Strictly protected areas are not necessarily more effective than areas in which multiple human uses are permitted
- PDF / 1,610,473 Bytes
- 16 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 90 Downloads / 164 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Strictly protected areas are not necessarily more effective than areas in which multiple human uses are permitted Moses Elleason, Zhuoli Guan, Yiming Deng, Aiwu Jiang, Eben Goodale, Christos Mammides
Received: 11 June 2020 / Revised: 16 September 2020 / Accepted: 22 October 2020
Abstract The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies protected areas into six categories, ranging from strict nature reserves to areas where multiple human uses are permitted. In the past, many researchers have questioned the effectiveness of multipleuse areas, fueling an unresolved debate regarding their conservation value. The literature so far has been inconclusive: although several studies have found that strictly protected areas are more effective, others have found the opposite, and yet others that the two types do not differ. To help resolve this debate, we reviewed the literature on protected areas and conducted our own analysis using [ 19 000 terrestrial protected areas worldwide. We found that the differences between strictly protected areas and areas in which multiple human uses are permitted are often small and not statistically significant. Although the effectiveness of protected areas worldwide varies, other factors, besides their assigned IUCN category, are likely to be driving this pattern. Keywords Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 Convention on Biological Diversity Deforestation Human footprint index Protected planet
INTRODUCTION Protected areas play a predominant role in the global efforts to conserve biodiversity and natural systems (Visconti et al. 2019). The International Union for Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01426-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies protected areas into six categories (Table 1; Dudley 2008) ranging from strict nature reserves (Category Ia) to areas where resources can be used sustainably (Category VI). The categories—which are primarily defined by their management objectives (Boitani et al. 2008; Dudley and Stolton 2008)— were designed to reflect a gradient of naturalness and permissible human uses (Dudley 2008). For example, protected areas in Category Ia represent natural areas set aside exclusively for the protection of biodiversity and in which ‘‘human visitation and use’’ is strictly prohibited. Conversely, protected areas in Categories V and VI represent areas with higher levels of human presence and in which local communities are allowed to maintain sustainably many of their nonindustrial activities (Table 1). The current IUCN classification system has been the result of years of discussions and negotiations (Dudley et al. 2010; Shafer 2015) and is thought to reflect the present-day view on protected areas and their role in conservation and society (Dudley et al. 2010, 2014). Although protected areas were originally conceived as places to be set aside solely for the preservation of biodiver
Data Loading...
