Photo: Greig Cranna, QLF |
An International Working Session
The Conservation Study Institute and QLF/Atlantic Center for the
Environment convened a working session in partnership with the World
Conservation Union's (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas
in June 1999. The purpose of the session was to discuss new directions
and share international experience and innovations for protecting
landscapes with natural and cultural value around the world. This
protection would be linked to sustainable development and would
involve local people in the stewardship of these special places.
Twenty-two landscape conservationists participated, representing
an international mix of approaches and issues. Case studies were
presented from places as diverse as Andean South America, Oceania,
the Eastern Caribbean, Europe, and northeastern North America. The
meeting was hosted by the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical
Park in Woodstock, Vermont, and co-sponsored by the George Wright
Society, the International Centre for Protected Landscapes, and
the United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments
and Sites (US/ICOMOS).
The Institute has published the proceedings from the working session.
Landscape
Conservation: An International Working Session on the Stewardship
of Protected Landscapes, Conservation and Stewardship Publication
No. 1 (PDF format* - 1,563 KB)
The Institute has also published the proceedings from a related public forum (below).
International Concepts in Protected Landscapes: Exploring their Value for Communities in the Northeast, Conservation and Stewardship Publication No. 2 (PDF format* - 620 KB) |
A Public Forum
Sixty conservation practitioners from across the northeastern
United States were joined in a public forum by 20 international
conservation professionals who had just concluded the two-day
working session described above. The forum, "Protecting Working
Landscapes: An International Perspective," explored ways
to conserve working landscapes--places where people live and work.
This new model of landscape conservation is becoming increasingly
relevant in a world where many stewardship challenges are found
close to home. The concept of Protected Landscape, Category V
in the IUCN system of management categories, provides an approach
for integrating biodiversity conservation, cultural heritage protection,
and sustainable use of resources while providing a way to support
leadership by local people in the stewardship of these resources.
The public forum offered participants the chance to learn about
conservation work being done in other regions of the world, to
exchange ideas and lessons learned from their own experience,
and to renew their own commitment to the protection of our natural
and cultural heritage here in the northeastern United States.
For many participants engaged in stewardship at the local and
regional levels, this international viewpoint offered a fresh
perspective on their work.
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