A MANAGEMENT-OBJECTIVE CROSSWALK FOR PROTECTED AREAS IN UZBEKISTAN: LINKING NATIONAL LEGAL TYPES WITH IUCN CATEGORIES AND GEOSPATIAL RECORDS

Abstract

Abstract. National protected-area designations and IUCN management categories answer different questions. A legal designation identifies the status created by domestic law, while an IUCN category describes the principal management objective that should guide decisions on the site. Treating the two systems as interchangeable produces weak records, uncertain international reporting and management plans that do not reflect the actual conservation purpose. This article develops a practical crosswalk for Uzbekistan in which correspondence is determined site by site rather than by designation name alone. The method combines legal review, management-objective screening and a geospatial data model. It separates designation, IUCN category, governance type and management-effectiveness evidence into distinct fields linked to one spatial object. The analysis shows that some national types have a likely IUCN counterpart, but no automatic one-to-one conversion is defensible without examining the founding act, zoning scheme, permitted uses and long-term conservation intent. A staged workflow is proposed for the state cadastre: boundary validation, legal-profile compilation, objective scoring, expert review, category assignment and periodic verification. The resulting structure can support national administration while also producing records suitable for international comparison.