Transboundary Protected Area (TBPA): An area of land and/or sea that straddles one or more boundaries between states, sub-national unites such as provinces and regions, autonomous areas and/or areas beyond the limits of national sovereignty or jurisdiction, whose constituent parts are especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed co-operatively through legal or other effective means. (The International Union for Conservation of Nature - IUCN definition).

A "Park for Peace" is a special designation that may be applied to any of the three types of Transboundary Conservation Areas, and is dedicated to the promotion, celebration and/or commemoration of peace and cooperation (IUCN, 2015).

The biodiversity community has the variety of terms in use: “IUCN has recognized the importance of transboundary conservation and has set up a Global Transboundary Conservation Network (GTCN) (...) The network has recognised that terms such as ‘Transfrontier Protected Areas’, ‘Transboundary Natural Resource Management Areas’, ‘Peace Parks’, ‘Parks for Peace’, and ‘Transfrontier Conservation Areas’, have been used interchangeably, leading to often confusing results. Sandwith et al. (2001) preferred the term ‘Transboundary Protected Area’ (TBPA) with a definition similar to the one used for TFCAs. (van der Duim, R., Lamers, M. and van Wijk, J. eds., 2014. Institutional Arrangements for Conservation, Development and Tourism in Eastern and Southern Africa: A Dynamic Perspective. Springer. P. 160).