Artikel 17

1. Each Party shall encourage and develop scientific, technical and management-oriented research on protected areas, including, in particular, their ecological processes and archaeological, historical and cultural heritage, as well as on threatened or endangered species of fauna and flora and their habitats.
2. Each Party may consult with other Parties and with relevant regional and international organizations with a view to identifying, planning and undertaking scientific and technical research and monitoring programmes necessary to characterize and monitor protected areas and species and to assess the effectiveness of measures taken to implement management and recovery plans.
3. The Parties shall exchange, directly or through the Organization, scientific and technical information concerning current and planned research and monitoring programmes and the results thereof. They shall, to the fullest extent possible, co-ordinate their research and monitoring programmes, and endeavour to standardize procedures for collecting, reporting, archiving and analyzing relevant scientific and technical information.
4. The Parties shall, pursuant to the provisions of paragraph 1 above, compile comprehensive inventories of:
a) areas over which they exercise sovereignty, or sovereign rights or jurisdiction that contain rare or fragile ecosystems; that are reservoirs of biological or genetic diversity; that are of ecological value in maintaining economically important resources; that are important for threatened, endangered or migratory species; that are of value for aesthetic, recreational, tourist or archaeological reasons; and
b) species of fauna or flora that may qualify for listing as threatened or endangered according to the criteria established under this Protocol.