Decisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity relevant to the WDPA

The following is a list of the decisions by the Conference of Parties (COP) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) relevant to the WDPA.

COP VI/28, 2004 “Invites the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme, working with international organizations, to further develop the World Database on Protected Areas in order to assist the monitoring towards the overall objective of the decision on protected areas, and urges Parties, other Governments and relevant organizations to provide up-to-date information for the database." [This is further elaborated in the annexed Programme of Work on Protected Areas].

COP VIII/24, 2006 “Notes the importance of the World Database on Protected Areas as a tool to assist the monitoring of progress towards achieving the targets of the Programme of Work on Protected Areas, and invites the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Commission on Protected Areas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and their collaborators to further develop access to the database and information management including tools for data sharing and exchange."

COP IX/18, 2008 “Encourages Parties to develop national or regional data networks in order to facilitate the exchange of, and access to information..., including providing information to the WDPA"

COP X/31, 2010 “Encourages Parties to share and update relevant information on their protected areas system with the World Database on Protected Areas"

COP X/31, 2010 “The COP... invites Parties, taking into account the target for goal 1.4 of the programme of work, which calls for all protected areas to have effective management in existence by 2012 using participatory and science-based site planning processes with full and effective participation of stakeholders, and noting that to assess the effectiveness of the management, specific indicators may also be needed to: (a) Continue to expand and institutionalize management effectiveness assessments to work towards assessing 60 per cent of the total area of protected areas by 2015 using various national and regional tools and report the results into the global database on management effectiveness maintained by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP WCMC)"

COP X1/24, 2012 “Invites the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and its partners, including the World Commission on Protected Areas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), to continue to report progress towards achieving Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 and related targets through the Protected Planet Report".

COP XIII/2, 2016 “Invites the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre to work with Parties and other Governments to update the World Database on Protected Areas and also to contribute to the assessment of progress in the implementation of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11".