Global development and the future of the protected area strategy

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Land protection has become increasingly common, and global land protection is now greater than 12%. Prediction of future protected area expansion are uncertain, and depend on understanding the factors that have to date explained the historical pattern and geographic variation in protected area (PA) establishment. We test four major perspectives on factors limiting or facilitating PA creation, differentiating between strict PAs and multiple-use PAs where some resource extraction is permitted. Richer countries had a greater amount of land protection and were more likely to create strict PAs, supporting the view of land protection as an economic amenity, although the magnitude of this effect declines in recent decades. There are also significant differences in amount of protection by political structure, with independent countries tending to protect more land, and education, with countries with high levels of primary education tending to protect more. However, countries with substantial previous protection tend to do less protection and create proportionally fewer strict and more multiple-use PAs. Scenarios of future socioeconomic and political conditions suggest that on balance the amount of protection should increase in many countries, driven by economic prosperity, and by 2030 global land protection is forecast to reach 15–29%. The limiting factor in land protection varies among countries, and sub-Saharan African countries in particular will remain a very hard place for land protection because of low per-capita GDP. Overall, however, more land protection may occur in the next 20 years than has occurred in the previous 20 years.