Year of publication 2006

Protected areas are the cornerstone of virtually all national and international conservation policies. They play a critical role in conservation of biodiversity, maintaining genetic resources, protecting important ecosystem functions and helping to protect many fragile human communities and cultural landscapes. Despite their importance, there is much confusion about Forest Protected Areas. So to help reduce the confusion, the first key question addressed by these Guidelines is this: What is, and what is not, a Forest Protected Area? This question may appear arcane: in fact it is strategic, complex and politically significant It is strategic because it touches on the heartland of conservation strategies: the nature of protection and protected areas and the relationship between these and the rest of the landscape. Important as Forest Protected Areas are, concentrating on them to the exclusion of other measures for forest protection and good management would be short sighted – indeed an under - standing of what is a Forest Protected Area requires also a good appreciation of other ways in which forests are cared for or used. Therefore these Guidelines also aim to answer a second key question: what other forms of forest protection are there, and how do they relate to Forest Protected Areas? In answering these questions, the Guidelines supplement and are consistent with IUCN’s general guidance about protected area categories (IUCN, 1994).