A project to identify and categorise the places in the UK where the conservation of nature and landscape comes first IUCN’s new guidelines on protected area management categories were published in 2008. In the light of this advice, Nik Lopoukhine, Chair of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), has asked IUCN NCUK to revise and expand the application of IUCN protected area categories in the UK and to improve coverage of UK protected areas on the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). In response to this request, IUCN UK has set up the Putting Nature of the Map (PNOTM) project.
 

PNOTM began in 2011 with the establishment of the IUCN NCUK Protected Areas Working Group. Consultants Middlemarch Environmental coordinated Phase 1 of the project, and the CME consultancy coordinated Phase 2. 

 

Drawing on the work done to date, the IUCN National Committee UK Protected Areas Working Group has now produced a Handbook to assist in the application of IUCN Protected Area Categories to UK sites. This key document is available for download here. 

 

Funding for Phases 3 and 4 (data collection, analysis and reporting) is now being sought.

 

New PACC Newsletter Published - catch up with the latest news from the IUCN NCUK Protected Areas Working Group here 

 

The newly published Guidelines for applying IUCN Protected Area Management Categories to Marine Protected Areas can be found at:

Roger Crofts, a member of the IUCN NCUK Protected Area Working Group and the PA Assessment Panel presented the work of the Putting Nature on The Map project at the World Conservation Congress in a workshop coordinated by fellow co-workers Sue Stolton and Nigel Dudley.