immediate skills and capacity building of staff.

The Protected Area Management Masters Programme:

offers a high quality professional masters' degree, which
enables students to develop an integrated theoretical and conceptual foundation
on which is based new management skills and practices linking people with conservation.

The degree has been designed so that:

all modules are linked together to form an integrated whole so that students can see the relations between all parts of the programme. This applies to assessed coursework as much as to the teaching materials themselves;
students understand the conceptual frameworks/models within a wider global context, and
students can apply them within the specific regional/national contexts within which they work, thus
resulting in changes in attitude, management strategies and approaches of the students in their work, including
the capacity to use research to underpin policy and management strategies and the models adopted for these.

The programme is structured so as to give the students opportunity to study and apply the theory to practice as they progress through the coursework modules. There are four core modules and one elective module, followed by a research dissertation.

PROGRAMME MODULES

Module 1: Foundations of Protected Area Management.

This module presents the underlying concepts and frameworks of protected area management. It addresses the conceptual foundation of protected areas, examining in particular the development of ideas that have led to the current position, the various models of protected areas that exist today, and scenarios for the future. It takes further the emerging trend for protected area management that seeks to integrate conservation and human development.

Module 2: Policy Foundations

The module introduces models and legal/policy frameworks for integration and looks at the real world barriers that challenge this notion. It also asserts the central importance of engaging people in conservation in order to achieve integration and the effective management of protected areas.

Module 3: Protected Area Systems and Approaches

This module addresses the fundamental core of protected area management. It covers organisational and human resource management, financial management and operational management. Of particular importance to candidates are the tools for operational management: the role of law and legal frameworks, how to develop strategies, specific policies and work programmes for management plans; how to monitor and evaluate activities; and how to measure the effectiveness of management.

Module 4: Tools and Skills for Participatory Management

The module provides the candidates with the essential tools for working with people in the management of protected areas. Running through the whole programme is the notion of integration and the importance of people in conservation. This module therefore covers communication; negotiation and mediation; conflict resolution and consensus building; awareness raising; participatory techniques; collaborative and community-based management; and the role of policy and governance in protected area management.

Module 5: Elective

This module provides students with optional specialisms to complete their coursework studies. Students select one of following modules:

Tourism - Theory & Practice
Wilderness Concepts and Practice
GIS

Students must achieve a satisfactory standard in their modular coursework before they can progress to the research component of the programme. and submit a dissertation to complete the degree requirements.

Academic 'mentors' from around sub-Saharan Africa are identified to give in-country advice and assistance to distance learning students of the programme, to serve pro-actively as a Regional Support Network and to establish further partnerships with other Institutions around the region.

If you are interested in receiving further information about this programme, view our brochure or contact Drummond Densham at: <DenshamD@ukzn.ac.za>

Conference

The project partners are planning a Conference in Namibia in early 2007. The Conference will focus on the role of protected areas in working towards a more sustainable future in Africa:

International Conference on:
Protected Areas And Sustainable Landscapes
People And Conservation In Sub-Saharan Africa

Key terms: People and conservation; strategies for sustainable development; poverty reduction; governance; environmental security.

ICPL and CEAD are leading institutions working at the interface of conservation and development in sub-Saharan Africa. The partnership has an ongoing programme, supported by DEFRA's Darwin Initiative, which aims to build capacity throughout sub-Saharan Africa for effective conservation management that reflects good governance, and that contributes directly to environmental and food security, sustainable livelihoods, and to national strategies for sustainable development and poverty reduction.

The Conference will examine in the African context, the role of conservation management in the pursuit of a more sustainable future. In particular, it will address the key challenges facing protected areas in sub-Saharan Africa and examine alternative management models that facilitate a more central role for protected areas within national strategies for sustainable development and poverty reduction. In considering these issues the Conference will directly address the recommendations and action points of the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, the Vth World Parks Congress 2003, the World Conservation Congress 2004, and COP 7 of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2004. Critically, it will also directly address the concerns of the international community relating to governance, poverty reduction, sustainable development and environmental / food security, and will thereby contribute to progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Further details and booking forms for this Conference will be available very shortly and will be posted here. Meanwhile, If you wish to register your interest in the event, please e-mail: <icpl@protected-landscapes.org> or <DenshamD@ukzn.ac.za>

This Conference is supported by the Welsh Assembly Government