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Protected Areas

Protected Areas . The increasing pressure from anthropogenic stressors makes preservation of natural areas crucial for the preservation of biodiversity Because of the governmental support (in most cases) protected areas are a very effective conservation tool

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Protected Areas

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  1. Protected Areas • The increasing pressure from anthropogenic stressors makes preservation of natural areas crucial for the preservation of biodiversity • Because of the governmental support (in most cases) protected areas are a very effective conservation tool • Marine protected areas (MPAs) often restrict fishing or limit access

  2. Protected Areas • Protecting areas can help with some of the key threats: habitat degradation, overexploitation, and to a lesser degree pollution and invasive species • Protected areas serve other benefits than just directly benefiting plants and wildlife… can you think of some?

  3. Protected Areas • However, not all protected areas are necessarily well suited for biodiversity

  4. Protected Areas

  5. Protected Areas

  6. Protected Areas

  7. Protected Areas • Protected areas have been a long tradition in many societies • In the US, Yellowstone and Yosemite NPs were established in 1864 and 1872

  8. Protected Areas • In 1879 Royal NP in Australia

  9. Protected Areas • In 1892 in S Af, Kruger NP

  10. Protected Areas • NPs were largely created in response to the loss of wild places & to hunt (and populations) • Even though hunting was off-limits, the role of protected areas was well understood and allowed for populations to be sustained and ‘feed’ other areas • Later, many protected areas were specifically for spawning or breeding grounds

  11. Protected Areas • Protected area establishment is a requirement for many international environmental agreements and conventions such as CBD, Convention & Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, CITES, Convention for the Protection of Wetlands of International Importance

  12. Current State of Protected Areas • The number of protected areas began increasing rapidly worldwide in the 1960’s

  13. Current State of Protected Areas

  14. Types of Protected Areas • Protected areas fall under several different categories and each is accorded different level of protection • The management goals of each of these can vary widely from strict protection to sustainable extraction of nat. resources • The IUCN has defined 6 protected area management categories, based upon primary management goal (Box 14.1)

  15. Types of Protected Areas • Category I: strict nature reserves and wilderness areas • Primary purpose to protect biodiversity and maintain evolutionary and ecosystem processes • Typically managed for scientific purposes • Selected for character and size • Typically limit mechanized access

  16. Types of Protected Areas • Category II: national parks • NPs are generally managed for ecosystem protection and human enjoyment or recreation • Scientific, education, and rec important • Dual mandate can be problematic • Snowmobiles in Yellowstone • E.g. Tubbataha Reef in Philippines

  17. Types of Protected Areas • Category III: national monuments • Managed for conservation of specific resource or cultural feature (e.g. waterfalls, caves, geologic features)

  18. Types of Protected Areas • Category IV: habitat/sp man. area • Established for conservation purposes • Scientific research and monitoring are of prime importance • Established in US, 1903 at Pelican Island, FL • WMA (96M acres, 548 ref)

  19. Types of Protected Areas • Category V: protected land- seascape • Protect the historical interaction of people and the environment • Usually has both natural and cultural resources deemed important (e.g. Leshan Giant Buddha)

  20. Types of Protected Areas • Category VI

  21. Types of Protected Areas • Category VI: managed resource protection area • Established to ensure long-term protection of biological diversity as well as allow sustainable resource use (e.g. Ngorogoro crater, cattle, and the Maasai)

  22. Types of Protected Areas • Protected areas of any kind can also be classified as Biosphere Reserves, World Heritage Sites or Ramsar Wetlands (e.g. Yellowstone and Ngorogoro crater) • There are currently 411 biosphere reserves in 94 countries • Ideally, biospheres create 1 or 2 areas of low-intensity areas and 1 restricted

  23. Types of Protected Areas • Idealized protected area

  24. Types of Protected Areas • The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was signed in 1971 in Ramsar (Iran) and provides framework for protecting wetlands of international importance • Contracting parties commit to designating eligible areas as Ramsar wetlands and are rewarded with management tools and aid in implementation (96M ha)

  25. Types of Protected Areas • Strict Protection vs. Multiple Use • The role of strictly protected (Cat I-IV) vs. Multiple use (V & VI) is debated • While restricted areas provide very good protection, they may alienate locals • Given this, 23.3% of world’s protected areas are Cat. VI (vs. Cat I, <11%)

  26. Types of Protected Areas • Total area (km2) by IUCN category

  27. Management Effectiveness • Threats to effectiveness must be eliminated if the protected areas area to meet their objectives • IUCN has a framework to measure this: • 1) issues related to design (e.g. shape, size, buffer zones) • 2) appropriateness of management • 3) whether the objectives of protected areas are delivered (e.g. evaluation of biological and social outcomes)

  28. Management Effectiveness • Concern about the natural areas in Brazil, the WWF and IBAMA evaluated the 86 protected areas in Brazil • 47/86 unimplemented • 32/86 minimally implemented • 7/86 were reasonably implemented • As a result, lobbied government to increase spending

  29. Management Effectiveness • Despite many of these shortcoming, protected areas do achieve their goals • S higher in PA, even w/out protection • There is large evidence of the effectiveness in marine systems • In a study analyzing older protected areas (x=23 yrs), majority of sites have increased natural vegetative cover

  30. Management Effectiveness

  31. Management Effectiveness • A key attribute to the success of a PA was the density of guards (8x higher in the best 15 PA vs. 15 least effective PA) • Another recent report from WWF showed that management effectiveness is correlated with IUCN categories and that UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserves, World Heritage, or Ramsar sites, are all as effective as other types

  32. Need for Reserve Systems • Single protected areas will rarely be of adequate size or scope to conserve a representative sample of the biodiversity of a region, therefore entire reserve systems are critical for the conservation of biodiversity • It does NOT need to be all Cat. I or II

  33. Need for Reserve Systems • GAP analysis identifies areas of under-representation in the existing reserve system, by comparing the distribution of protected areas with the distribution of species, vegetation types, or other types of biodiversity (Essay 14.2)

  34. Need for Reserve Systems • The Global Gap Analysis project combined data from the World Database on Protected Areas with distributional data for 11,633 sp in a GIS to identify how well species were protected • 1424 sp are not protected in any part of their range, 804 of which are threatened with extinction (almost 2x)

  35. Need for Reserve Systems

  36. Need for Reserve Systems • Study also points out the skew in distribution of PAs • E.g. in New World, strictly protected sites only averaged is only 4.86km2 and 57% are less than 10km2 • Furthermore, 35% of total protected area is in Alaska!! • Worldwide, 46% of PA in tropics (76% S)

  37. Need for Reserve Systems • Using areas of high endemism as well as high threat, we can identify priority areas for the expansion of the protected areas network

  38. Need for Reserve Systems Distribution of the areas deemed ‘urgent’ through the Global Gap Analysis

  39. Need for Reserve Systems • Currently, 12.65% of Earth’s surface is under PA designation, although marine PA are only 0.5% of the PA (1/3 of great barrier reef is protected)

  40. Need for Reserve Systems

  41. Planning Reserve Systems • Although reserves are generally designed to protect and sustain representative samples of the full range of biodiversity in the area, it is frequently aimed at protecting a single flagship species

  42. Planning Reserve Systems • When biodiversity conservation is the primary goal, usually 1 of 3 purposes: • 1) protect single sp (umbrella, flagship, endangered) • 2) preserve high biodiversity/endemism • 3) preserve large and functioning ecosystems and their associated ecosystem services (watersheds)

  43. Planning Reserve Systems • Recent research efforts have focused on the development of principles and tools to design efficient reserve systems for as little as possible, AKA systematic conservation planning • SCP recognize that due to constraints on the amount of land that can be set aside for biodiversity conservation, there is need to conserve biodiversity in the most efficient manner possible

  44. Planning Reserve Systems • There are frequently quantitative objectives in SCP efforts • There are a number of principles associated with finding the best set of potential protected areas that satisfies a number of principles: comprehensiveness, representativeness, adequacy, efficiency, flexibility, risk spreading, and irreplaceability

  45. Planning Reserve Systems • A comprehensive reserve system is one that contains examples of biodiversity features including species, habitats, or ecological processes • A good PA system will only protect a small amount of land; consequently, one a fraction of the feature will be protected. Ideally, we should protect a representative sample of each

  46. Planning Reserve Systems • A good PA system would be adequate enough to ensure the persistence of organisms in the system • Need to be as efficient as possible to achieve as many of these goals as possible • A flexible conservation plan is one that enables us to achieve our objectives efficiently, but taking advantage of opps

  47. Planning Reserve Systems • There is a natural tension between connectivity and ‘risk spreading’, which will be situational • The irreplaceability of an area reflects how important its inclusion is in the reserve system (uniqueness)

  48. Planning Reserve Systems • Maintaining connections is often essential to long-term persistence of sp • 1) fragmentation and dispersal linked • 2) widespread sp need v large areas • 3) climate change likely to alter ranges • 4) planning outside PA can increase conservation potential with landscape planning

  49. Planning Reserve Systems • Protected area shape is important due to both ecological and economic factors • Corridors can enhance and facilitate movement between and among PAs • There are negatives to corridors…what? • Minimizing fragmentation • Can compare or quantify Boundary Length / 2 √π x Area

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