Wilderness Preserve - Planning Process

The boundaries of the WP have been identified and a draft management plan for the Iwokrama Forest that incorporates planning for the WP was completed in April 2002. The WP planning process is also leading to consideration of the Iwokrama Forest and surrounding areas (the Iwokrama Ecosystem) for Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserve and Ramsar nomination.

The management planning process for the Wilderness Preserve has also had an impact on Guyana 's national protected area system planning and establishment - a member of the National Protected Areas Secretariat worked on the Iwokrama team that developed the Iwokrama Forest Management plan.

Approach

The planning approach for the management of the Wilderness Preserve consisted of direct consultations between Iwokrama staff and stakeholders including local Amerindian communities (see report, Watkins ), government agencies, and NGOs. The purpose of the consultations was to explain the planning process to people, listen to people's concerns and so be able to identify issues that should be addressed in the final management plan.

Early on during consultations, two issues became clear:

• Most stakeholders did not distinguish between the SUA and WP, and that many management proscriptions would extend across the whole of Iwokrama including road management and zoning.
• Stakeholders were experiencing a degree of participatory exhaustion as a result of Iwokrama running four separate, but closely related, planning processes.

Consequently, after discussions with planning groups working on the zoning, the road, the SUA and the WP, it was decided to coalesce all of the processes into a more holistic approach to planning.