Guidance and toolkit for impact assessments in a World Heritage context (Arabic)

This report presents findings from an assessment of the biodiversity conservation potential of four project sites: Lobaye, Mambéré-Kadéï, Ombella-Mpoko, and Sangha-Mbaéré located in the Bangui region of the Central African Republic (CAR). This assessment was done using the Species Threat Abatement and Recovery (STAR) metric, which employs  high-resolution imagery and an approach to modelling species’ Area of Habitat (AOH) that was revised after June 2020 among other enhancements. This work was undertaken to better inform threat abatement and restoration planning and implementation at the partner project sites, and as part of a wider effort to pilot and strengthen the use of STAR as a  tool for restoration and conservation practitioners, communities, investors, and policymakers.

This is the first volume in the WCPA Good Practice Guidelines that is predominantly by rangers, for rangers. The editors worked with partners to collect good practices and stories from rangers worldwide, reflecting global experience and lessons learned. The text focuses on actions that rangers, and to a lesser extent managers, can do themselves. It does not address institutional changes that would need intervention at government level. Whilst the latter are often necessary, decisions are out of the hands of individual rangers. Nor is the guide the last word on the state of play, another global ranger survey is being carried out simultaneously with the production of these guidelines and we will continue to learn about ranger needs, strengths and challenges in the future.

This Guidance for using the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions accompanies the Global Standard to provide the scientific basis and guidance for users.

Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) are sites outside protected areas that deliver effective and long-term in situ conservation of biodiversity. Biodiversity conservation may be the primary objective of the site, a secondary objective of a site that is managed for other purposes, or it may be an unintended consequence of the way the site is managed. OECMs may be governed and managed by governments, private entities or Indigenous peoples and local communities, or a combination of these. This tool guides an assessor through three steps to apply eight criteria which determine if a site qualifies as an OECM as set out under the Convention on Biological Diversity. For sites which do not currently meet all the criteria, the tool serves to highlight areas where further information or improvements in governance and management are required.

With 26 case studies from 10 multinational companies, this publication highlights their positive actions, interventions and initiatives contributing to specific conservation and restoration goals. The concrete examples illustrate a pivotal part of their work which have direct impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem on their sites and operations, focused on a variety of additional and proactive biodiversity conservation and restoration actions more commonly within the landscape and seascape. The different case studies seek to present current voluntary practices and initiatives that are above and beyond addressing the negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services onsite. While not exhaustive, these case studies seek to be illustrative of current voluntary practices and demonstrative of some of the kinds of initiatives that are currently being carried out.

Nature (covering the water, biodiversity, soil/land, and air/climate realms) continues to decline with significant negative impacts on society. Businesses need to understand their impacts and  dependencies on nature, manage their nature-related risks and embed the value of nature into their decision making to identify and implement opportunities that contribute towards the nature-positive global goal. Achieving nature-positive requires collective action across sectors, value chains and landscapes. Fundamentally, nature-positive represents a systemic and transformative shift rather than ‘re-shaping’ of current practices. Utilising prioritisation approaches can enable businesses to identify areas where they can have a material and meaningful  contribution from the outset as systemic and transformative change is adopted through the business.