scholarly journals Global protected area impacts

2010 ◽  
Vol 278 (1712) ◽  
pp. 1633-1638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas N. Joppa ◽  
Alexander Pfaff
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Conservation Priorities ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Natural Land ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Landscape Protection

Protected areas (PAs) dominate conservation efforts. They will probably play a role in future climate policies too, as global payments may reward local reductions of loss of natural land cover. We estimate the impact of PAs on natural land cover within each of 147 countries by comparing outcomes inside PAs with outcomes outside. We use ‘matching’ (or ‘apples to apples’) for land characteristics to control for the fact that PAs very often are non-randomly distributed across their national landscapes. Protection tends towards land that, if unprotected, is less likely than average to be cleared. For 75 per cent of countries, we find protection does reduce conversion of natural land cover. However, for approximately 80 per cent of countries, our global results also confirm (following smaller-scale studies) that controlling for land characteristics reduces estimated impact by half or more. This shows the importance of controlling for at least a few key land characteristics. Further, we show that impacts vary considerably within a country (i.e. across a landscape): protection achieves less on lands far from roads, far from cities and on steeper slopes. Thus, while planners are, of course, constrained by other conservation priorities and costs, they could target higher impacts to earn more global payments for reduced deforestation.

scholarly journals Correlates of long-term land-cover change and protected area performance at priority conservation sites in Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALISON E. BERESFORD ◽  
GRAEME M. BUCHANAN ◽  
BEN PHALAN ◽  
GEORGE W. ESHIAMWATA ◽  
ANDREW BALMFORD ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Absolute Difference ◽  
Area Network ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Natural Land

SUMMARYThe loss of natural habitats is a major threat to biodiversity, and protected area designation is one of the standard responses to this threat. However, greater understanding of the drivers of habitat loss and of the circumstances under which protected areas succeed or fail is still needed. We use visual assessment of satellite images to quantify land-cover change over periods of up to 30 years in and around a matched sample of protected and unprotected Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) in Africa. We modelled the annual survival of forests and other natural land covers as a function of a range of environmental and anthropic predictors of plausible drivers. The best-supported model indicated that survival rates of natural land cover were highest in steeper areas, at higher altitudes, in areas with lower human population densities and in areas where the cover of natural habitats was already higher at the start of the period. Survival rates of natural land cover in protected areas were, on average, around twice those in unprotected areas, but the differences between them varied along different environmental gradients. The overall survival rates of both protected and unprotected forests were significantly lower than those of other natural land-cover types, but the net benefit of protection, in terms of the absolute difference in rates of loss between protected and unprotected sites, was higher in forests. Interaction terms indicated that as slope and altitude increased, the natural protection offered by topography increasingly nullified the additional benefits of legislative protection. Furthermore, protected area designation offered reduced additional benefits to the survival of natural land cover in areas where rates of conversion were higher at the start of the observation period. Variation in the impacts of protected area status along different environmental gradients indicates that targets to improve the world's protected area network, such as Aichi Target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, need to look beyond simple area-based metrics. Our methods and results contribute to the development of a protocol for prioritizing places where protection is likely to have the greatest effect.

scholarly journals Spatial and Temporal Trends of Burnt Area in Angola: Implications for Natural Vegetation and Protected Area Management

Diversity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 307
Author(s):  
Silvia Catarino ◽  
Maria Manuel Romeiras ◽  
Rui Figueira ◽  
Valentine Aubard ◽  
João M. N. Silva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Conservation Priorities ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Burnt Area ◽  
Increasing Trends ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Trends

Fire is a key driver of natural ecosystems in Africa. However, human activity and climate change have altered fire frequency and severity, with negative consequences for biodiversity conservation. Angola ranks among the countries with the highest fire activity in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we investigated the spatial and temporal trends of the annual burnt area in Angola, from 2001 to 2019, and their association with terrestrial ecoregions, land cover, and protected areas. Based on satellite imagery, we analyzed the presence of significant trends in burnt area, applying the contextual Mann–Kendall test and the Theil–Sen slope estimator. Data on burnt areas were obtained from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) burnt area product and the analyses were processed in TerrSet. Our results showed that ca. 30% of the country’s area burned every year. The highest percentage of annual burnt area was found in northeast and southeast Angola, which showed large clusters of decreasing trends of burnt area. The clusters of increasing trends were found mainly in central Angola, associated with savannas and grasslands of Angolan Miombo woodlands. The protected areas of Cameia, Luengue-Luiana, and Mavinga exhibited large areas of decreasing trends of burnt area. Conversely, 23% of the Bicuar National Park was included in clusters of increasing trends. Distinct patterns of land cover were found in areas of significant trends, where the clusters of increasing trends showed a higher fraction of forest cover (80%) than the clusters of decreasing trends (55%). The documentation of burnt area trends was very important in tropical regions, since it helped define conservation priorities and management strategies, allowing more effective management of forests and fires in countries with few human and financial resources.

scholarly journals Measuring benefits of protected area management: trends across realms and research gaps for freshwater systems

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1681) ◽  
pp. 20140274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa M. Adams ◽  
Samantha A. Setterfield ◽  
Michael M. Douglas ◽  
Mark J. Kennard ◽  
Keith Ferdinands
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Impact Evaluation ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
National Park ◽  
Protected Area Management ◽  
Time Lags ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
Freshwater Systems ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Area Management

Protected areas remain a cornerstone for global conservation. However, their effectiveness at halting biodiversity decline is not fully understood. Studies of protected area benefits have largely focused on measuring their impact on halting deforestation and have neglected to measure the impacts of protected areas on other threats. Evaluations that measure the impact of protected area management require more complex evaluation designs and datasets. This is the case across realms (terrestrial, freshwater, marine), but measuring the impact of protected area management in freshwater systems may be even more difficult owing to the high level of connectivity and potential for threat propagation within systems (e.g. downstream flow of pollution). We review the potential barriers to conducting impact evaluation for protected area management in freshwater systems. We contrast the barriers identified for freshwater systems to terrestrial systems and discuss potential measurable outcomes and confounders associated with protected area management across the two realms. We identify key research gaps in conducting impact evaluation in freshwater systems that relate to three of their major characteristics: variability, connectivity and time lags in outcomes. Lastly, we use Kakadu National Park world heritage area, the largest national park in Australia, as a case study to illustrate the challenges of measuring impacts of protected area management programmes for environmental outcomes in freshwater systems.

Hydrological projections based on the coupled hydrological–hydraulic modeling in the complex river network region: a case study in the Taihu basin, China

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liu Liu ◽  
Zongxue Xu
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Hydraulic Modeling ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Baseline Scenario ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Flood Water ◽  
Taihu Basin ◽  
The Impact

Water resources in the Taihu basin, China, are not only facing the effects of a changing climate but also consequences of an intensive urbanization process with the abandonment of rural activities and the resulting changes in land use/land-cover. In the present work, the impact of climate change and urbanization on hydrological processes was assessed using an integrated modeling system, coupling the distributed hydrological model variable infiltration capacity and the hydraulic model ISIS, while future climate scenarios were projected using the regional climate model providing regional climate for impact studies. Results show a significant increasing trend of impervious surface area, while other types of land cover exhibit decreasing trends in 2021–2050. Furthermore, mean annual runoff under different future climate scenarios will increase, especially during flood seasons, consistent with the changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration for both spatial and temporal distribution. Maximum and mean flood water levels under two future scenarios will be higher than levels under the baseline scenario (1961–1990), and the return periods of storms resulting in the same flood water level will decrease significantly in comparison to the baseline scenario, implying more frequent occurrence of extreme floods in future. These results are significant to future flood control efforts and waterlog drainage planning in the Taihu basin.

scholarly journals Evaluation of land cover/land use development in selected landscape conservation areas in comparison to non-protected areas

Geografie ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-316
Author(s):  
Lucia Bendíková ◽  
Markéta Šantrůčková ◽  
Zdeněk Lipský
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Landscape Conservation ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Land Use Development ◽  
Landscape Protection

Qualities of protected areas in Europe are the result of mutual collaboration, and the influence of natural conditions and historical development. Therefore, landscape protection has a wider scope. In addition to the protection of the landscape’s natural qualities, landscape protection also needs to identify human-driven impacts that support or directly affect landscape qualities. We have compared the development of land use/land cover in selected landscape conservation areas, and suitably selected referential areas in four time levels within a period of more than 150 years. The goals were to identify the types of land use that decrease, or increase the qualities of landscape, and to verify the hypothesis that landscape conservation areas, protected areas, have gone through a different land use/land cover development than the referential areas. The results of this comparison do not confirm our hypothesis. The most substantial changes in the rural areas in Czechia took place in a distant past not covered by the dataset used in this study.

scholarly journals What Is Threatening Forests in Protected Areas? A Global Assessment of Deforestation in Protected Areas, 2001–2018

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Wade ◽  
Kemen G. Austin ◽  
James Cajka ◽  
Daniel Lapidus ◽  
Kibri H. Everett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The Impact

The protection of forests is crucial to providing important ecosystem services, such as supplying clean air and water, safeguarding critical habitats for biodiversity, and reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this importance, global forest loss has steadily increased in recent decades. Protected Areas (PAs) currently account for almost 15% of Earth’s terrestrial surface and protect 5% of global tree cover and were developed as a principal approach to limit the impact of anthropogenic activities on natural, intact ecosystems and habitats. We assess global trends in forest loss inside and outside of PAs, and land cover following this forest loss, using a global map of tree cover loss and global maps of land cover. While forests in PAs experience loss at lower rates than non-protected forests, we find that the temporal trend of forest loss in PAs is markedly similar to that of all forest loss globally. We find that forest loss in PAs is most commonly—and increasingly—followed by shrubland, a broad category that could represent re-growing forest, agricultural fallows, or pasture lands in some regional contexts. Anthropogenic forest loss for agriculture is common in some regions, particularly in the global tropics, while wildfires, pests, and storm blowdown are a significant and consistent cause of forest loss in more northern latitudes, such as the United States, Canada, and Russia. Our study describes a process for screening tree cover loss and agriculture expansion taking place within PAs, and identification of priority targets for further site-specific assessments of threats to PAs. We illustrate an approach for more detailed assessment of forest loss in four case study PAs in Brazil, Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United States.

scholarly journals Using spatial metrics to assess the efficacy of biodiversity conservation within the Romanian Carpathian Convention area

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-43
Author(s):  
Alexandru-Ionuţ Petrişor ◽  
Liliana Elza Petrişor
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Transitional Dynamics ◽  
Spatial Metrics ◽  
Natural Protected Areas ◽  
Ecological Zones ◽  
Biogeographical Region ◽  
Agricultural Areas

AbstractThe alpine region is of crucial importance for the European Union; as a result, the Carpathian Convention aims at its sustainable development. Since sustainability implies also conservation through natural protected areas, aimed at including regions representative for the national biogeographical space, this article aims at assessing the efficiency of conservation. The methodology consisted of using spatial metrics applied to Romanian and European data on the natural protected areas, land cover and use and their transitional dynamics. The findings show a very good coverage of the Alpine biogeographical region (98% included in the Convention area, and 43% of it protected within the Convention area) and of the ecological region of Carpathian montane coniferous forests (88% included in the Convention area, and 42% of it protected within the Convention area). The dominant land cover is represented by forests (63% within the Convention area, and 70% of the total protected area). The main transitional dynamics are deforestation (covering 50% of all changes area within the Convention area and 46% from the changed area within its protected area) and forestations – including afforestation, reforestation and colonization of abandoned agricultural areas by forest vegetation (covering 44% of all changes area within the Convention area and 51% from the changed area within its protected area) during 1990-2000 and deforestation (covering 97% of all changes area within the Convention area and 99% from the changed area within its protected area) during 1990-2000. The results suggest that the coverage of biogeographical and ecological zones is good, especially for the most relevant ones, but deforestations are a serious issue, regardless of occurring before or after achieving the protection status.

scholarly journals Pervasive cropland in protected areas highlight trade-offs between conservation and food security

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (4) ◽  
pp. e2010121118
Author(s):  
Varsha Vijay ◽  
Paul R. Armsworth
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Goal Setting ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Conservation Priorities ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Competing Priorities ◽  
The Tropics

Global cropland expansion over the last century caused widespread habitat loss and degradation. Establishment of protected areas aims to counteract the loss of habitats and to slow species extinctions. However, many protected areas also include high levels of habitat disturbance and conversion for uses such as cropland. Understanding where and why this occurs may realign conservation priorities and inform protected area policy in light of competing priorities such as food security. Here, we use our global synthesis cropland dataset to quantify cropland in protected areas globally and assess their relationship to conservation aims and socio-environmental context. We estimate that cropland occupies 1.4 million km2 or 6% of global protected area. Cropland occurs across all protected area management types, with 22% occurring in strictly protected areas. Cropland inside protected areas is more prevalent in countries with higher population density, lower income inequality, and with higher agricultural suitability of protected lands. While this phenomenon is dominant in midnorthern latitudes, areas of cropland in protected areas of the tropics and subtropics may present greater trade-offs due to higher levels of both biodiversity and food insecurity. Although area-based targets are prominent in biodiversity goal-setting, our results show that they can mask persistent anthropogenic land uses detrimental to native ecosystem conservation. To ensure the long-term efficacy of protected areas, post-2020 goal setting must link aims for biodiversity and human health and improve monitoring of conservation outcomes in cropland-impacted protected areas.

Financing Protected Areas: The Social and Environmental Impact Bond's Role in Terrestrial Protected Area Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise O'Flynn ◽  
Stephen Schweinsberg ◽  
Stephen Wearing
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Effective Management ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Potential Applicability ◽  
Alternative Finance ◽  
The Impact

Insufficient funding for terrestrial protected areas is a global challenge, and the ability of a protected area management agency to secure sustainable financing is an obstacle in the effective management of these important areas. While the role of public sector agencies in establishing, financing, and managing protected areas, and in providing a supportive legislative and policy environment will remain essential into the future; the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recommends that alternative finance mechanisms be adopted to help achieve financial sustainability. With this recommendation in mind, one approach is to look to other policy areas which traditionally rely on governments as their primary funding source, to understand the alternative finance mechanisms they have adopted and appraise the suitability of these mechanisms for terrestrial protected areas. One alternative finance mechanism is the social and environmental impact bond which is a subset of impact investment and an example of a pay for success or results-based contract. This paper reviews literature on the social and environmental impact bond with a view to assessing its potential applicability to assist in the effective management of terrestrial protected areas that fall within the management categories defined by the IUCN. Three examples of existing and proposed impact bonds with an environment focus are explored, including the world’s first environmental impact bond in Washington D.C., the publicly offered Atlanta environmental impact bond and the proposed wildlife conservation bond in South Africa. The selected impact bonds will help to illustrate the establishment, operation, and evaluation of impact bonds in a real-world context. It will be argued that the social and environmental impact bond can be a useful finance model for a range of uses in a variety of social sectors and conservation settings, including terrestrial protected areas. The paper further considers how the impact bond might result in both improved social and/or environmental outcomes as well as the perceived challenges associated with this alternative finance mechanism. While the focus of this paper is on terrestrial protected areas, the lessons discussed may also be applicable to marine protected areas.

scholarly journals Romanian Natura 2000 Network: Evaluation of the Threats and Pressures through the Corine Land Cover Dataset

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 2075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Ursu ◽  
Cristian Constantin Stoleriu ◽  
Constantin Ion ◽  
Vasile Jitariu ◽  
Andrei Enea
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Land Cover Changes ◽  
Corine Land Cover ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Natura 2000 Site ◽  
New Guidelines ◽  
The Impact

The present paper aims to evaluate if the Natura 2000 sites in Romania are placed over dynamic areas from a land cover changes perspective, or if they are placed in areas with low human interest and what the impact of these changes are. The effectiveness of conservation measures was addressed by analyzing the number of land cover changes and their areas in Natura 2000 sites, before and after declaring them as protected areas. Corine Land Cover (CLC) data were used as a tool to identify threats and pressures from each Natura 2000 site, and also assess whether land cover changes are more frequent in sites with a high biodiversity index, compared to those with low diversity, in order to estimate the conservation status. Changes in the land cover during 1990–2018 are characterized by three types of events, from 1990 to 2000 with most changes recorded, followed by a relative period of stability from 2000 to 2012; the most dynamic period is from 2012 to 2018. The main changes are due to deforestation. Only 29.7% ROSCI (Romanian Sites of Community Importance) and 36.5% ROSPA (Romanian Special Protected Areas) sites are characterized by a good degree of conservation without or with low modifications regarding the land cover. The most frequent threats and pressures that were found through CLC changes in the ROSCIs in Romania are related to forestry, grazing, the extent of the urbanized environment and those related to agriculture. The correspondence between Corine Land Cover and Natura 2000 specific threats and pressures emphasizes new guidelines for the Corine Land Cover program; therefore, this correspondence can be a potential tool to get more information for Natura 2000 sites.

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