Multi-level co-management in government-designated protected areas – opportunities to learn from models in mainland Southeast Asia

Abstract

There is broad consensus that the ecological-social landscapes for government-designated protected areas should comprise core areas and their surrounding buffer zones and that the essential tasks for managing these landscapes should comprise: (i) ecological research and monitoring, (ii) law enforcement, (iii) community outreach and awareness raising, (iv) community livelihoods development and engagement with community managed lands, (v) ecotourism, and (vi) habitat management. This paper proposes that these tasks should not necessarily be undertaken by the protected area agency alone. Instead, it recommends investigation into the development of protected area management working groups in the different fields of management, whereby these networks create institutional linkages between the grassroots communities, other local stakeholders and a protected area co-management committee. The paper draws from the authors’ experiences and briefly describes models for such local networks already being implemented in northern Vietnam and Laos for protected areas with high biodiversity values. While many of the approaches described are still too young to draw conclusive evidence of their efficacy, their implementation demonstrates that local interest for innovative approaches to co-management can be generated.