THE IUCN WORLD COMMISSION ON PROTECTED AREAS
YOUNG PROTECTED AREA PROFESSIONALS GROUP
Newsletter No. 1, August 2009
1. WCPA YOUNG PA PROFESSIONALS group Update
§ GROUP LAUNCHED
§ a bit of history
§ WCPA young members orientation package
§ YP GROUP membership and STRUCTURE - DEPUTIES NEEDED!
§ Yahoo group and network at linked in
§ WORK PLAN FINALIZED
2. OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
§ INTERNSHIPS AVAILABLE
§ VACANCIES INFO
3. CONSERVATION EVENTS and WCPA YOUNG PROFESSIONALS
§ POWPA FUTURES WORKSHOP, KOREA, SEPTEMBER 2009
§ WILD 9, MEXICO, NOVEMBER 2009
§ INTERNATIONAL RANGER CONGRESS, BOLIVIA, NOVEMBER 2009
4. PUBLICATIONS AND LINKS TO THE WEB
§ POWPA SUPPORT CONSORTIUM ON FACEBOOK
§ WDPA – NEW WEBSITE AVAILABLE
§ PLANET OCEAN – GOOGLE EARTH
§ CONSERVEONLINE
§ NEW PUBLICATION: “Young people, education, and sustainable development” by Peter Blaze Corcoran and Philip M. Osano
5. YOUNG PA PROFESSIONAL OF THE WEEK
§ REBECCA KOSS
6. YOUR FEEDBACK NEEDED
1. WCPA YOUNG PA PROFESSIONALS group Update
Dear WCPA Colleagues,
Welcome to new WCPA Young PA Professionals Group!
I’m very happy to start working with you. I see the goal of this group is in stimulating more active and meaningful participation of young PA leaders in the Commission’s work. My first intention is to make this group useful for you as its members, so, please, do send me your feedback on all, we’re doing – it would be highly appreciated!
Benefits we’re going to provide for you as young WCPA members will include:
§ the list serve, group at LinkedIn and other similar resources: international network of young PA professionals and, through it, contacts with wider international PA experts network;
§ quarterly newsletter and/or separate/WCPA linked website: info on career opportunities, capacity building possibilities and global events in PA field plus general info on global PA-related issues of major importance;
§ offline meetings of young WCPA members: in co-operation with relevant youth and conservation events, activities, organized by WCPA Regional Vice-chairs, independent regional, thematic and global meetings;
§ Buddy system: linking young PA specialists with senior PA experts of similar professional interests;
§ connection of young members to existing WCPA Specialist Groups, Task Forces, projects and experts;
§
§ participation in WCPA publications: young specialists contributions for WCPA Best Practice Series publications, “Parks” magazine etc.
As you know, WCPA is a largest global volunteering network of protected areas experts. And as such, it can only work if you contribute to it within your areas of professional interests. While trying to provide benefits for you, we’re asking you to be active yourselves and contribute as much as you can to our efforts as well as to other WCPA/IUCN programs, projects, Task Forces and Specialist Groups. I do hope our work will be on interactive character – and I’m sure we’ll all win from it.
Best wishes,
Svetlana L. Kopylova, WCPA Vice-chair on Intergenerational Partnerships
WCPA Vice-chair on Intergenerational Partnerships (YP Group Leader)
Ms. Svetlana L. Kopylova comes from Russia (Moscow) with a professional background in building capacity of Protected Area staff and relevant stakeholders. For more than 5 years, she’s worked as the Head of PA Training Center within Russian NGO “Center “Zapovedniks”. Her main fields of expertise contain establishment and management of PA Training Centers, development and conduction of training sessions, study visits for PA staff, project management, planning and evaluation, fund raising for PA projects, environmental education, eco-tourism, preparation of best practice materials for international PA Training Centers, consulting for PAs etc. Svetlana is a Geographer (Moscow State University) and Sociologist (MSU-Sorbonne University), and is currently working on her PhD.
Svetlana is a member of World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) of IUCN since 2005 and member of European Training Task Force of WCPA since 2007. In 2009 she was selected to become Vice-Chair of WCPA/IUCN on Intergenerational Partnerships.
A bit of history
At the 2004 World Conservation Congress in Bangkok a mandate from IUCN Members to the DG IUCN to establish a Young Professionals Programme within The Union was accepted. Different youth initiatives in this regards were undertaken prior to this mandate, but were disbanded for various reasons, although some had success.
An attempt to revive this was made yet again at the Durban +5 meeting and at COP9 in Bonn where a group of young professionals met up.
The 2008 World Conservation Congress in Barcelona produced relevant continuation to the Young Professional Programme in Resolution 4.098, which urges the Director General, all IUCN members and Commissions to:
(a) recognize that intergenerational partnerships (IPS) are important;
(b) engage in and foster IPS with young persons;
(c) engage in capacity-building activities focused on young persons and youth-oriented organizations, in keeping with the spirit of IUCN’s Future of Sustainability report and Young Professionals Programme.
The second output of importance from Barcelona was the signing of the MoU between IUCN, IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development), LEAD and WWF, regarding commitments for design and fund-raising for a leadership development program within IUCN.
After Barcelona, 2 IUCN Commissions, WCPA and CEC (Commission on Education and Communication) have appointed Vice-chairs on Intergenerational Partnerships. VC for CEC is Dominic Stucker, Fellows Network Coordinator at Sustainability, USA (). Just a month ago Bruno Monteferri was appointed as Chair of CEL's (Commission on Environmental Law) Young Professionals Group ().
WCPA Young PA Professionals (YP) Group was established in June 2008 and reactivated again in June 2009. The YP Group is part of the broader Alliance of Intergenerational Partnership for Sustainability. More info on the Alliance can be found at:
http://intergenerationalpartnership.wikispaces.com/Overview
WCPA Young Members Orientation Package
For those of you who has just joined the Commission or perhaps you were not as active in it before, weare currently working on a WCPA Young Members Orientation Package. The document will contain detailed information on WCPA structure, priorities, lists of current Specialist Groups and Task Forces with relevant contacts and information on possible participation in their work for young members. We hope to send it to you in September.
WCPA YP Group Membership
Our Group currently includes 72 active young WCPA members from 30 countries. In fact, there are more young people in the Commission now, but many of them still “hide away” from our group and as yet, have not identified themselves. For this reason, these unidentifiable YPs have not been included into the Group and can not benefit from its resources. About 20 outstanding young PA professionals are in process of being nominated for membership. In order to make our Commission younger and better inclusive of youth opinions, we’re planning to reach a target of 15 % WCPA members of 35 or under by 2012. Now the Commission has some 1300 members – so you can see, that the goal is ambitious enough.
Please, note that we need your help in identifying the current young WCPA members! Due to the fact, that age issues have not been a priority for the Commission before, IUCN HQ in Gland does not have a relevant database of all young members. We are now trying to reach all young people in the Commission inviting them to join our Group. If you’re aware of young members, who aren’t yet part of the YP group, please, send me their contact details or ask them to contact me, please!
If you have in mind an outstanding young professional/s of 35 or under, who have significant work experience in the PA field and is willing to contribute to the Commission work in a meaningful way, please, nominate them to become members by sending their contacts and CVs to Regional WCPA Vice-chairs or to myself.
WCPA YP Group Structure – CALL FOR REGIONAL DEPUTIES
WCPA Vice-chair on Intergenerational Partnerships is now appointing Regional Deputy Chairs on Intergenerational Partnerships to serve as regional focal points to WCPA work with young members.
From now on, I’m happy to present you our first heroes:
Rebecca Koss from Australia – Deputy for WCPA Oceania,
Sudeep Jana from Nepal ()
and
Tasneem Balasinorwala from India () – two Deputies for WCPA Asia
Edwin Sabuhoro from Rwanda – Deputy for WCPA West/Central Africa,
Elena Nikolaeva from Russia – Deputy for WCPA Europe,
You may approach the Deputies regarding all questions, ideas and comments you may have associated with theWCPA youth activities in your region. They will also contact you, when they’ll have something good to tell you.
Deputy positions for other WCPA regions are still vacant! Heroes are welcome!
If you feel you that you can serve as a Deputy in your region, please, don’t hesitate to tell me about it! The detailed ToR will be sent to you shortly, and we can than discuss your possible involvement. If you’re too busy for that, you can share the mandate with somebody. Please, note that these positions are voluntary, but we’re going to search for funding on a project basis, and you, as a Deputy, can become part of project teams. But, please, think twice on whether you would have time to contribute to WCPA work as this is going to take some time.
We’re also searching volunteers to help managing the Group list serve, editing this newsletter and group website (webpage on WCPA site) and assisting in PR and fund raising!
Yahoo Group and network at LinkedIn
We now have two platforms for our interactive communication. The first and the main one is hosted at Yahoo Group here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/youth_and_PAs/ Personal invitations to join the group have been sent to all of you to give you access to group documents and discussions. Please, accept the invitation by clicking the relevant link in the invitation letter and join our communications there! Please, inform your regional Deputy Chairs or myself, if you didn’t get an invitation or can’t access the group.
The second communication platform has been created at LinkedIn and called IUCN/WCPA Young Protected Area Professionals:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2089259&trk=anet_ug_grppro
The access to the Group is after invitation. Again, the invitations have been sent to all of you and, again, I do encourage you to join and contribute actively to this group.
Both groups will only be useful if you would share information on arising opportunities for young PA people like vacancies, scholarships, chances to participate in conferences, volunteering etc. Let’s help each other and make better use of knowledge we all have!
Work Plan Finalized
WCPA and CEC (IUCN Commission on Education and Communication), following the first ever joined meeting in Ecuador this May, have developed a Joint Work Plan on Intergenerational Partnerships for 2009-2012. WCPA part of work will mainly concern Young PA Professionals. The document can be downloaded from our Yahoo Group or I can send it to those, who wish. It’s the general document to define our priorities for the years to come – more detailed action plans on concrete sets of activities will follow soon. Your comments and ideas are highly appreciated!
2. OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Internships available
Internships at United Nations University: The United Nations University Office at the United Nations, New York (UNU-ONY) recruits Junior Professional Fellows (JPFs) for two sessions each year running from August to January, and February to July. Deadlines for applications are as follows:
February 1st to July 31st Session: November 30th
August 1st to January 31st Session: May 31st
Please note that UNU-ONY Junior Professional Fellows positions require full-time commitments due to the high level of responsibilities given to our interns. These are unpaid positions. On the job training and support is provided throughout the internship.
More info here: http://www.ony.unu.edu/internships/
UNFCCC’s Internship Programme:
Please note that the deadline to apply for a 2010 Spring internship is: 18 October 2009
http://unfccc.int/secretariat/internship_programme/items/2653.php
UNEP Internship Programme: http://www.unon.org/intern_ship/interns.php
Internships at UNESCO:
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=11716&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
UNDP Internships: http://www.undp.org/internships/
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification:
http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/internship.php
Internship in Conservation International:
Conservation International (CI) has identified the need to gather information on designing and implementing forest carbon projects, more specifically on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) projects. The aim is to identify some responses to many methodological issues on project baselines.
The intern will be responsible for collecting data on REDD project design documents prepared by CI and other organizations.
More info here: http://www.conservation.org/discover/careers/Pages/intern_s+k.aspx
Vacancies:
Jobs at IUCN offices: http://www.iucn.org/involved/jobs/
Jobs at UNEP: http://www.unep.org/vacancies/default.asp
Jobs at UNDP: http://jobs.undp.org/
Jobs at WWF: http://www.panda.org/who_we_are/jobs/
Jobs at UNESCO:
http://recrutweb.unesco.org/postes/postes_visualisation.asp?AffLangue=gb&CATPOSTE=1
or starting your career as Young Professional at UNESCO:
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=11714&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Jobs at World Resources Institute: http://www.wri.org/jobs
Jobs at the Nature Conservancy:
https://careers.nature.org/psp/P89HTNC_APP/APPLICANT/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_CE.GBL
Jobs at Conservation International:
http://www.conservation.org/DISCOVER/CAREERS/Pages/default.aspx
3. CONSERVATION EVENTS and WCPA YOUNG PROFESSIONALS
International Workshop on the Future of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas, Korea, September, 14-17, 2009
One of the key objectives of the forthcoming CBD/COP10 is the review of the CBD/POWPA from which it is expected that a renewed mandate for strengthening the implementation of POWPA will be adopted by the parties.
The Bonn CBD Conference of the Parties to IUCN (para A 24 of decision IX/18,) invited IUCN-WCPA to further contribute to the strengthening of capacity for the implementation of the programme of work on protected areas and the process of its review leading to the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention.