International cooperation in conserving biological diversity: a world strategy, international convention, and framework for action

The challenge for protected-area managers in the coming decade is the maintenance, understanding, and wise use of biodiversity. Managers are faced with increasingly complex socioeconomic pressures, often without substantive policy guidelines. The time has come for managers to take the offensive and to be backed up by appropriate national and international policies and support mechanisms. Six actions are proposed and discussed that can serve to place protected-area management in a better position: make biodiversity conservation the focus of protected-area management; develop management practices that implement the goals of biodiversity conservation within surrounding regions; develop the knowledge needed to manage biodiversity; operate protected areas on an experimental basis so that the effectiveness of different interventions can be better evaluated; expand the scope of planning and management to the regional scale; and participate in international programs that support biodiversity goals and management.