Since 1981 what is now UNEP-WCMC has been managing the only global database on the world's national parks and reserves, working in close collaboration with IUCN and its World Commission on Protected Areas. This database has now been completely redesigned, and was relaunched on Monday 6th October at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.

The new online tool includes many new features aimed at increasing access to the maps and associated data on the world's protected areas, including employing Google Earth to help users to visualise sites. Additional features facilitate update and quality control, and the Centre is working with a range of other organizations to develop new tools making further use of the data.

Redevelopment has been supported by UNEP-WCMC's Proteus Partners, a coalition of oil, gas, mineral and mining and information technology companies, who have between them contributed more than US$2 million into the initiative.

To access the World Database on Protected Areas: www.wdpa.org

A copy of the press release is available here

Based on input from more than 100 experts, this book aims to provide the most detailed assessment ever of the worldwide distribution and conservation status of national parks and reserves. It examines the relationship between people and protected areas, investigates threats and opportunities, cites the history of protected areas, provides expert conservation advice and celebrates the success of protected areas around the world.

With 352 pages, The World's Protected Areas: Status, value and prospects in the 21st Century, which is published in associated with UNEP-WCMC by the University of California Press, contains 110 colour illustrations, 165 line illustrations and 39 colour maps. It is edited by Stuart Chape, Mark Spalding and Martin Jenkins, and includes a foreword by Achim Steiner and Julia Marton-Lefèvre.

Available from University of California Press: www.ucpress.edu

A copy of the press release is available here

From 15-19 September, the 4th Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) will take place in Antananarivo, Madagascar (see http://www.unep-aewa.org/press/mop4_media_alert.htm for more information). The conference is expected to adopt, for the first time, an online format for national reporting. UNEP-WCMC is glad to have been able to develop the online reporting facility, through a grant from UNEP for a project on knowledge management for the biodiversity-related agreements. Parties to AEWA are requested to prepare for each MOP a report on its implementation of the Agreement. National reporting can be a burden for Parties, in particular as such reports are required for most multilateral environmental agreements. The online reporting facility is expected to make reporting easier and more straightforward for Parties.

In addition, UNEP-WCMC, under contract to the AEWA Secretariat, has produced for MOP 4 posters depicting the Madagascar Pond Heron and the Sociable Lapwing, two threatened species that have attracted specific attention of AEWA and the wider conservation community. The meeting in Madagascar is expected to adopt an Action Plan for the Conservation of the Madagascar Pond Heron and will review the implementation of the existing Action Plan for the Sociable Lapwing.

UNEP-WCMC is also supporting implementation of the Wings Over Wetlands (WOW) UNEP-GEF African-Eurasian Flyways Project - the largest "flyway-scale" waterbird conservation project in the AEWA region, through the development of the Critical Sites Network (CSN) Tool, in close partnership with Wetlands International and BirdLife International. The CSN Tool will provide a web-based portal integrating data from multiple sources, and will help improve site management along the entire African-Eurasian Flyways; see http://www.wingsoverwetlands.org.

UNEP-WCMC is part of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme (CBMP) of the Conservation of Arctic Fauna and Flora (CAFF) programme of the Arctic Council that has taken a leading role in researching the responses of biodiversity to climate change in the Arctic (http://arcticportal.org/en/caff/cbmp). Consequently, for World Migratory Bird Day 2007, UNEP-WCMC released a news item on the threats from climate change to migratory waterbirds from the Arctic; see http://www.unep-wcmc.org/regions/arctic_climate.cfm for details.