Thursday, July 31, 2008

World Conservation Monitoring Centre

The World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), a collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and WCMC 2000, a UK-based charity, has a mandate from the UNEP Governing Council to provide a range of biodiversity-related services to UNEP, the biodiversity-related conventions and their constituent party-states and other bodies in the non-governmental and private sectors. The Centre is working on the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and its web site provides an interactive map service that allows the user to create customised maps online or specific regions, incorporating information on environmental sensitivities such as protected areas, breeding areas, species and background information.

Publications available for download from the site include A Global Review of Protected Area Budgets and Staff, Freshwater Biodiversity: A Preliminary Global Assessment, Biodiversity Conservation in the Tropics - Gaps in Habitat Protection and Funding Priorities, Biodiversity and Poverty Reduction; The importance of biodiversity for ecosystem services, and Private protected areas : a preliminary study of private initiatives to conserve biodiversity in selected African countries.

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