Ecological and sociopolitical assessment of congressional and presidential designation of federal protected areas.

Tyler G Creech,Matthew A Williamson

doi:10.1002/eap.1888

Abstract

Protected areas are one of the most effective means by which biodiversity is conserved, but are often criticized for either neglecting the importance of local communities or sacrificing conservation objectives for political expedience. In the United States, federal protected areas can be designated via a democratic legislation process or via executive action, which allows for comparison of the ecological and sociopolitical context of these top-down and bottom-up processes. We compared protected areas resulting from congressional designation vs. presidential designation with respect to their ecological context (using measures of biodiversity and climate refugial potential) and sociopolitical context (using measures of local support for conservation and reliance on natural resource-based industries). We found minimal differences between these designation modes for both ecological and sociopolitical variables. These results suggest that presidentially designated protected areas tend to be no more burdensome to local communities and no less valuable for ecological conservation than more widely accepted federal protected areas such as national parks, and they provide new evidence to inform the current debate over national monuments.

Highlights

Protected areas (PAs) are widely recognized as a primary tool for achieving conservation objectives (Watson et al 2014), but their establishment often engenders controversy
In the United States, this tension is exemplified by the controversy surrounding presidential use of the Antiquities Act, with presidentially designated PAs (PPAs) often labeled by opponents as “undemocratic,” “arbitrary,” or “land grabs” (Lin 2002, Sanders 2016)
Our analysis suggests that despite dramatically different designation processes, the ecological and sociopolitical context of congressionally designated PAs (CPAs) and PPAs are broadly similar

Summary

Introduction

Protected areas (PAs) are widely recognized as a primary tool for achieving conservation objectives (Watson et al 2014), but their establishment often engenders controversy. The PA designation process has been criticized for being topdown and failing to consider the effects of new PAs on local residents (Brechin and West 1990, West et al 2006). The global distribution of PAs has been criticized for over-representing economically marginal lands at the expense of protecting biological diversity, suggesting an over-emphasis on local interests (Joppa and Pfaff 2009, Venter et al 2017). Developing policy approaches capable of striking an appropriate balance between conservation objectives and the Manuscript received 20 November 2018; revised 4 March 2019; accepted 12 March 2019.

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Conclusion