Aichi Target 11 (AT11), adopted by 193 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, states that protected areas (PAs) must be equitably managed by 2020. The rationale behind equity concerns in AT11 is that benefits arising from PAs are experienced at multiple scales, including global, whereas the burdens associated with PAs fall predominantly on local stakeholders. Besides ethical issues about social equity, a lack of understanding and efforts to address social inequity in PAs at local scales can result in failed conservation or can make conservation more costly for governments and donors.
Equity refers to minimum standards that all members of society are entitled to. Social equity in PAs refers to “PAs established and managed in close collaboration with, and through equitable processes that recognize and respect the rights of indigenous and local communities, and vulnerable populations; and such costs and benefits of the areas are fairly shared” (CBD, 2010). However, significant challenges remain in terms of actual operationalization of equitable management in PAs and its progress report on AT11. These challenges include, among others, the lack of a standardized approach to assess and monitor social equity and the difficulty of reducing social equity to a series of metrics and global indexes.
The aim of this project was to develop an innovative and interdisciplinary methodological approach to track global achievement of equity in PAs from case studies; specifically:
To build a common understanding to facilitate the integration of current multidisciplinary approaches addressing equity.
To gather information and evidence available related to equity in PAs from multiple cases at local scale.
To assess equity in PAs and track progress on reaching the goal of equitably managed PAs in the AT11.
