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CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT NEEDED FOR RANGERS

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FIFTH WORLD PARKS CONGRESS
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA
SEPTEMBER 11, 2003
By
Richard B. Smith
International Ranger Federation


In his article, Turning Ideas on their Head: The New Paradigm for Protected Areas,
Adrian Phillips argues that the changes that have occurred in our thinking and practice
toward protected areas over the past 40 or so years amount to a revolution.
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Phillips
notes that these changes have occurred in 8 major areas, including changes in the
objectives for the establishment of areas, in their governance, in the attitudes and
practices of their administrators regarding local people, in how they are perceived in their
regional contexts, in the perceptions of society regarding their values, in the techniques
used to manage the areas, in the skills required by their employees and in the ways in
which their management is financed. Phillips summarizes these changes in the following
table:
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As it was: protected areas were As it is becoming: protected areas are
Objectives Set aside for conservation
Established mainly for
spectacular wildlife and
scenic protection
Managed mainly for visitors
and tourists
Valued as wilderness
About protection
Run also with social and economic
objectives
Often set up for scientific, economic,
and cultural reasons
Managed with local people more in
mind
Valued for the cultural importance of
so-called wilderness
Also about restoration and
rehabilitation
Governance Run by central government Run by many partners
Local People Planned and managed against
people
Managed without regard to
local opinion
Run with, for, and in some cases by
local people
Managed to meet the needs of local
people
Wider Context Developed separately
Managed as islands
Planned as part of national, regional,
and international systems
Developed as networks (strictly
protected areas, buffered and linked
by green corridors)

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The IRF defines a ranger as the person involved in the practical protection and preservation of all aspects
of wild areas, historical and cultural sites. Rangers provide recreational opportunities and interpretation of
sites while providing links between local communities, protected areas and area administration.

2
Adrian Phillips. Turning Ideas on Their Head: The New Paradigm for Protected Areas. The George
Wright Forum. Vol. 20, number 2: June 2003, pp 8-32. The George Wright Society, PO Box 65, Hancock,
MI, 49930-0065, USA.
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Ibid. p 20.
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Perceptions Viewed primarily as national
asset
Viewed only as a national
concern
Viewed also as a community asset
Viewed also as an international
concern
Management
techniques
Managed reactively within
short timescale
Managed in a technocratic
way
Managed adaptively in long-term
perspective
Managed with political
considerations
Finance Paid for by taxpayer Paid for from many sources
Management
skills
Managed by scientists and
natural resources experts
Expert-led
Managed by multi-skilled individuals
Drawing on local knowledge

None of this, as Phillips correctly observes, is new to those who are involved in protected
area management. The ability to manage this kind of protected area requires a new set of
knowledge, skills, and abilities that our employees must possess if they are to effectively
operate within the context of this new paradigm. Managers can no longer get by simply
because they are biologists or a university buddy of a local politician. Resources
managers must consider the impacts that their actions might have on local residents.
Other technically trained personnel have seen equally profound changes in the skills they
must employ to fully accomplish the tasks we expect them to perform.

To assist these people, protected area agencies and their NGO partners have developed
capacity building programs designed to close the gap between the skills and abilities that
these administrators and technicians bring to the job and the knowledge, skills and
abilities they must apply in their daily tasks. These training programs feature units on
park planning, participative management, conflict resolution, community involvement,
outreach skills, and modern supervision and communication skills. The capacity building
process tries to encourage the acquisition of so-called people-related skills that can
encourage local people to share their knowledge of the area with protected area
professionals. The process tries to stimulate these employees to view protected area
management as a learning process, one in which new techniques and strategies must be
employed if the previously-selected ones do not produce the desired results. This kind of
knowledge and these kinds of skills and abilities are those that modern managers must
have if they are to successfully manage the areas entrusted to their care.

One group of protected area employees, however, has been virtually ignored in the
process of providing protected area staff with adequate knowledge, skills and abilities to
meet the new challenges of protected area management. The protected area ranger is
often at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to the planning and delivery of
training designed to enhance his or her ability to successfully carry out the duties of a
modern ranger. Paradoxically, it is the rangers whose job requirements have been most
radically affected by Phillips new paradigm. Rangers are no longer merely agents of
control and vigilance. They no longer are expected only to make patrols and protect park
resources. Their duties extend far beyond law enforcement and making visitor contacts.
They are now on the front lines of the inventory and monitoring process in many
protected areas, the eyes and ears of protected area managers. They are the areas most
direct contact with the people who live in or near the area. They are the ones who make
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the most intimate contacts with protected area visitors. They are the areas first
responders to a wide variety of incidents, including accidents, fires, and other
emergencies. They are often called the thin green line, the ones standing between natural
and cultural resources and the people who would destroy or carelessly abuse them.
Surely employees with such a wide variety of important tasks deserve the best kind of
training that their employers can possibly provide.

The problem often lies not so much with the fact that protected area agencies and their
managing partners do not want to train their rangers. Many times, they simply do not
know what the essential competencies are for rangers and are therefore unable to develop
training programs that would provide the rangers with the knowledge, skills and abilities
they need. Their rangers thus remain untrained, often unable to make significant
contributions to effective program planning and implementation. The organization I
represent, the International Ranger Federation, or the IRF, is so concerned about this
issue that delegates to its 3
rd
World Congress, held in September of 2000 in Kruger
National Park, developed a list of the essential competencies that journeyman or full
performance rangers should possess. We recommend that managing agencies and
organizations develop their capacity building programs for rangers around these
competencies so that the acquisition of these knowledge, skills and abilities becomes the
focus of the programs.

Our list is based on several assumptions. Because of the potentially huge scope of the
issue of competence of rangers world-wide, the IRF has chosen to consider that there are
three primary levels of rangers, in terms of competence:
Entry or novice level.
Full performance (sometimes referred to as professional or journeyman) level.
Master level.

The IRF believes that the most significant current deficiency is the full performance
level of ranger competence. Accordingly, our list of competencies is directed exclusively
to that need. The IRF recognizes that there exists considerable diversity in the
environments, complexities, and institutional requirements and constraints among the
protected areas of the world; therefore, any attempt to identify universal ranger
competence needs must be open for adjustment to meet these differences. The IRF
assumes in proposing the knowledge, skills/abilities that follow, that infrastructure and
equipment relevant to the needs of professional rangers either exists or that its acquisition
is being pursued through other avenues. The IRF also assumes that some of the listed
knowledge and skills/abilities are transferable in that they may have application to
more than the category in which they might be listed.

The International Ranger Federation has identified the following knowledge and
skills/abilities as universal essential competence for rangers at the fully professional or
journeyman level to effectively safeguard protected area resources and to provide
fundamental information and education to visitors and the public.


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1. Basic Ecology and Conservation:
Knowledge of:
The principles, functions and processes of natural and cultural landscapes, to
include and recognize humans and their role in influencing landscapes.
What is natural
Methods and mechanisms of self-discovery.
Basic monitoring and measuring techniques.
Skill/ability to:
Observe and detect changes in the landscape and take appropriate
conservation action, including recording, reporting and, as appropriate,
managing.

2. Ensuring Ecosystem Integrity (Resource Protection, Legislative Purpose/Framework
and Relationship of Protected Area to other Relevant Resources):
Knowledge of:
Relevant and applicable international, national, state, cultural, strategies,
treaties, laws, conventions and policies.
Skill/ability to:
Enforce existing legislation appropriately; while exercising personal safety
and protection of others.
Exercise legislative and administrative procedures and processes, including
collection of information and preparation for court, etc.

3. Interpretation, Education and Information:
Knowledge of:
Philosophy of interpretation and education as to their importance and their
roles in safeguarding protected area resources.
Methods and techniques of interpretation and education.
Skill/ability to:
Communicate effectively using a wide range of methods, and at a professional
and global level.

4. Relationships with all Relevant Communities, and Other Stakeholders:
Knowledge of:
Who the neighbors and those living in the protected areas are and what
knowledge and expectations they have (their culture).
Local political agendas, and key players in the communities.
Skill/ability to:
Demonstrate political, social and cultural sensitivity and tolerance.
Involve and integrate the communities in issues of managing the protected
area.
Listen effectively and engage in facilitation, conflict resolution and problem
solving.

5. Technology and Infrastructure Maintenance:
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Knowledge of:
How it works, what it does and how it should be maintained.
Skill/ability to:
Manage, maintain and safely operate a range of infrastructure and equipment.

6. Emergency Responses:
Knowledge of:
How to care for oneself and safely travel in wild or undeveloped areas
characteristic of the protected area.
Emergency procedures pertaining to people, flora and fauna, etc.
Interagency responsibilities.
Agency responsibilities and limits of ones responsibilities.
The leadership/management structure and hierarchy relevant to a particular
emergency.
Skill/ability to:
Respond appropriately to emergencies and incidents characteristic of ones
protected area, including such things as search, rescue, fire suppression, first
aid, and environmental and natural disasters.

7. Office, Project and Financial Management and Operational Planning:
Knowledge of:
Basic business principles.
Basic office skills such as filing, correspondence, etc.
Applicable and appropriate reporting procedures.
Relevant administrative procedures.
Skill/ability to:
Write effectively.
Management of budgets and projects, including preparation, monitoring,
evaluating and reviewing.
Demonstrate how, where and what to plan, implement, evaluate and update or
revise.

8. Workplace Communication and Relations:
Knowledge of:
Tenets of human resource management.
Team participation.
Skill/ability to:
Operate effectively as a member of a team.

Rangers equipped with this knowledge and these skills and abilities can certainly assist
their supervisors and managers in planning and implementing the programs that make
protected areas valuable contributors to regional conservation and sustainable
development activities. Moreover, rangers who have mastered these competencies will
be at home in the kind of protected areas to which Phillips believes we are evolving.
They will be comfortable in dealing with the local communities in and around the
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protected area. They will be able to explain to these neighbors protected area
management goals and objectives and can help to reduce the fear, mistrust, or hostility
that often exist in these communities regarding protected areas. They can assist area
administrators by developing healthy relationships with community leaders and
identifying sectors of the community needing special treatment or attention.

Rangers armed with basic techniques of inventory and monitoring will provide valuable
assistance to area resources specialists. In their patrols throughout the areas, it will be the
rangers who first notice changes in the resources of the area and can monitor the scope
and speed of the changes. They will note changes in visitor or community use patterns
and be able to document the impacts that the new uses are causing. These are the kinds
of biological and human-caused changes that specialists and managers located kilometers
away in central or regional offices would never detect.

Well-trained rangers will be effective participators in the partnership environment that
Phillips envisions. Participative planning sessions and shared implementation of projects
and programs are common in modern protected areas. With their knowledge of local
conditions and trained to be effective members of working teams, rangers will bring new
insights and fresh ideas into these important activities. Through their participation,
rangers will also learn which programs and projects cause anxiety in local communities
and be able to begin to alleviate these anxieties by working with the affected groups.
They, in contrast to the majority of their fellow employees, will be in constant contact
with local people and be able to draw from traditional groups their knowledge about the
area and share this knowledge with their colleagues, facilitating the application of this
knowledge to protected area planning, program management and project implementation.

Since visitors will always be key stakeholders in Phillips new paradigm areas, well-
trained rangers will be at the center of this important relationship. They will serve as
educators, facilitators, and, if necessary, agents of control. The most efficient, cost-
effective tool of modern law enforcement is education. Translated into protected area
terms, this means that rangers who are effective communicators and interpreters will
reduce the need for enforcement activity by helping visitors and other users to understand
the reasons for protected area laws and regulation. They can highlight the benefits that
society receives from well-managed protected areas that contribute to regional
sustainable development goals. Visitors will think of rangers as their guides for greater
understanding of the areas they have chosen to visit and as their protectors in cases of
accidents or other emergencies.

Phillips admits that the requirements of the new paradigm areas are so great that we are
in danger of making the managers job undoable. The demands of stakeholder analysis
are only one part of the protected area managers ever-expanding set of responsibilities.
He or she is expected to master (or at least employ experts in) many new and complex
areas of expertise (business skills and fundraising, economics, conflict resolution, public
relations, and so on) on top of natural resource and visitor management. Now the
manager is urged to think beyond the protected areas boundaries, to engage in
bioregional planning initiatives and even to address wider social problems by ethnic
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communities in nearby cities.
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One the ways to reduce the burden on protected area
managers is to develop the capacity of their ranger staffs to more effectively carry out
their roles and responsibilities.

The International Ranger Federation is certain that rangers, armed with the knowledge,
skills and abilities that we have recommended as a standard to be adopted by protected
area agencies and their managing partners, can be effective agents for conservation and
cooperation, either working in older, more traditionally established protected areas, or in
newly established areas on the cutting edge of international conservation. Of one thing
we are sure: continuing to ignore the training needs of field rangers will only serve to
make the protected area managers job more difficult, deprive local communities and area
visitors of an informed point of contact to which they can go for information, advice, and
assistance, and diminish the protection of area resources. This makes no sense to us at
all.

Adrian Phillips has graciously shared his vision of the future of protected area
management with us. For many professionals in the field, that future is now. The
International Ranger Federation and its 40 affiliated national associations of rangers stand
ready to assist any organization or entity that wants to assume the role of better preparing
its rangers so that they can more effectively work in the rapidly evolving world of
international conservation. One of our fundamental goals is to raise the professional
standards of rangers, no matter where they work. We will be better stewards of the
resources we manage, provide higher quality visitor services and be better partners with
the people and organizations with whom we work if our rangers possess the
competencies the Federation has articulated. Thats a future to which we can all aspire.














4
Ibid. p. 24