Posted on December, 10 2009

WWF’s Rapid Assessment and Prioritization of Protected Areas Management methodology (RAPPAM) is being used in Bulgaria to aid the Executive Forestry Agency in writing the new Forestry Law. The assessment carried out by WWF staff has provided the agency with a country-wide overview of the effectiveness of protected areas management, threats and vulnerabilities. It has also produced follow-up recommendations.

The RAPPAM was first used in Bulgaria in 2004 when WWF assessed Bulgaria’s ten nature and three national parks to aid the country’s environmental institutions evaluate the management effectiveness of parks. While in 2004 according to the RAPPAM the three top threats to protected areas were infrastructure development, pressures from tourism and water use and management, the new assessment shows that five years on the situation has changed and pollution is now the biggest threat to protected areas, with infrastructure development and illegal exploitation of resources – such as through hunting and tree cutting - following suit.

The current RAPPAM assessment recommends increase of financial resources for operational costs and wages in protected areas. It also encourages the government to finance training of protected areas staff in fundraising and in setting up partnerships with the business.

“The main purpose of nature parks is preserving biodiversity – an environmental “service” that is used by everybody and should therefore be paid for by the entire society”, said Katerina Rakovska, Protected Areas Officer at WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme, Bulgaria and coordinator of the RAPPAM study. “This is why it is imperative that nature parks are guaranteed state funding”, added Katerina Rakovska.

The RAPPAM also concludes that Bulgarian nature parks are a good return on investment and that the system of nature parks that was set up ten years ago is working. “It’s clearly an achievement that we have a working protected areas administration. This is something that sets Bulgaria apart and is definitely something we should aim to preserve”, Rakovska said.

The Convention on Biological Diversity in early 2004 produced a Programme of Work on Protected Areas, in which Parties to the convention were called to assess at least 30% of their parks and their networks of protected areas by 2010.

In total, 40 countries are using RAPPAM and over 1000 protected areas worldwide have been assessed so far using this method.

What can RAPPAM do?

• Identify management strengths and weaknesses
• Analyse the scope, severity, prevalence, and distribution of a variety of threats and pressures
• Identify areas of high ecological and social importance and vulnerability
• Indicate the urgency and conservation priority for individual protected areas
• Help to develop and prioritize appropriate policy interventions and follow-up steps to improve protected area management effectiveness

The most thorough and effective approach to implementing this methodology is to hold an interactive workshop or series of workshops in which protected area managers, policy makers, and other stakeholders participate fully in evaluating the protected areas, analyzing the results, and identifying subsequent next steps.