The search for strategies and tools to improve protected area management in the Chilean Patagonia –helping them meet their stated conservation goal– led us to support the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas system. This tool is an opportunity for national protected areas –regardless of their governance scheme– to move forward towards effective management and to deliver successful biodiversity conservation outcomes based on a standard that integrates a cutting edge vision of PA development and management.
Hence, in 2020, jointly with the Chilean Forestry Service (CONAF) and The Pew Charitable Trusts, we became an implementing party of the Green List in Chile, providing technical and financial support for the establishment of this system in the country.
In year 2012, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) began to develop its certification program called Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas, a tool to support national governments and stakeholders in meeting global biodiversity conservation targets by improving their protected areas’ management. Hence, the Green List is a certification program that provides a certificate to protected areas that achieve successful management, determined by the compliance of a standard with indicators developed and approved by IUCN members. The benefits of this tool eventually translate into the conservation of nature and its multiple ecological, socioeconomic, cultural, and spiritual values.
At the heart of the IUCN Green List is a Sustainability Standard that provides a global benchmark to assess social, environmental, and/or economic factors in a protected area. This international –but locally applied– standard is made up of four components broken down into 17 criteria.
In turn, these criteria give rise to 50 indicators, making it in one of the most demanding standards at the international level.
While there is an international Green List standard, each country can adapt it to its own case and generate a national standard, with own indicators and verifiers that are validated by the IUCN. This work is led by a panel called the Expert Assessment Group for the Green List (EAGL), the members of which are elected by the IUCN. The national standard is then validated by an external assurance agency called Accreditation Services International (ASI).
A protected area willing achieve a Green List status must go through three phases:
Application Phase: An online registration is made at the IUCN site; five basic indicators should be met and a PANORAMA Solution published.
Candidate Phase: Proving the compliance of 50 indicators with documents and field visits. This evaluation is in charge of the EAGL.
Green List Phase: Achieved once the area’s application has been admitted by the global level IUCN Green List committee.
The sites with a IUCN Green List status have been certified in acknowledgement of their effective management and fair governance, with positive long-term benefits for people and nature. Every five years, these sites are reassessed to verify the compliance of the criteria defined by the IUCN Green List standard.
At present, 61 protected areas in 57 countries have an IUCN Green List status.
The first specific steps to move forward in the implementation of the Green List in Chile took place in 2020.
