Building Protected Areas Law and Governance Capacity in Asia

Sandy Paterson was appointed as one of the trainers invited to lead a workshop for law teachers and trainers in the Asian region on protected areas law and governance. The thirty participants were selected from universities, government agencies and NGO’s in China, Mongolia, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Myammar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam. The workshop, held from 23-27 November 2015, was hosted by the Research Institute of Environmental Law (RIEL) at Wuhan University (China) in partnership with the IUCN Environmental Law Centre (ELC), IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) and IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. It sought to introduce participants to the array of capacity building resources developed under the IUCN ELC’s Building Capacity on Protected Areas Law and Governance Project, the overall goal of which is in turn to support trainers and teachers to prepare their own courses, and provide them with guidance on content to teach in their region with a view to reinforcing local expertise in protected areas law and governance.

During the five-day workshop, participants undertook an array of active and practical exercises aimed at building awareness of the content contained in the resources and capabilities in tailoring the resources to suit their context and audience. You can access the resources at www.protectedareaslaw.org.