Iwokrama does what so many international conventions have acknowledged as best practice... it has begun conservation locally and integrated conservation into national development.
Iwokrama's Approach
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) and the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD)
both reiterate the need for demonstrative models of tropical forest management. Iwokrama addresses key IPF recommendations including:
- Encouraging countries to utilise policies that use holistic inter-sectoral approaches based on ecosystem concepts to integrate the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of biological resources.
- Urging countries to include capacity building as an objective with a focus on training, extension services, technology transfer and financial assistance and taking due account of local, traditional knowledge.
- Encouraging countries to use partnerships as a potential approach to improve coordination and cooperation between all national and international partners.
Forest Management Zones
The zoning processes required characterization of the biophysical, social, and cultural environment of the Iwokrama Forest through review of the information compiled during the 1992 Natural Resources Institute's (NRI) Phase I Site Resource Surveys.
Additional resources were used and included research on archaeology, indigenous community uses of the Iwokrama Forest, Amerindian social, economic, and cultural appraisals, vertebrate fauna and flora surveys, several forest timber inventories, and coverages of hydrological, topographical and forest types features developed from aerial photographs, Landsat, and radar images.
As part of the zoning process, Iwokrama undertook a key plant species strategic inventory, forest type reclassification, surveys of infrastructure (e.g., trails and roads), surveys of the road corridor, and a local consultation to discuss community use of the Iwokrama Forest.
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