Update

Second Latin American Congress of National Parks and Protected Areas

3 December 2007

To see the Info Brief on PDF format with images, figures and footnotes.

2nd Latin American Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas 03 Dec 2007 [pdf, 935 KB]

San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, October 1 - 4, 2007

The second Latin American Congress of National Parks and Protected Areas held in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina was the largest gathering of environmental organizations working in Latin America since the last Congress in 1997, held in Santa Marta. In addition to a showcase of conservation programs coordinated by the largest international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – Conservation International (CI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), The Nature Conservancy (TNC) the conference was also sponsored by the Moore Foundation, McArthur Foundation, the Andean Development Corporation and the World Bank. With over 2000 people attending, the meeting served as a regional preparatory session prior to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Conference in Barcelona, Oct. 5-9, 2008.

The IUCN organized the Congress, although it was not a deliberative process of making broad decisions but rather a four day series of presentations organizing along thematic lines. A lengthy declaration was prepared that was broad, but not deep. Few advocacy specifics were provided.

The primary focus was protected areas management, although a variety of related themes received considerable attention:

Conceptual Protected Areas (PA) management models (Corridors, Binominal Protected Areas, etc.);
Payment Systems for Environmental Services;
The role of indigenous knowledge and people in conservation activities;
Biodiversity science; and
IIRSA and Extractives Projects as a growing threat to LAC conservation.

Big Picture Issues within the PA Conservation Community Achievements since the 1997 Santa Marta Conference were noted:

Greater awareness of LAC region as home to greatest biodiversity on the planet.
Greater awareness of the Carbon value of the Amazon (at $10/ha = $3 trillion).
Significant expansion of PA acreage in Latin America from 120 million hectares in 1992 to more than 300 million hectares today.
Greater coordination among organizations interested in PAs
More funding (government and international cooperation) for PAs
Specific PA related National Legislation advances

Threats/Challenges to Conservation Activities were also evident:

Unclear message (A’s are increasing, PA’s are at risk). Influenced to a large part by the largest environmental organizations (often referred to as BINGOs), the message about conservation in Latin America attempts to fuse two somewhat incompatible themes. On one hand, the emphasis on the positive achievements of conservation in the region, which were considered optimistic and farther along than other developing regions. At the same time, there is equal emphasis on the threats to PAs and unprotected ecosystems in general, calling for eternal vigilance. The message juxtaposes increased areas in the Amazon under formal protection with “exponentially increasing deforestation rates due to the incidence of cattle ranching, mining and oil, logging, agriculture leading to an 18% of forest lost at a rate of 2.3 million ha/year.[1]

Financial Sustainability – Despite the creation of many new protected areas in Latin America, the committed funding on an annual basis or even farther into the future is far short of what is needed to guarantee effective management. CI President Russell Mittermayer attributed a cumulative figure of $700 million in conservation Trust Funds to their work of his organization and others. If divided by the 300 million ha of PAs in existence, this equals about $2.3 per ha. This is far below the average for some developed countries (U.S. - $25.6/ha; Canada - $11/ha and New Zealand - $9.6/ha). Some have suggested that the entire Amazon alone required about $200 million per year to guarantee adequate protection of created PAs.

Competition among BINGOS – BINGOS spent disproportionate energy at the Congress in promoting their own work, launching new strategies, yet offered surprisingly little new information on the science of climate change or habitat protection.

CI promoted its concepts of “hotspots”, key biodiversity areas, areas of zero extinction; and Corridors;
WWF promoted its “Ecoregions”,
Natural Resources Development Council promoted its “biogems”; and
Wildlife Conservation Society promoted its Landscapes

A big rumor during the Congress was the negotiation for a merger between CI and TNC. Negotiations were far along, but the surprise resignation by Steve McCormick, CEO of TNC during the Congress, created confusion about the deal. While TNC is reported to have an asset base of $200 million, it was considered to be a logical partner for CI with its much stronger international program.

Others view the TNC-CI talks as an unwelcome consolidation of power among Northern BINGOs at the expense of Southern conservation organizations. A recent article published in Science by a number of prominent Southern scholars lay out some of these concerns. They argue that the way in which organizations like CI, TNC and the WWF operate is similar to that of multinational corporations. This comes about through the creation of generic programs that serve as brand names under which to obtain funding. The article mentions several BINGO biodiversity naming campaigns as examples of extremely successful fundraising efforts that have not been so effective at conserving biodiversity. There was an increase of 40% to 100% in the budgets of these NGOs in the United States between 1998 and 2005, and in the opinion of the authors, the environmental concepts they use do not succeed in preserving at-risk ecosystems.[2]

A review of the Science article suggests that the key point seems to be that, “even as the resources of these BINGOs continue to grow, the budget of governments and multilateral organizations have shrunk by 50% in the last decade.” BINGO domination of domestic environmental policies is attributed to this disequilibrium that is often tied to funding access. One consequence of this, the article maintains, is a top-down decision-making structure that does not take into account the knowledge offered by local institutions and experts.[3]

Suzana Padua, President of the Brazilian Institute of Ecological Studies and co-author of the article questions the spending priorities of BINGOs that contribute to perpetuation of the power imbalance between Northern and Southern environmental organizations. “Another negative consequence of the influence of BINGOs is the lack of training for local professionals in conservation work. The article states that of the $3.2 billion invested between 1990 and 1997 in the protection of Latin American ecosystems, only 4% were destined for “training.” Today, only 30% of the scientific articles on biodiversity in the Amazon are written by Brazilians. We are entering into partnerships, but the knowledge is being acquired by the First World.”[4]

Governance (Local, Regional, National) – Lack of capacity or commitment by governments at different levels is considered a major challenge to sustainable, effective PA management. One international cooperation representative noted that for some PAs in Latin America, almost the entire budget down to the park guard salaries and vehicles are financed by external donors. Governments are not willing to make similar long-term conservation commitments.

PAs and Indigenous Sovereignty – A parallel meeting of some 80 indigenous leaders focused several days of debate on constructing a new relationship between Original Peoples, governments and national parks.[5] The debate underscored tensions between indigenous concepts of territorial autonomy and BINGO concepts of conservation. Calls were made for IUCN and Latin American governments to fulfill commitments made at the Durban World Conservation Congress meeting related to greater indigenous involvement in IUCN and conservation decision making, restitution of lands annexed within new PAs, and greater protection of indigenous knowledge about biodiversity. The Bariloche Declaration acknowledged some of these issues, but a process for negotiating concrete movement toward agreement before Barcelona appears to be missing.

Tendency toward creation of PAs rather than consolidation – As rampant transport and energy infrastructure threatens the long term viability of many “established” PAs, BINGOs continue to press for the creation of new protected areas and parks. Accountability regarding the effective management of existing PAs has only begun to be discussed in a serious fashion.

Ambiguity about specific position on high risk infrastructure projects – While the profiles of infrastructure integration (IIRSA) and extractives projects were more pronounced, some confusion was evident about whether IIRSA represented a risk to be prevented or an opportunity to create more PAs.

PAs, Inequality and Poverty – Despite increased knowledge of the disproportionate effect of climate change on the poor, which exacerbates insecure land tenure as a cause of deforestation, the link between inequality and conservation remains a relatively new issue. Consequently, the BINGOs are not well equipped to deal with asset inequality in Latin America as key risk factor in effective PA management. IUCN presented a position paper on PAs, inequality and poverty.[6] The predominant focus on information gathering and alliance building as lines of action underscore the relative unpreparedness to address these linkages.

IIRSA and PA Conservation

The first day of the Congress focused on IIRSA and related infrastructure threats to PAs in a Symposium titled Opportunities and Threats from Globalization and Regional Integration. The Symposium began with several keynote speakers on IIRSA (Tim Killeen, Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science of Conservation International in Bolivia and Eduardo Gudynas, director of CLAES (Latin American Center on Global Ecology, based in Uruguay) followed by two simultaneous panels on infrastructure megaprojects and the threats to conservation.

The symposium elevated IIRSA as a recognized threat to many conservation activities. In part, this was due to the launch of a new report by CI author, Tim Killeen, titled A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness.[7] The author treats IIRSA as both a visionary and necessary initiative as well as a potentially high level risk to conservation initiatives. Infrastructure projects that are developed without timely or thorough environmental impact analysis will lead to the worst-case scenario -- widespread deforestation and the eventual loss of the Amazon jungle within three or four decades. The report analyzes several scenarios contingent upon how the risks posed by IIRSA are managed, and then offers a set of recommendations to avoid the worst outcomes. Killeen sees infrastructure integration as an inevitable part of globalization and focuses his recommendations on mitigation. The core recommendations include both traditional approaches of establishing protected areas and emphasize “non-traditional approaches” such as rewarding local forest peoples for not cutting down trees through systems of payments for environmental services.

Eduardo Gudynas, Uruguayan writer and activist, contested Killeen’s perspective by arguing that Latin America should think about selectively delinking from the parts of the global economy that are the most unfair. Gudynas also emphasized that sustainability should focus on a cultural change that questions Latin American consumption patterns and promotes radical alternatives to the current development model.[8] Gudynas distanced himself from the CI proposal and questioned whether the report’s conclusion was overly consistent with unsustainable and unfair production and consumption patterns.

While Gudynas received greater applause, neither speaker was able to provide detailed practical recommendations that were also politically viable in the current geopolitical context of the region. Unfortunately, no real debate was possible between two somewhat polar perspectives and proposals. In terms of the massive threats currently posed by IIRSA and related extractives and agro industrial investments in the Amazon, the political capacity to question, much less slow these investment flows will depend on a hybrid formulation of the idealism of Gudynas’ calls to break with imposed globalization and the realism of the Killeen’s search for practical conservation incentive systems.

Such a debate might have allowed further scrutiny of Killeen’s proposal to reward the 1000 Amazon communities with the monetized benefits of reduced deforestation. Killeen argues that a commitment to reduce deforestation by 5% per year would generate $6.5 billion annually, or the average equivalent of $6.5 million per community per year. At first glance, the magnitude of the financial incentive and the fairness of its distribution make the argument seem worth talking about. However, Latin America is not likely to distribute any new revenue evenly or fairly without some shift in political power behind such a proposal. As Killeen himself recognizes, “the Amazon is not being deforested by communities,” but rather by individual actors (family and corporate). [9] Thus, it is not likely that communities would have unfettered access to carbon financing without significant cuts taken by soy magnate, Blairo Maggi, Bertin, or state politicians. Given recent history, the BINGOs themselves are also likely to get a share. As with Killeen’s recommendation to secure land rights, a better sense of the political strategy for delivering these deals would be helpful.

Similarly, Gudynas is correct to caution our eagerness to assume that IIRSA and the Extractives Gold Rush are the unavoidable and optimal integration and development strategies.[10] For his part, Killeen does note that the current IIRSA development paradigm of exporting natural resources at all cost should be reconsidered although the report does not explore this recommendation. Gudynas goes much farther by claiming that IIRSA is a reflection of a fundamental breakdown in the balance between production and the environment and any discussion of PA management is inextricably linked to the political ecology of global markets and the preference for South America’s insertion in those markets. Gudynas points out the contradictions of Bolvarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) governments and Brazil in failing to adequately explain how their respective development plans differ from the unsustainable and inequitable plans of their neoliberal predecessors. Yet, the proposals offered by Gudynas related to the delinking of Latin America from globalization remain just as lofty and unspecified as Killeen’s ecoservices payment system plans. The symposium might be have been better served by a more extended debate that attempted to reconcile common aspects of both proposals.

Two symposia panels running in parallel offered 12 presentations on different aspects of Regional Integration.[11] In addition to the BIC presentation on the Madeira Hydroelectric Complex, some of the other presentations given in these panels included Allison Silverman and Daniela Sanchez, NRDC on the Hydrosen dam in Patagonia, Chile; Ernesto Luna (Interoceanica Sur Highway – Peru); Alberto Barandiaran and Lourdes Barragan (Hydrocarbon concessions in Peru and the Amazon); Leonardo Fleck, (CSF) Madidi road in Bolivia; Dams and Fish (Claudio Baguin); Brazil Dams (Celio Bermann, USP); a video on threat of Hydroelectric projects in La Amistad National Park, Costa Rica-Panama; Lessons from Sta. Cruz-Pto. Suarez, Carmen Miranda and Dorys Mendez; Vulnerabilities in the Andean Region, Maximo Lieberman – representing OCTA; Arturo Jimenez, Fundacion Arco Iris - mining and PAs in Ecuador.

Following the two panels, the groups were supposed to reconvene into a plenary to discuss collective input into a final Congress document about IIRSA as well as the Congress Declaration itself. However, insufficient time was provided to hear, reflect and discuss on the summaries of the prior panels and to make sense of how the many high quality presentations should be reflected in the final document.

The “Declaration of Bariloche” is a twelve page document that does identify the direct and indirect risks posed by infrastructure projects, although IIRSA is not mentioned. The principal recommendation urges the Congress to “monitor that the commitments, trade and economic development pacts, and infrastructure initiatives do not negatively affect protected areas and diminish the possibilities to achieve conservation objectives and support for the development for which they were created, assured the compliance of international conventions that are binding in our countries.” [12]

Related to Indigenous Peoples, the Declaration also recognizes their inadequate participation in conservation decision making and the violation of collective rights. The Declaration goes on to call for the IUCN “to consider the integration of the concept of Indigenous Territories of Conservation as a legitimate model of governance in protected areas established in the ancestral territory of indigenous people (independent of the PA management category, in recognition of the preferred model of integrating culture and nature, the role of free, prior and informed consent, and the authority of traditional institutions in such territory.”

From the perspective of Congress organizers, both parts of the Declaration were viewed as major advances from the last Congress a decade earlier in Santa Marta. From the perspective of other participants in the Congress, these recommendations were too ambiguous and repetitive of prior commitments, without clearer action guidance.

The Draft Document prepared in advance by Symposium Coordinators reflected the concerns, challenges and opportunities associated with IIRSA, large infrastructure and conservation received considerable attention from workshop participants.[13] Recommendations emphasized inadequate participation, transparency, or accountability in most decision making processes in IIRSA, as well as unclear linkages between projects and objectives standards for cost-benefit analysis, poverty reduction and climate change.

Complementary investments that mitigate negative social and environmental impacts, exercise potential benefits and assure a fair distribution of both are often needed to make infrastructure work for development.

The task of finalizing the Bariloche Regional Integration Document was delegated to the IUCN Commission on Economic, Environmental and Social Policies (or Commission de Politicos Economics, Ambientales y Sociales (CEESP). While the document draft contained many important insights, its current length (40 pages) and unclear process for final editing present the primary obstacles to it becoming an effective advocacy vehicle.

IIRSA and Strategic Environmental Assessments

There is wide acknowledgement that large infrastructure projects by themselves are only part of sustainable development planning. Complementary investments that mitigate negative social and environmental impacts, excercise potential benefits and assure a fair distribuion of both are often needed to make infrastructure work for devoelpment. Absent these complementary investments, large infrastructure projects can have the opposite effect intended by contributing to destructive, unsustainable or conflictive processes that undermine the well-being of the affected population and associated ecosystems.

There is little agreement regarding how to assess the impacts and detect the potential benefits for which investments that complement high risk infrastructure are to be designed. Strategic environmental evaluations (EAEs in Spanish, AAEs in Portuguese) have been used to assess and manage the indirect and cumulative social and environmental impacts of large infrastructure, energy or extractives projects within areas of significant biodiversity or ecological importance. Often with International Financial Institutions (IFI) financing and pressure, Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) are increasingly viewed as one of the necessary measures for the success of large projects in the transport and energy sectors. Recent emblematic SEA cases include:

BR-163 Santarem – Cuiaba Highway, Brazil
Georgetown – Boa Vista Highway, Guyana
Pasto-Mocoa Amazon Highway, Colombia
Southern Interoceanic Highway, Peru
Northern integration Corridor, Peru
Santa Cruz - Puerto Suarez Highway, Bolivia
Corridor Norte Highway, Bolivia
Pacific Highway, Nicaragua
SIEPEC Electricity Inter-connection System
Brazil-Bolivia gas pipeline
Madeira Hydroelectric Complex, Brazil-Bolivia
Camisea Oil and Gas Project, Lower Urubamba, Peru

Regional integration initiatives (IIRSA, Plan Puebla Panamá - PPP) and booming hydrocarbon, agricultural commodities and mineral prices have only accelerated the construction of large, high-risk development projects and in turn intensified the focus on indirect, cumulative impacts. IIRSA is developing a rapid SEA appraisal methodology for analyzing project clusters.[14] Critics of IIRSA and extractives mega-projects have also pointed to greater use of SEAs as a pre-requisite for project approval.[15]

Yet there are no clear or unified set of rules that define the scope, methodology and implementation of SEAs. As such, the track record for conducting SEAs as a mechanism for improving the performance and mitigating the risks has been mixed. On the positive side, the growing recognition that environmental impact assessments (EIA) attention to direct impacts are no longer sufficient for large, high-risk, often trans-border development projects. With the projected growth of infrastructure and extractives investment, this interest and support for SEAs as design tools can be only expected to increase.

On the negative side, the improvised pattern with which many recent assessments have been conducted have often weakened their ability to regulate, improve and in some cases, even influence the projects for which they were designed. In the worst cases, SEAs are deployed with poor terms of reference and long after they could have any meaningful impact. Some development project stakeholders have viewed SEAs in these instances as cooptative and deceptive exercises that are designed to minimize project opposition rather than achieve objective, scientific-based conclusions to be implemented on the ground, with the necessary public and social commitment to do so.

This observed lack of guidance for how to conduct SEAs is particularly evident in the gaps in national legislation of most Latin American countries that regulate the construction of highways, pipelines, mines and dams. Transport and energy officials have expressed the urgent need for policy that clarifies the goals, procedures and role responsibilities for the design and implementation of SEAs. Factors needing clarification, which have been emphasized by government and private sector officials involved include: timing, scope, cost, civil society involvement, governmental commitment at various levels, and conditionality with respect to project finance, implementation governance and monitoring.

Despite the investments made in SEAs in Latin America, inadequate effort has been made to synthesize the learning from these pioneering studies as the basis for the upward harmonization of the operational ground rules/norms for SEAs toward the highest possible standards. Building on the few recent efforts synthesize and learn from existing SEA experiences, there is an urgent recognition by project stakeholders of past, ongoing and future SEA projects to share learning, assess their performance, and discuss minimal standards for SEA use.

Effective Management of Protected Areas

Throughout the conference, a major focus was on defining, promoting and assessing effective management of protected areas. Among other symposia, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation sponsored a workshop to discuss the rationale and methods for shifting conservation actions from PA creation to consolidation. The Foundation has been a primary driver in the expansion of protected areas in Latin America. However, the Andean Amazon Initiative of the Moore Foundation is focusing increasingly on the key aspects of effective PA management - or the factors that determine the quality of PA management. The approach involves establishing minimum basic PA management benchmarks and moving toward enhanced PA management and finally consolidation. Financial sustainability is one of the keys to effective PA management, particularly in frontier (cross border) zones.

The map below identifies the different types of PAs within the Andean Amazon region with a description below of the observed effectiveness in each type of PA in terms of preserving climatological function of rainforest through canopy coverage and protecting habitat for biodiversity. While there is little variation in the first goals of climate protection through canopy protection, with the exception of agriculture, there is considerable decline in habitat (biodiversity) protection in regimes other than “strict protection.” Of these, Indigenous Reserves fare best.

The debate over optimal strategies for effective PA management rests on the conceptualization of this goal and the consequent prioritization of measurable indicators for assessing progress. Toward this end, a number of innovative initiatives are underway in Latin America with the support of the Moore Foundation, regional governments and others, that will prove useful testing grounds for establishing minimum criteria for effective management. The Foundation proposed a continuum of PA management regimes that varied according to the type of protected area and the level of consolidation. The most relevant factors in distinguishing the level of consolidation included the resolution of land tenure issues; clarity of boundaries; adequate, qualified staff and infrastructure; existence and implementation of a science based and participatory management plan that encompasses ongoing and future economic activities; management capacity of local actors; viable budget, transparent resource use and medium term financial plans.

Consolidation of Protected Areas is defined as: The implementation of a mosaic of land uses that promotes conservation and allows appropriate socioeconomic development. This requires application of all strategies to consolidate governance structures, legislation, management capacities, science-based management plans, and enforcement. It protects habitat while allowing rational socio-economic development to occur.

The limitation with focusing disproportionately on PA creation was highlighted during the Congress by the Peruvian government’s efforts to weaken protections on the Bahuaja Sonene National Park to allow for oil exploration and the plans to auction off close to 70% of the country’s Amazon region for hydrocarbon exploration. Unless there are strong institutional incentives favoring PAs, these apparent victories are apparently reversible.

Unsurprisingly, considerable emphasis within PA management is placed on establishing the financial sustainability. The annual cost of managing PAs in the Amazon is estimated at $200 million. However the committed funding in each country is considerably lower. One study shows that funding for PAs in Latin America derives from a few key sources (multilateral banks, international NGOs, bilateral cooperation, and private sector), although the relative weight of these sources varies in different countries. In Brazil between 1995 and 2004, the total investment in protected areas totaled about $200 million, of which public budgets provided close 50%, Multilateral banks and funds – 19%, bilateral cooperation – 20%; BINGOs – 12% and private sector – 3%. During this period, the budget of IBAMA – the Brazilian Environmental Control Agency, declined by 44.5% in real terms.[16] Compare this rather miserly commitment to AP management with the $240 billion in infrastructure contemplated in Brazil’s Accelerated Development Plan.

A Brazilian government program (ARPA Amazon Region Protected Areas Program) suggested that an endowment fund of $240 million was needed to ensure effective management of PAs for 50 million ha. In some countries (i.e. Peru), external funding is literally underwriting much of the actual implementation of protected area management costs.[17]

What is often not discussed is the misuse of available funds for PA management. In a recent review of PA Management in three Latin American countries, Dourojeanni and Quiroga report widespread stakeholder concerns with the bureaucratization of conservation agencies, the excessive costs and low utility of many conservation activities, the many persistent obstacles to civil society oversight and participation in conservation decision making.[18]

Another equally important element for achieving PA consolidation according to a presentation by Wildlife Conservation Society is that the commitments toward effective management of PAs become locked in, or institutionalized. Institutionalization can range from the national level defined statutes or laws for conservation to other lower levels of governance through the insertion of conservation commitments into local or regional development plans. Other indicators include might include the existence of government procedures and capacity to implement PA management plans. A major challenge for improving government role in managing PAs is clarifying responsibilities between different levels of government, particularly in the areas of zoning, tax collection and distribution, infrastructure construction and maintenance, and law enforcement.

However, a complementary dimension of institutional change involves less emphasis on the policing or enforcement of PAs and more on the political or economic causes of activities driving deforestation and unsustainable land use. One Amazon expert argues that, “forest loss is influenced not so much by environment policy per se as by these wider economic activities (export oriented ranching, logging, mining or soy farming) and the market forces that drive them.” [19] Deforestation rates, argues economist Anthony Hall, are more closely correlated with the fluctuation of commodity prices than the existence or effectiveness of environmentally friendly policies. Conservation effectiveness must unavoidably confront the politics of development planning, and as such squarely contemplate the threats posed by extractives and infrastructure investments and the forces behind them.

Conservation effectiveness must unavoidably confront the politics of development planning, and as such squarely contemplate the threats posed by extractives and infrastructure investments and the forces behind them.

It migh follow that ensuring the institutionalization of conservation commitments means greater engagement in public policy in Andean Amazon countries. However, here the debate in recent years over AP management has become much more complicated. A recurrent theme among representatives of the largest conservation NGOs was the growing risk associated with political instability. Recently elected governments Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and in a different way, Brazil, are challenging the, until recently, unquestioned authority and funding of international and national NGOs, particularly those raising questions about the infrastructure and extractives development policy. The Amazon Basin Conservation Initiative (ABCI), a new $50 million U.S. funded, multi-stakeholder conservation initiative along with some associated BINGOs participating in it, have been challenged by host governments as threats to national sovereignty. Brazil has effectively stalled ABCI projects in the Amazon and Bolivia has called on all internationally funded cooperation to demonstrate its alignment with the National Development Plan. Perú and Colombia have both experimented with new legislation that imposes greater transparency and reporting requirements on internationally funded organizations, which by some accounts is tuned to those most vocally questioning current development policies.

While the national governments are the primary targets of any future conservation advocacy, the debate about effective PA management tends to underestimate the role played by the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). In this epoch of booming mineral and oil prices, the lending profile of the once dominant MDBs has diminished in light of rapidly growing competition from national development banks (BNDES, BANDES, perhaps Bank of the South) as well as Subregional Banks such as the CAF, and finally the more obscure equity funds and private finance from China, India and the North. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank now operate in a more crowded field, but provide critical backing for some of the most cutting edge and high risk development projects (IDB support for Camisea Gas I and II in Peru; IFC support for Bertin Cattle Slaughterhouses in Brazil; IDB recapitalization of PetroEcuador; and IDB/CAF promotion of IIRSA infrastructure projects in general).[20] While these institutions have failed to build strong environmental institutions, while investing modestly in carbon finance markets, alternative clean energy technologies, and climate change science, they pour billions more in fossil fuel energy production and unsustainable economic activities in the Amazon. Confronting the causes of Amazon deforestation involves more attention to the agenda setting power of the MDBs and new emerging financial institutions.

Beyond the conceptual work of agreeing on the definitions of effective or consolidated management of protected areas, the future task will be building the baseline information to permit assess different indicators. For many of the proposed indicators (land tenure, risk assessment of illicit economic activities, planned infrastructure or extractives investments, and actual AP expenditures) the challenges to accessing timely, accurate information are formidable.

Conclusions

The Second Latin American Congress of National Parks and Protected Areas offered a variety of messages about the next decade of conservation in the region. On one hand, the vibrant and diverse participation in the Congress reflected the increased awareness of the relevance of Latin America’s role in global conservation, biodiversity and climate change challenges.

On the other hand, despite the recognition of urgent risks posed by infrastructure and extractive investments as well as the policy decisions driving them, the Congress served more as an information clearinghouse than an agile vehicle for collective political action toward addressing those risks.

Participants look forward to the World Congress hosted by IUCN in October in 2008 in Barcelona, where stock will hopefully be taken of these and other issues again.

[1] Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, “Creation and Effective Management of Protected Areas” Oct. 2, 2007, Bariloche.

[2] “Globalization of Conservation: A View from the South,” J. P. Rodríguez, A. B. Taber, P. Daszak, R. Sukumar, C. Valladares-Padua, S. Padua, L. F. Aguirre, R. A. Medellín, M. Acosta, A. A. Aguirre, C Bonacic, P. Bordino, J. Bruschini, D. Buchori, S. González, T. Mathew, M. Méndez, L. Mugica, L. F. Pacheco, A. P. Dobson, and M. Pearl, Science 10 August 2007: 755-756; See also Gerardo Ceballos and Paul R. Ehrlich (2007) “Global mammal distributions, biodiversity hotspots, and conservation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0609334103v1?etoc

[4] “Globalization of Conservation: A View from the South,” J. P. Rodríguez, et al (2007)

[5] “Latin America Indians conference in Bariloche,” Buenos Aires Herald http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=11380&formato=HTM

[6] UICN Sur (2007) Fomentando la equidad y la gestion ambiental efectiva en America Latina; y “Pasos hacia la Equidad y la Sustentabilidad: Informe de Avance 2006,” UICN Sur

[7] Tim Killeen (2007) A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness: Development and Conservation in the Context of the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA), published by Conservation International – Center in Applied Biodiversity Science, No. 7, see

[8] http://www.ambiental.net/noticias/biodiversidad/CongresoPAsBariloche2007.htm

[9] Killeen, (2007:10)

[10] Eduardo Gudynas (2007) “Las Areas Protegidas Latinoamericanos en el Siglo XXI, Desafios Crecientes, Medidas Urgentes.”

[11] Marcela Valente, “LATIN AMERICA: Nine Roads Through the Virgin Wilderness,” IPS, http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39509

[12] Declaracion de Bariloche, (2007) pg. 10

[13] Oportunidades y Amenazas de la Globalizacion e Integracion Regional: Documento Base para la Discusion, Jorge Cappato, Oct. 2007.

[14] CAF EAE Methodology (2007)

[15] Killeen (2007) “A Perfect Storm”, Ch. 6.

[16] Dourojeanni and Quiroga (2006: 85). In 2005, IBAMA employed the equivalent of 1 staff member for almost 2,300 square miles. By one estimate, only 3% of fines imposed by IBAMA are collected. Anthony Hall, Aug. 13, 2007, “The Role of the Public Sector,” American Prospect.

[17] Dourojeanni and Quiroga (2006) “Gestión de áreas protegidas para la conservación de la biodiversidad: evidencias de Brasil, Honduras, y Perú,” Washington, D.C.: BID.

[18] Dourojeanni and Quiroga (2006:59)

[19] Anthony Hall, Op cit.

[20] For more see www.biceca.org