Securing Protected Areas. The Decision-making of Poachers and Rangers

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-372
Author(s):  
Ben Vollaard
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 377
Author(s):  
Zachary D. Miller ◽  
Wayne Freimund ◽  
Stefani A. Crabtree ◽  
Ethan P. Ryan

Cultural resources are commonly defined as resources that provide material evidence of past human activities. These resources are unique, as they are both finite and non-renewable. This provides a challenge for traditional visitor use management since these resources have no limits of acceptable change. However, with nearly every national park in the US containing cultural resources, coupled with ever-growing visitation, it is essential that managers of parks and protected areas have the ability to make science-informed decisions about cultural resources in the context of visitor use management. We propose a framework that can help provide context and exploration for these challenges. Drawing on previous literature, this framework includes risk-based approaches to decision making about visitor use; visitor cognitions related to cultural resources; emotions, mood, and affect related to cultural resource experiences; creating and evaluating interpretive programs; deviant visitor behaviors related to cultural resources; and co-management.


One Ecosystem ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Marta-Pedroso ◽  
Lia Laporta ◽  
Ivo Gama ◽  
Tiago Domingos

Demonstrating economic benefits generated by protected areas is often pointed out as pivotal for supporting decision-making. We argue in this paper that the concept of ecosystem services (ES), defined as the benefits humans derive from ecosystems, provides a consistent framework to approach this issue as it links ecosystem functioning and benefits, including benefits with economic value. This study aimed at providing evidence on how to bring the economic value of protected areas to the decision-making process and contributing to extend current EU Member States' experience in mapping and assessing the economic value of ES in the context of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 (Action 5). In doing so, we used the Natural Park of Serra de S. Mamede (PNSSM), located in the Alentejo NUTS II region, as a case study. We followed a three-step approach to pursue our goals, entailing stakeholders' engagement for selecting relevant ES (through a participatory workshop), biophysical mapping of ES flows (based on a multi-tiered approach depending on data availability) and spatial economic estimation of such flows (using value transfer, willingness-to-pay and market price methods). Our results indicate that the ES with highest economic value are not always the ones with higher perceived value by stakeholders. For most ES, the economic value increased with increasing protection level within the park, except for the crop production service. Although no formal uncertainty or sensitivity analysis has been performed, the following range is based on a critical assessment of non-primary data used. We estimated the aggregate annual value of PNSSM to be 11 to 33M€/year (representing 0.1 to 0.3% of the regional NUTSII Alentejo Gross Domestic Product). Our findings reinforce the need to adopt mixes of monetary and non-monetary valuation processes and not to rely just on one approach or measure of value while bringing ES into protected areas management.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 333
Author(s):  
Nicole C. Inglis ◽  
Jelena Vukomanovic

Fire management in protected areas faces mounting obstacles as climate change alters disturbance regimes, resources are diverted to fighting wildfires, and more people live along the boundaries of parks. Evidence-based prescribed fire management and improved communication with stakeholders is vital to reducing fire risk while maintaining public trust. Numerous national fire databases document when and where natural, prescribed, and human-caused fires have occurred on public lands in the United States. However, these databases are incongruous and non-standardized, making it difficult to visualize spatiotemporal patterns of fire and engage stakeholders in decision-making. We created interactive decision analytics (“VISTAFiRe”) that transform fire history data into clear visualizations of the spatial and temporal dimensions of fire and its management. We demonstrate the utility of our approach using Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park as examples of protected areas experiencing fire regime change between 1980 and 2017. Our open source visualizations may be applied to any data from the National Park Service Wildland Fire Events Geodatabase, with flexibility to communicate shifts in fire regimes over time, such as the type of ignition, duration and magnitude, and changes in seasonal occurrence. Application of the tool to Everglades and Big Cypress revealed that natural wildfires are occurring earlier in the wildfire season, while human-caused and prescribed wildfires are becoming less and more common, respectively. These new avenues of stakeholder communication are allowing the National Park Service to devise research plans to prepare for environmental change, guide resource allocation, and support decision-making in a clear and timely manner.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Cvitanovic ◽  
Christopher Fulton ◽  
Shaun Wilson ◽  
Lorrae van Kerkhoff ◽  
Ingrid Cripps ◽  
...  

Integration of scientific information into the decision-making process for the management of marine resources remains a significant challenge, with the inaccessibility of primary scientific literature to environmental practitioners identified as a key limiting factor. Here, we quantify the use of primary scientific literature in environmental management plans, and explore potential barriers to the efficient integration of such scientific information into the decision-making process. Through a case study of coral dominated Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) spanning three countries (Australia, Kenya and Belize), we find that primary scientific literature represents only 14% of information cited in management plans. Such a low proportion is likely to be symptomatic of several issues regarding the accessibility of primary scientific literature to MPA managers, such as: 1. Long publication times for articles (average 40.2 ± 1.8 months); 2. Subscription-only access (up to 56% of articles behind paywalls); and/or 3. Poor articulation of management implications (only 19% of articles provided clear outcomes relevant to management). Such impediments can undermine the adaptive governance of MPAs, so we suggest improvements to knowledge transfer among scientists and managers via a diversity of approaches including knowledge brokers, boundary organisations, knowledge co-production and management-orientated summaries in research articles.


FACETS ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 10-17
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Lemieux ◽  
Elizabeth A. Halpenny ◽  
Mu He ◽  
Trevor Swerdfager ◽  
Rick Rollins ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 258 ◽  
pp. 03006
Author(s):  
Alexander Kryahtunov ◽  
Olga Bogdanova ◽  
Elena Chernykh

Tyumen region is a complex subject of the Russian Federation. Management of specially protected natural areas in this region has a number of features. In this article the example of legal contradiction and complexity of decision-making in cases of development of oil and gas fields and preservation of object of especially protected natural territories is considered


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica de Castro-Pardo ◽  
Fernando Pérez-Rodríguez ◽  
João Carlos Azevedo ◽  
Vicente Urios

ABSTRACT: Decision-making in protected areas is often difficult due to an unclear definition of management objectives and indicators for their monitoring. This is frequently related to the coexistence of systems of protected areas at national and regional levels for which management objectives are ambiguous or that are not directly related to protected areas classification standards. In this study, we proposed a participative model based on PROMETHEE II to find consensual protected areas categories based on IUCN framework. This model involved the stakeholder’s assessments of management objectives in a protected area and their aggregation based on distance comparisons with objectives of international protected areas standards. The model was tested in the Albufera de Valencia Natural Park, a strongly human-modified wetland located in Eastern Spain and it allowed the identification of consensual management priorities and the IUCN category V as the equivalent international protected area category for this regional protected area.


Author(s):  
Leslie Richardson ◽  
Bruce Peacock

Economics plays an important role not only in the management of national parks in developed countries, but also in demonstrating the contribution of these areas to societal well-being. The beneficial effect of park tourism on jobs and economic activity in communities near these protected areas has at times been a factor in their establishment. These economic impacts continue to be highlighted as a way to demonstrate the benefit and return on investment of national parks to local economies. However, the economic values supported by national parks extend far beyond local economic benefits. Parks provide unique recreation opportunities, health benefits, preservation of wildlife and habitat, and a wide range of ecosystem services that the public assigns an economic value to. In addition, value is derived from the existence of national parks and their preservation for future generations. These nonmarket benefits can be difficult to quantify, but they are essential for understanding and communicating the economic importance of parks. Economic methods used to estimate these values have been refined and tested for nearly seven decades, and they have come a long way in helping to elucidate the extent of the nonmarket benefits of protected areas. In many developed countries, national parks have regulations and policies that outline a framework for the consideration of economic values in decision-making contexts. For instance, large oil spills in the United States, such as the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 and the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010, highlighted the need to better understand public values for affected park resources, leading to the extensive use of nonmarket values in natural resource damage assessments. Of course, rules and enforcement issues vary widely across countries, and the potential for economics to inform the day-to-day operations of national parks is much broader than what is currently outlined in such policies. While economics is only one piece of the puzzle in managing national parks, it provides a valuable tool for evaluating resource tradeoffs and for incorporating public preferences into the decision-making process, leading to greater transparency and assurance that national parks are managed for the benefit of society. Understanding the full extent of the economic benefits supported by national parks helps to further the mission of these protected areas in developed countries.


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