The Promise of Sydney: an editorial essay

Abstract

The IUCN World Parks Congress is a once in a decade event that has traditionally been a major forum for advancing global protected area policy and practice. The Congress this November in Sydney Australia will be run along eight streams; addressing biodiversity, climate change, health, ecosystem services, development, governance, indigenous peoples issues and youth; cross-cutting themes address marine issues, capacity building, World Heritage and a New Social Compact. In the following extended editorial, the organisers of the various streams lay out their aims and hopes for the 2014 Congress.

Protected area conflicts: a state-of-the-art review and a proposed integrated conceptual framework for reclaiming the role of geography

“…For example, a discussion on any form of perceptions would not be possible without highlighting the role of social or psychological conflict determinants. This approach contrasts with those derived from positivistic social sciences, which require the existence of several objective and general rules governing people's actions (Rosenberg 2008). Ide (2016) clearly illustrated the multi-layered character of conflict frames or images.…”

“…Last, when adopting the constructionist/constructivist assumption, a researcher should be aware of several constraints that would inevitably be faced during the research process. These include the superficial character of respondents' conflict-related statements (Madden and McQuinn 2014;Shmueli 2008;Sites 1990), especially if contact between the researcher and respondent occurs just once; biases in respondents' statements that stem from reflexiveness of the research process (Rosenberg 2008); and a researcher's biases during the stage of data interpretation, which will never be free from the researchers' own social constructions of the phenomena under investigation (Hellström 2001).…”

Untitled

“…As outlined in PARKS (Sandwith et al, 2014), the programme for the meeting encompassed a broad scope of discussions under the headline of Inspiring Solutions for Parks, People and Planet. The event aimed to: (i) find better and fairer ways to conserve natural and cultural diversity, involving governments, businesses and citizens in establishing and managing parks; (ii) inspire people around the world and across generations to reconnect with nature; and (iii) demonstrate nature's solutions to our planet's challenges such as climate change, health, food and water security.…”

Synergies and trade‐offs in achieving global biodiversity targets

“…In the wake of the 2014 World Parks Congress, which called for countries to make better progresses toward this goal (Sandwith et al. ), we considered how such expansion of the PA network could directly contribute to the achievement of other targets. Through a case study on forests, we considered whether Target 11 could be achieved by adding or expanding PAs at the forefront of rapid loss of natural habitat, where the highest rates of forest loss occur, to maximize the contribution to meeting Target 5 (reducing the loss of natural habitat).…”

“…Under Aichi Target 11, governments recognize that protected areas (PAs) are an effective conservation tool and commit to protecting at least 17% of the planet's terrestrial surface by 2020, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services. In the wake of the 2014 World Parks Congress, which called for countries to make better progresses toward this goal (Sandwith et al 2014), we considered how such expansion of the PA network could directly contribute to the achievement of other targets. Through a case study on forests, we considered whether Target 11 could be achieved by adding or expanding PAs at the forefront of rapid loss of natural habitat, where the highest rates of forest loss occur, to maximize the contribution to meeting Target 5 (reducing the loss of natural habitat).…”