OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have led a broad partnership of national and international agencies in undertaking national reviews of protected areas and development. These countries and their two neighbours to the north – China and Myanmar – face a shared challenge: their protected area systems are expanding and receiving greater management attention, but biodiversity values continue to diminish. PAs appear as a drain on domestic and international budgets and an impediment to economic development without bringing sustainable conservation returns. The Protected Areas Development (PAD) Review1 examines the growing tensions between economic and conservation objectives in the four countries and at regional level. The articles in this issue of PARKS, based on the PAD Review regional analysis2, provide a strong indication that, in future, the importance of protected areas will be measured in terms of their contribution to national and local economies. They will come under particularly sharp appraisal for their contributions in reducing poverty as part of national poverty alleviation strategies. Also, they will be assessed against the priorities adopted in the Mekong region as a whole for governance reform. All these new indicators of success in PA planning and management will require a re-expression of conservation needs in terms of the development benefits they bring. The goal is to create a broad alliance of support for the PA systems from those who benefit, new skills and approaches in their management, and to open up new sources of financing, all leading to better biodiversity conservation. Protected areas as a strategy for development in the Lower Mekong region For most of the past 15 years, protected areas in the Lower Mekong region (Figure 1) have been viewed as areas isolated and locked away from human use for the sake of conservation, with little apparent relevance to the massive development challenges facing the four countries. To this day, the legal frameworks governing protected areas prohibit extractive uses. In practice, communities have continued to take what they need from PAs, and governments have overridden PA restrictions when faced with choices between conservation and economic developments such as roads, power and irrigation schemes and agricultural expansion. The extraordinary political commitment in Mekong countries to establishing protected areas has not been matched by the kind of legal authority and financing needed to safeguard them from economic and development interests within and outside government. This is understandable, given that the tools and capacities were not available to show what was at stake in development terms when PA values were degraded. Towards the end of the 1990s, studies commenced which began to evaluate PAs from an economic perspective. They showed that many of the sectors, which are foundations of national and local economies, received services and products from PAs and that their economic worth was very significant indeed. The PAD Review field studies in each of the four countries had similar findings (ICEM 2003b). That first inkling of PAs in the region as important economic assets to be conserved for their development contributions has opened the way to a fundamental reorientation of how they should be planned and managed. The PAD Review promotes the following directions for change in the Mekong region: 1. All PAs need to have their development values expressed in economic terms which can be communicated in annual and long-term budget submissions. Valuations should be part of PA management plans and any environmental assessment associated with development proposals affecting PAs. 2. Each sector needs to be made aware of the development benefits they do or might receive from PAs. Those benefits and their maintenance should be recognised in sector plans and budgets as a key strategy for sector productivity. 3. A more systematic application of the beneficiary or user pays approach in all sectors requiring supporting economic policies and instruments is needed. User pays arrangements already carried out on an ad hoc basis, for example, the Lao hydropower levies described in the article on energy, should be applied consistently and replicated in neighbouring countries. 4. Users of PAs need to become involved in their management and protection. New collaborative management approaches will be required relating to specific areas, resources and rights of access and to the services and products PAs provide. 5. Underlying all these new directions is the need to build the capacity, skills and budgets of PA managers. Strong PA authorities are essential to the kind of innovation and flexibility required if PA systems are to survive. PA managers must be given the authority, confidence and resources to build working relationships with development sectors and local communities. The directions for change based on the lessons from the Mekong region have global application. Three issues require special attention because of their implications for economic development and conservation in the region: 1. Trans-border cooperation in protected area management provides development benefits to the participating countries. Uplands hold much of the region’s natural wealth. They are relatively remote, forested, rich in biodiversity and concentrated in border areas. Effective trans-border cooperation in conservation management at the landscape level enhances local livelihoods and the quality and timing of water flows to downstream rice and fish producing regions, as well as to industrial and urban areas. The Review found that it promoted economic exchange while helping in the control of wildlife trade. 2. A full range of protected area types in national systems also generates development opportunities. Different types of protected areas serve different functions and objectives, and represent a gradient of human interventions ranging from the strictly protected to the settled and sustainably used areas. All are important and need to be viewed as part of a zoned development landscape of varying intensities of use and protection. Such a rational system of protected areas better serves development and fosters a better understanding of sector contributions in maintaining ecosystem services. 3. Poverty reduction: The role of PAs in poverty reduction will require special treatment. Poverty is a national and regional concern and needs to be addressed through targeted and integrated programmes across all sectors. The PAD Review found that too great an emphasis is being placed on protected areas as a solution to surrounding poverty. They are not. They can become an important part of the solution especially when major sectors begin paying their way for PA benefits they receive, but the management skills, authority and resources are not available to PA agencies to treat poverty reduction as a principle objective along side biodiversity conservation. Governments need to take a comprehensive approach. Compensation, general adjustment assistance, financing and training programmes are needed that involve all sectors and levels of government on a coordinated basis; and if these schemes are to operate effectively, they must be part of the total economic and social planning framework for the regions concerned. Finally, a comment on the PAD Review itself – it has been one step in a shared journey of investigation and action. “Shared” because there are now more than 800 people in the PAD network. The Review was undertaken as the initial activity of the PAD partnership. The partnership operates within the four governments – involving different sectors and levels of government. Most important, it brings together the agencies managing PAs with those managing the economy. The active participation of the economic planning bodies has been impressive. Agencies such as the Ministry of Economic Planning in Cambodia and the National Economic and Social Development Board in Thailand were closely involved in field studies, joint task forces, the preparation of background papers and in overseeing drafting of the PAD national reports. Several hundred national specialists have contributed through 12 national consultative meetings in the four countries and 15 meetings of the national core technical groups – all organised on the initiative of the lead government agencies – and two regional meetings convened by the Mekong River Commission. In 2003, delegations took the results of their national PAD reviews to the World Parks Congress. The international arm of the partnership also brings together development and conservation organisations. UNDP, MRC and the Asian Development Bank, for example, have provided strong technical backing to the review. They are as concerned as their government partners to change the way we do business and to review their own agendas and approach. It is an active and open-ended partnership for the conservation of protected areas as an essential development strategy. A followup PAD programme is under design to support implementation of the national PAD reports. References Carew-Reid, J. (ed). 2002. Biodiversity Planning in Asia. IUCN-The World Conservation Union, Sri Lanka, pp 594. ICEM. 2003a. Protected Areas and Development in the Lower Mekong Region: Regional report. Review of Protected Areas and Development in the Lower Mekong River region. Indooroopilly, Australia. ICEM. 2003b. The Economic Benefits of Protected Areas: Field Studies in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam. Review of Protected Areas and Development in the Lower Mekong River Region. Indooroopilly, Australia.

Director of the International Centre for Environmental Management in Brisbane, Australia. Email: jecr@icem.com.au.

Head of IUCN’s Asia Region Protected Areas Programme. Email: parks-asia@hn.vnn.vn.