Asia Pacific WHAs

The Authority works with the Australian Government to assist other World Heritage Areas in the Asia Pacific region. The Authority shares information with World Heritage managers and offers training and education about how the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is managed. The two major projects with East Rennell Islanders and Lorentz National Park are detailed below.

Strengthening management capacity in the East Rennell World Heritage Area (2009)

During May and June 2009 the Authority welcomed fourteen people from the Solomon Islands to participate in a training workshop aimed at building the capacity of Solomon Islanders to manage the East Rennell World Heritage Area. Participants comprised eight members from the East Rennell World Heritage Site Association Committee, the Premier and Provincial Tourism Officer for the Rennell and Bellona Provincial Government and three representatives from the Solomon Islands Government. The project was initiated by the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts and funded under AusAID’s Pacific Governance Support Program. The Department of Environment Water Heritage and the Arts engaged the Authority to deliver key components of the program. Opportunities for building a longer term twinning relationship between the Authority and the East Rennell World Heritage Site Association were also discussed during the Cairns Training Workshop.

Lorentz National Park Strategic Plan

In June 2005 the Authority, in partnership with the Rainforest CRC, completed the Strategic Plan for the Lorentz National Park World Heritage Property, Papua, Indonesia. The Lorentz World Heritage Area is the largest protected area in South East Asia (2.5 million hectares) and shares a common ancestry with the Wet Tropics, including many related plants and animals.

This AusAID funded project was undertaken as part of the Australia – Indonesia Government Sectors Linkages Program. The project aimed to strengthen the capacity of local government, communities and World Heritage property managers, to participate in effective planning and management of Lorentz National Park World Heritage Area.

The Project comprised three key activities: an initial stakeholder consultative workshop in Papua (November 2002); training of stakeholder representatives in Cairns and the Wet Tropics WHA (February 2004); and a participatory planning exercise in Papua to develop the Lorentz Strategic Plan (June 2004). The activities were conducted in partnership with the Directorate-General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation and UNESCO ( Jakarta office).

The Lorentz Strategic Plan will be used to guide planning and management of the Lorentz World Heritage property over the next five years. A ‘twinning agreement’ to promote the exchange of World Heritage management skills is being progressed between the Authority and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and Nature Conservation.