Peace parks as a transboundary approach to conservation

Subject :Environment

Section :Biodiversity

Conflicts over disputed borders, increasingly exacerbated by climate change, are putting some of the world’s key biodiversity hotspots at risk.
Even in countries that have avoided border wars, a global campaign of fence building — aimed at keeping out human migrants whose numbers are rising in an era of climate change and sociopolitical unrest — is causing widespread damage to vulnerable natural landscapes and migratory animal species.
In potential conflict zones like the Himalayas, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the South China Sea, this surging human march across national frontiers has already led to violence, and in some cases to open warfare.
Border-straddling conservation zones known as peace parks offer a more sustainable way of managing border disputes than militarization and fence building. Peace parks on the U.S.-Canada border and in the Himalayas offer successful examples.
Today, four international peace parks sit astride that border: Peace Arch Park (Washington/British Columbia); Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (Montana/Alberta); International Peace Garden (North Dakota/Manitoba); and Roosevelt Campobello International Park (Maine/New Brunswick).

Peace Parks

A “Park for Peace” is a special designation that may be applied to any of the three types of Transboundary Conservation Areas, and is dedicated to the promotion, celebration and/or commemoration of peace and cooperation (IUCN, 2015).
These protected areas may include some different land uses within their boundaries. The three primary goals of transboundary protected areas are usually the conservation of biodiversity, socio-economic development and the promotion of a culture of peace and cooperation.
The identification and designation of Peace Parks by cooperating jurisdictions should include only those areas where the agreed management objectives explicitly recognize both a protected area and a no conflict zone.