About

The Wildlife and Protected Areas Management Programme contributes to one of the five Strategic Priorities of FAO: making agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable. FAO’s Wildlife and Protected Areas Management Programme directly contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in particular to SDG2 Zero Hunger, SDG15 Life on Land, and SDG17 Partnerships for the Goals.

Wildlife is defined as all vertebrate terrestrial animals residing in all biomes and geographic areas, within and outside of terrestrial protected areas. Wildlife and protected areas are considered conjointly due to the complex interdependence and interactions between them.

The Programme’s work ranges from legislative and policy support to capacity development and technical guidance. It is applied to the conservation, sustainable use, and management of wildlife within and outside of protected areas, for the benefit of forest dependent people and local communities.

The Programme accomplishes its goals through the following areas of work:

• sustainable use and management of wild meat;
• prevention and mitigation of human and wildlife conflicts;
• governance and effective management of protected areas.

The FAO Office for Latin America and the Caribbean has served as the technical secretariat for the Latin American Technical Cooperation Network on National Parks, other Protected Areas and Wildlife (REDPARQUES) since 1997. This network consists of public and private institutions, and specialists from the member countries of the region, working in the realm of protected areas and wildlife.

The FAO Forestry Division (until August 2020 Forestry Department) has served as the secretariat for the Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management (CPW) since 2013. We are actively engaged in a wide range of the CPW’s initiatives as a proactive member of the Partnership.