Enhancing Capacity for Effective Management of Coastal and Marine World Heritage Sites of the Asia-Pacific Region

26 Feb, 2016

GIZ's CMPA Project in partnership with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the West Bengal Forest Department conducted an international workshop on “Enhancing Capacity for Effective Management of Coastal and Marine World Heritage Sites of the Asia-Pacific Region.”

Participants at the workshop jointly organised by the CMPA project, the Wildlife Institute of India, and the West Bengal Forest Department

The workshop, organised from 26 to 28 February 2016 in Sunderbans was attended by representatives of federal states in India that are involved in the management of coastal protected areas, representatives from Bangladesh and Maldives, and IUCN Experts with longstanding experience in protected area management in Australia and the Pacific.

WII is a committed partner to the CMPA Project, in developing and implementing training courses on conservation and management issues in the coastal areas. On account of its achievements in facilitating capacity development, knowledge sharing and research, UNESCO World Heritage Centre has recently designated the WII, as a Category 2 Centre, making it the world's first such centre dealing exclusively with Natural World Heritage. WII is mandated to cater to the needs of about 50 countries in the entire Asia-Pacific Region, mainly by building the capacity of all those professionals and bodies involved with world natural heritage sites. WII thus joins the ranks of 8 such Centres in China, Norway, South Africa, Bahrain, Mexico, Italy, Brazil and Spain. The workshop was jointly organised under the mandate of this Category 2 centre at WII.

Dr. Aaron Lobo giving a presentation on the “economic dimensions of marine conservation”

Dr. J. Michael Vakily (Team Leader of the CMPA project) and Dr Aaron Lobo (Technical Advisor for the CMPA project) made presentations dealing with the importance of marine conservation to maintain the economic value of the seafood market, and the GIZ approach to training and capacity development, respectively. Dr. Vakily also chaired the concluding session on the way forward.

The topics of the workshop included:

• Introduction to the existing policy and legal issues, international guidelines and framework of management planning concerning coastal and marine World Heritage Sites (WHS).
• Disaster risk reduction, climate proofing, adoption of mitigation measures in response to climate change.
• Share of experiences and best practices in coastal and marine WHS management in the Asian and Pacific region.

Ultimately the workshop was meant to develop a road map towards capacity building for effective management of coastal and marine WHS in the region.

The workshop’s conclusion underlined the importance of undertaking systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of protected area management. It also showed the need to provide support to strengthening the capacity of institutions in the region much in line with the training program currently developed by Dr. Neeraj Khera, CMPA Senior Technical Advisor on Human Capacity Development in collaboration with WII.