Multilevel Decision‐Making and Protected Area Prioritization

Protected areas are a key instrument for conservation. Despite this, they are vulnerable to risks associated with weak governance, land-use intensification, and climate change. We used a novel hierarchical optimization approach to identify priority areas for expanding the global protected area system that explicitly accounted for such risks while maximizing protection of all known terrestrial vertebrate species. To incorporate risk categories, we built on the minimum set problem, where the objective is to reach species distribution protection targets while accounting for 1 constraint, such as land cost or area. We expanded this approach to include multiple objectives accounting for risk in the problem formulation by treating each risk layer as a separate objective in the problem formulation. Reducing exposure to these risks required expanding the area of the global protected area system by 1.6% while still meeting conservation targets. Incorporating risks from weak governance drove the greatest changes in spatial priorities for protection, and incorporating risks from climate change required the largest increase (2.52%) in global protected area. Conserving wide-ranging species required countries with relatively strong governance to protect more land when they bordered nations with comparatively weak governance. Our results underscore the need for cross-jurisdictional coordination and demonstrate how risk can be efficiently incorporated into conservation planning. Planeación de las áreas protegidas para conservar la biodiversidad en un futuro incierto.

To Achieve Big Wins for Terrestrial Conservation, Prioritize Protection of Ecoregions Closest to Meeting Targets

trialspecies,therelativemeritsofdifferentapproachesto ensure the long-term persistence of those species remain highly contentious. Most would agree, however, that both establishing protected areas and exercising some form of restraint on extraction of forest resources are among the most effective of all viable conservation measures. Deforestation, wildfires, logging, and hunting are among the leading drivers of species losses in tropical forests, and de facto or de jure protection from these threats can be conferred by either effective enforcement of regulations or physical remoteness. Attempts to assess conservation success of protected areasatlargescaleshaverestedprimarilyonconventional use of remote sensing to quantify spatial or temporal differences in rates of change in land cover due to deforestation and wildfires, rather than on empirical demographic or community-level metrics (Gaston et al. 2008). Q2 However, the former approaches fail to detect most types of subcanopy anthropogenic disturbances that also result, directly or indirectly, in species losses (Peres et al. 2006). Moreover, the effects of habitat loss and degradation on population extirpations and declines are nonlinear, so vegetation cover alone is rarely a robust proxy for the viability of terrestrial biotas. Remotesensing data show vast tracts of apparently intact tropical forests, but in reality levels of hunting and other forms of extraction in these areas are often unsustainable (Peres & Lake 2003). Fundamental questions yet to be answered include whether ostensibly intact protected areas retain full complements of forest species and how the extent of cryptic patterns of disturbance is related to human population density in both protected and unprotected areas. I considered the global to regional emergence of sustainable-use reserves, emphasizing the world’s largest tropical forest region, Amazonia. Sustainable-use reserves often have intermediate levels of disturbance, so I examined the degree of use of natural resources by resident communities and used human population density as a proxy for level of extraction. In both protected and unprotected areas, I also estimated responses of game vertebrate assemblages to hunting on the basis of the relative biomassextractedfromasubsetoftheforestfauna.Iused analysesofcovariance(ANCOVA)toexaminetheassociationbetweenhumandensityandgamebiomassharvested across different reserve categories. Finally, I considered the long-term capacity of sustainable-use forest reserves to maintain populations of all resident species.

A Chinese approach to protected areas: A case study comparison with the United States

Protected areas are a fundamental mechanism for conserving global biodiversity. Given limited conservation funds and shortfalls in funding for existing protected area management needs, a critical question is: should countries and states spend new funds on purchasing more land or managing existing protected areas to an acceptable standard? We used a non-spatial dynamic landscape model to compare the relative importance of expansion of protected areas versus improved protected area management in diverse contexts. We provide guidance on how to allocate funding across these two actions, and the order in which these actions should be prioritized. We discover that, in contrast with spending patterns, which focus on expansion rather than management, management is often the better first investment. The relative priority of expansion and management is determined by observable factors: the relative costs of the two actions and rates of degradation in protected and unprotected areas. Importantly, regardless of these factors, the final recommended action is always to split the budget across expansion and management such that there is adequate money for management. This highlights that, while our existing protected areas are an important asset, increased investment in management is essential to maximize their potential to protect biodiversity.

The values that visitors assign to protected areas influence the way they relate to those areas. Because of the diversity of objectives and missions associated with protected areas, values might be equally diverse. The purpose of this study is to identify through confirmatory factor analysis the structure of values assigned to one protected area compared to other protected areas. By employing visitor survey data from four protected areas in the western United States, the results demonstrate that some assigned values were common to all of the areas, while others were specific to the type of protected area. Understanding how and why assigned values vary by protected area is likely to be useful as managers confront complex and conflict-laden issues.

Spatial optimization approaches that were originally developed to help conservation organizations determine protection decisions over small spatial scales are now used to inform global or continental scale priority setting. However, the different decision contexts involved in large-scale resource allocation need to be considered. We present a continuous optimization approach in which a decision-maker allocates funding to regional offices. Local decision-makers then use these funds to implement habitat protection efforts with varying effectiveness when evaluated in terms of the funder's goals. We illustrate this continuous formulation by examining the relative priority that should be given to different counties in the coterminous United States when acquiring land to establish new protected areas. If weighting all species equally, counties in the southwest United States, where large areas can be bought cheaply, are priorities for protection. If focusing only on species of conservation concern, priorities shift to locations rich in such species, particularly near expanding exurban areas facing high rates of future habitat conversion (e.g., south-central Texas). Priorities for protection are sensitive to what is assumed about local ecological and decision-making processes. For example, decision-makers who doubt the efficacy of local land protection efforts should focus on a few key areas, while optimistic decision-makers should disperse funding more widely. Efforts to inform large-scale conservation priorities should reflect better the types of choice that decision-makers actually face when working over these scales. They also need to report the sensitivity of recommended priorities to what are often unstated assumptions about local processes affecting conservation outcomes.

Forecasting conservation impact to pinpoint spatial priorities in the Brazilian Cerrado

Worldwide, native predators are killed to protect livestock, an action that can undermine wildlife conservation efforts and create conflicts among stakeholders. An ongoing example is occurring in the western United States, where wolves (Canis lupus) were eradicated by the 1930s but are again present in parts of their historic range. While livestock losses to wolves represent a small fraction of overall livestock mortality, the response to these depredations has resulted in widespread conflicts including significant efforts at lethal wolf control to reduce impacts on livestock producers, especially those with large-scale grazing operations on public lands. A variety of nonlethal methods have proven effective in reducing livestock losses to wolves in small-scale operations but in large-scale, open-range grazing operations, nonlethal management strategies are often presumed ineffective or infeasible. To demonstrate that nonlethal techniques can be effective at large scales, we report a 7-year case study where we strategically applied nonlethal predator deterrents and animal husbandry techniques on an adaptive basis (i.e., based on terrain, proximity to den or rendezvous sites, avoiding overexposure to techniques such as certain lights or sound devices that could result in wolves losing their fear of that device, etc.) to protect sheep (Ovis aries) and wolves on public grazing lands in Idaho. We collected data on sheep depredation mortalities in the protected demonstration study area and compared these data to an adjacent wolf-occupied area where sheep were grazed without the added nonlethal protection measures. Over the 7-year period, sheep depredation losses to wolves were 3.5 times higher in the Nonprotected Area (NPA) than in the Protected Area (PA). Furthermore, no wolves were lethally controlled within the PA and sheep depredation losses to wolves were just 0.02% of the total number of sheep present, the lowest loss rate among sheep-grazing areas in wolf range statewide, whereas wolves were lethally controlled in the NPA. Our demonstration project provides evidence that proactive use of a variety of nonlethal techniques applied conditionally can help reduce depredation on large open-range operations.

Serengeti is the largest ecosystem in Tanzania endowed with high level of biodiversity in protected and unprotected areas. Serengeti National Park is the only protected area in a matrix of unprotected areas characterized with a wide range of human activities which threaten biodiversity conservation. It was assessed plant species composition, diversity, distribution and vegetation structure in both the protected and unprotected areas of the ecosystem. Two transects with twenty plots each were established in each vegetation type in which data was collected. A significantly higher species composition (262) and diversity (2.39 ± 0.03) was observed in unprotected areas than in the protected area (163 and 2.06 ± 0.04 respectively). The DCA ordination of the species data from the two management regimes formed four clusters based on similarity in plant species composition, where three clusters were from unprotected areas and one from protected area. The variations in plant species composition ranged from 35.69% to 65.92% for the first four DCA axes. There was no significant difference in stem density between protected and unprotected areas of the ecosystem. Although high density of trees at 10 - 14 cm DBH sizes was observed in both sides of the conservation management regimes, individuals with DBH above 65 cm existed in the protected area but were absent in unprotected areas. It can be concluded that the decrease of plant species diversity and density in unprotected area is because of habitat degradation associated with exploitation pressure, livestock grazing and other forms of disturbance related with anthropogenic activities. Because of high demand for plant resources, the local community needs to establish woodlots to cater for wood resource needs outside the protected areas of Serengeti. Also, pastoralists need to diversify livestock keeping systems compatible with limited grazing land in unprotected area of the Serengeti ecosystem.

As in other former British colonies, the earliest protected areas in Peninsular Malaysia were game reserves. There were twenty protected areas at the end of the colonial period (1957), and twenty-five in 1992. The outstanding achievement of the colonial period was the creation of King George V National Park (now Taman Negara), but unfortunately too much reliance was subsequently placed upon it. Protected areas were established in economically undesirable or (formerly) remote areas, largely on anad hocbasis and mainly as a kind of ‘residual’ land-use. The protected areas have long suffered from rescissions, excisions, and encroachments, primarily for three reasons: because commercial interests have always prevailed; because of insecurity of land tenure; and because ordinary people have been denied a stake in such areas.I estimate that the ‘effective’ protected-area coverage in 1992 was probably no greater than that of about AD 1940 (when, unlike the situation today, most of the Peninsula still remained forested). The Malaysian states have been reluctant to create new protected areas, and the federal government has been unwilling to invoke certain of its constitutional powers in order to acquire state lands for national parks. Consequently, proposals for additional protected areas have produced few results. Yet owing to the rapid pace of anthropogenic forest change, the Peninsula is running out of potential sites for new protected ares.Reserved forests comprise virtually all of the Peninsula's remaining forest cover (seeFig. 1). Set aside mainly for productive and protective purposes, it is these forests, not the protected areas, that harbour most of the region's wildlife. This being the case, and keeping in mind that almost all of the wild species are forest-dwelling, it follows that wildlife conservation must come to rely more and more heavily on the reserved forests. Studies conducted by Johns (e.g.1983, 1986, 1987) at Sungai Tekam, Pahang, on the impact of logging on wildlife, reveal that most species can adapt to the altered conditions of logged forests; or, more precisely, that this appears to be the case following asinglelogging operation. But this topic, interesting and important as it is, takes us beyond the scope of this paper.The matter of species adaptability, however, brings to mind a more general theme, which is the need to implement the principles of conservation everywhere, not just in specially protected areas. There is, in short,no effective alternative to rational land-use planning and to making conservation an integral part of all production processes.

Throughout Africa, conservancies under community and private management are becoming increasingly important as a complement to the protection offered by the established core network of protected areas, which are largely under national management. However, opportunities for creating new conservation areas are restricted by increasing demand on land use by growing human populations, and it is unclear how effectively the current protected area network captures spatial priorities for conservation. Taking into account climate-induced range-shifts, we first identified spatial priorities for antelope conservation in Africa by gap analysis of the network of protected areas listed with an IUCN category in the World Database for Protected Areas. For three countries from which information were available, we then assessed to what extent the gaps identified were covered by protected areas not listed with an IUCN category, for the latter making a distinction between whether management was referred to as community-based or not. The results showed limited overlap, indicating that the success of community-based and privately managed protected areas in covering spatial priorities from a continent-wide perspective could be increased by more strategic land use planning at the national level.

Historically Americans have relied on the federal government for wilderness protection. But the federal government has made promises too politically expensive to keep. In North America, conservation efforts are now directed to preserving biologically valuable lands outside our wilderness areas and parks. Especially those that provide habitat corridors between protected areas. In the Western United States many of the most ecologically valuable lands are in private ownership. This creates new challenges for conservationists, who traditionally relied on the federal government for public land protection. Environmental entrepreneurs specialize in identifying conservation opportunities, mobilizing resources, and building a constituency for conservation. This role is a vital, but often ignored piece of the conservation puzzle. A key to their success is the recognition that solutions will be more acceptable and successful if locals are both the beneficiaries of and participants in conservation efforts.

Forest encroachment and illegal logging are statutorily recognised as forest offences under several forest-related acts. This is significant in a way it can mitigate the adverse loss of major biodiversity, forest environment quality and forest-dependent livelihood. Forest offences and wildlife crime are found to take place within the protected area, i.e., permanent reserve forests (PRF), national parks, sanctuaries and state land forests. This article adopts a qualitative method by using doctrinal research. Related forest legislation, statistical data on forest offences, wildlife crimes and literature are analysed to find gaps in the current statutory protection of the forest environment. Forest can be found listed under List II (State List) and List III (Concurrent List) in the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. Due to this fragmentation of jurisdiction of the law-making power, the forest is governed by different laws and agencies. Thus, the dynamic relationship between state and federal government is significant in ensuring forests that are home to thousands of species of biodiversity, flora and fauna are safeguarded and protected for future generations to cherish. From the Islamic perspective, the protection of the environment particularly forests contributes towards fulfilling Maqasid Shariah (the higher objectives of Shariah). Besides, for the interest of the ummah, Maqasid Shariah encourages a good relationship between the federal and state governments.

Upgrading protected areas can improve or reverse the decline in conservation effectiveness: Evidence from the Tibetan Plateau, China