Transboundary Protected Area
The concept of Peace Parks ( Peace Park ) is not only to preserve through cross-border protected areas of nature and culture, but also to develop a peaceful cooperation between neighboring countries and to secure. This also means that all border fortifications must be removed so that people and animals in these areas can move freely. Allows only the border defenses to these parks around the outside so uncontrolled border crossings can be prevented. After a briefing of the Global Transboundary Protected Areas Network, there were 135 Peace Park in 2007. In contrast to the Peace Park there are more than 3043 as broadly defined cross-border protected areas of cultural significance or nature and animal protection, which do not reach the rank of Peace Parks.
The areas, which are defined as Peace Parks in the respective regions have different naming. The Peace Parks are well known in German-speaking countries also Cross-border conservation area and in the English-speaking countries Transboundary Peace Park or Transboundary Protected Area. In Africa, the term Trans Frontier Conservations Area ( TFCA ) and Transfrontier Park ( TP) has enforced this.
- 4.1 North America
- 4.2 Central and South America
First Peace Park
The first Peace Park in Europe is likely to be the six -acre Morokulien, which was built by the Swedish and Norwegian peace movement on August 16, 1914 on the occasion of the celebrations of 100 years of peace on the border between the two countries. Morokulien located in a demilitarized zone, and although its name only in 1959.
In general the first Transboundary Peace Park Waterton - Glacier International Peace Park is considered, which was proposed by citizens from Alberta, Canada and Montana in 1931. This park was a symbol of friendship and peace of both countries. In 1932, the U.S. Congress and the Canadian Parliament approved the establishment of the Waterton - Glacier International Peace Park, and thus two adjoining national parks were connected: the Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada and Glacier National Park in the United States. Today, the two parks are working closely together and protect an important natural landscape.
Europe
In Europe, the Peace Parks have been created for different reasons.
In Germany so far has been only one national park, Bavarian Forest National Park, awarded in 2009 with a certificate Trans Boundary Park for exemplary cross-border cooperation with the Czech Sumava National Park. Here, a collaboration has developed after the Iron Curtain fell.
At the green border of Austria, bordering eight countries, there is a cooperation which Transboundary Cooperation in Nature Conservation along the Austrian Green Border, which mainly pursues conservation goals.
A Peace Park project under the working title Green Line Buffer Zone Cyprus is to mediate between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots in the political conflict.
Africa
In Africa, an initiative for the establishment of the Peace Parks across national boundaries became possible only after the change of the political situation in the state of South Africa by the end of apartheid policies announced.
Southern Africa Development Community
The Southern African Development Community (SADC ), which was founded on April 1, 1980, was a loose alliance of nine countries in southern Africa, which joined forces on a stronger organization in Windhoek on 17 August 1992. The goal was the socio-economic and political conditions of the Member States to harmonize. In the following SADC countries are now members: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC), Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Seychelles, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Mauritius. These countries participated in the founding of Transfrontery conservations areas in their political goals. They now support in southern Africa 17 parks. Not a member of the SADC, the Republic of Congo, but the intention with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola with the establishment of a Peace Park, the Maiombe Forest TFCA. This also applies to Rwanda and Uganda who want to build with the Kagera Tanzania TFCA.
Peace Parks Foundation
With the establishment of the Peace Parks Foundation, which has set itself the installation of Peace Parks aims above all, in 1997 the heads of state of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Swaziland were recovered. An important role is played in the founding of the South African industrialist Anton Rupert. The chief patron of this initiative was Nelson Mandela.
" I know no political movement, no philosophy, no ideology, Which does not agree with the peace park concept as we see it going into fruition today. It is a concept can be embraced by ave did German: I know of no political movement, no philosophy and no ideology that would not welcome the Peace Park concept. It is a concept in which all can join hands. "
The Foundation manages ten Peace Parks.
Overview of the Peace Parks
In the following overview the information currently available on Peace Parks and the countries involved and the level of development in Southern Africa are included:
Five countries participated
Three participating States
Two participating States
TP: Transfrontier Park TFCA: Transfrontier Conservation Areas TFCMA: Transfrontier Conservation Marine Area
Objectives and development
In Africa, the Peace Parks are initially primarily the traditional migrations of animals, provide access to areas for growing food and for Trinkwassern for the locals again. With the development of the parks but also the tourism, economic growth, the migration of indigenous peoples and the understanding between the states are being transported.
There are intergovernmental agreements and memoranda of understanding for the establishment of peace parks have been closed, also called the South Africa mostly Transfrontier Conservation Area ( TFCA ). In southern Africa four Peace Parks have now realized, six are secured by state declarations of intent and four are in the design phase.
Existing Peace Parks are the Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park, which lies between the borders of Botswana and South Africa; the Ai -Ais - Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, which is located between Namibia and South Africa and the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which contains the famous Kruger Park. This park concerns the borders of three countries, South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and includes land in the size of Portugal. The largest park will be the Kavango - Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, which lies between five countries Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This agreement was signed on 7 December 2006 and covers an area of 280,000 square kilometers of extension, which is about the area in Italy. This project was created with funding of 800,000 Euros supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Was formally established the Park on August 19, 2011.
The Initiatives for Peace Parks now range far beyond southern Africa. Another more state park between Sierra Leone and Liberia was realized as a Transboundary Peace Park in 2009 and opened as the Gola Forest National Park in Sierra Leone 750 km ² on 3 December 2011. The most advanced is the development of Peace Parks in Southern Africa. In a presentation on the website of the Peace Parks Foundation a total of 32 parks projects in central and southern Africa are mapped.
North and South America
North America
The Waterton - Glacier International Peace Park, which is built in 1932 between the borders of the United States and Canada, was the first International Peace Park, which linked two national parks in different countries, the Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada and Glacier National Park in the U.S.. This merger was more of a symbolic act intended to bring the friendship and peaceful relations between the two countries expressed. The same applies to the Peace Arch Park, which extends across the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington. The International Peace Garden ranges from the U.S. state of North Dakota in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
In the U.S., there is the Big Bend National Park, which extends to the Rio Grande and so is adjacent to the located on the Mexican side of nature reserves Maderas del Carmen, Cañon de Santa Elena. The rangers of the parks have an exchange program for visitors there is no way of crossing the border. Another cooperation is sought and, since the end of 2009, there are considerations intergovernmental merge the parks to a U.S. Mexico International Park.
It was an international cross-border Bering Strait Peace launched initiative to develop a transport connection across the Bering Strait between the U.S. and Russia. The architectural competition program also includes the development of a Peace Park on the Diomede Islands, which lie in the middle of the Bering Strait.
Central and South America
On the initiative of UNESCO declared 1988 the Republics of Costa Rica and Panama lying between their borders Parque Internacional La Amistad International Peace Park.
In 1998 it was due to unclear regulations on the Peruvian- Ecuadorian border border war in the Cordillera del Condor in the form of skirmishes, which were solved by the establishment of a Peace Park. The dispute was ended after an intervention by Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the U.S. with a peace treaty. The peace treaty was tied to the construction and connection of two cross-border conservation areas, the National Park El Cóndor in Ecuador and the Santiago - Comaina - reserve in Peru.
Asia
In Asia, there are several Peace Park initiatives that are in disputed regions, such as in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, and the South China Sea for the Spratly Islands, collected by the six states claims.
On the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram at an altitude of 6,400 meters above sea level to the armed forces of India and Pakistan are facing the so-called Siachen conflict. For this purpose there is a verschriftlichtes concept for a Siachen Peace Park, which will allow a demilitarization of the area since 2003.
In the Middle East between Israel and Jordan, there is a common Peace Park in the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea was closed by a treaty, October 26, 1994. In this Agreement, the protection of an 11 -kilometer coral reef has been agreed, of which seven kilometers are in Jordanian and 4 km in Israeli sea area.