Establishment Of Protected Areas Research Articles

The human and financial costs of conservation for local communities living around the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem, Tanzania

Protected areas have long been recognized globally as an important strategy for conserving biodiversity. However, the establishment of protected areas has often adversely impacted local livelihoods, particularly where people and their livelihoods are exposed to wildlife threats. Understanding the magnitude and the types of human and livelihood losses to wildlife can help to reduce the losses in the future. Here we collected and analysed a large and comprehensive historical data sets on crop damage, livestock depredation, and human attacks over eight years from January 2015 to October 2022 from Serengeti District and Ngorongoro Conservation Area to understand human and livelihood losses to wildlife in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem (GSE). The data were government records of loss and compensation. Additionally, we performed individual interviews on what communities lose to wildlife in the area. We found that wildlife causes serious annual losses of crops (value estimated at USD 489,000) and livestock (USD 17,600). On average 22 people from villages beside or within the protected areas were injured each year and eight people were killed, usually by elephants. Compensation paid by the government to local communities only covered <20% of their total financial losses, and was also very little for the injury or loss of human life. Given our estimates are only for two administrative areas i.e. Serengeti District and Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the figure will be much higher if we include all districts around the GSE. These findings contribute to the broader conservation science field and the global discourse on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence. Protected area authorities should: a. take greater responsibility for protecting local communities and their assets from wildlife attacks, and b. assist the local communities with implementing deterrence and in establishing problematic animal prevention units in hotspot areas. In particular, we recommend that the Tanzanian Government should review the current compensation regulations to reflect the actual loss.

A new virtual consensus‐based wide area differential protection

AbstractThis paper introduces a virtual consensus‐based wide area differential protection method through cooperative control concepts and graph theory. Using multi‐agent systems eliminates the need for a direct telecommunication connection between the protective relays to implement the proposed differential protection. In addition, applying telecommunication subgraphs facilitates the establishment of numerous differential protection areas. Collaboration between protected areas is facilitated by common agents, establishing a wide‐area cooperative protection network. The capability of the network operator to define various protection areas and the collaboration between these areas ensure the versatility of the proposed method for various protection purposes. The present paper primarily represents the application of the proposed protection system as a wide‐area supervisor protection for distance relays. Performance evaluations on an IEEE 39‐bus test system illustrate the method's effectiveness in various scenarios. The results show enhanced power system stability and resilience, particularly when traditional methods struggle to detect power swings with high impedance variation rates.

Analyzing the Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Driving Forces of Ecological Environment Quality in the Qinling Mountains, China

The Qinling Mountains serve as a vital ecological barrier for China, needing regular monitoring for sustainable progress. The present study analyzed the Qinling Mountains (sections in Shaanxi province) via the Google Earth Engine (GEE) and Landsat images, constructing a Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) for quantitatively analyzing the spatiotemporal evolution of the ecological environment quality from 1990 to 2020. Additionally, this study integrated geodetector and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) to discern the driving factors influencing ecological quality. The results indicated the following: (1) over the 30 years, the RSEI in the study area initially declined (1990–2005) and then began to improve (2005–2020), demonstrating an overall upward trend; (2) RSEI varied with topography: lower values corresponded to lower elevations (&lt;1200 m) and gentle slopes (&lt;10°), whereas higher values were linked to higher elevations (&gt;1600 m) and steeper slopes (&gt;20°); and (3) NDVI, DEM, land use, and the presence of protected areas emerged as the main driving forces of ecological quality. The interaction between ecological conservation policies and socioeconomic factors enhanced the explanatory strength for the differentiation in ecological environment quality. In conclusion, factors like increased vegetation cover and the establishment of protected areas have significantly promoted the improvement of ecological environment quality in the Qinling region, making this study a scientific reference for providing ecological environment protection and promoting high-quality development.

The role of environmental impact assessments in the establishment and management of marine protected areas under the UNCLOS and the BBNJ Agreement

AbstractThis article analyses the role of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) in establishing and managing marine protected areas (MPAs) in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Agreement under the UNCLOS on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement). The analysis is conducted by discussing Articles 194 and 205–206 of the UNCLOS and Articles 27–28 and 30 of the BBNJ Agreement. It concludes that the interaction between EIA and MPAs in ABNJ is not only desirable but also critical for the success of MPAs. The BBNJ Agreement operationalises the role of EIAs in establishing and managing MPAs under the UNCLOS by (1) granting EIA an important role in assessing the susceptibility of an MPA to the impact of certain human activities and (2) factoring part of indicative criteria for identifying potential MPAs in the list of criteria to be considered for conducting EIA screening.

Ethical issues in Lake Malawi fisheries: a case of Karonga District

ABSTRACT The fisheries sector, exemplified here by Malawi’s Karonga District, illustrates the global consequences of insufficient ethical considerations, leading to the depletion of fisheries resources. Using data spanning from 2012 to 2021, including frame surveys and catch assessment surveys, this study employs ethical theories and the ethical matrix to identify and analyse ethical issues. The observed concerns include illegal fishing, heightened investment in a limited resource fishery, consumption of the critically endangered Chambo species, the environmental impact of trawl surveys, technological overreliance, and inadequate resource support from local politicians. Recommendations encompass ending open-access fisheries, revising biomass assessment methods, promoting mindset change, implementing poverty alleviation programmes, promoting aquaculture development, and enhancing the establishment of freshwater protected areas as sites for biodiversity conservation.

Operationalizing a fisheries social-ecological system through a Bayesian belief network reveals hotspots for its adaptive capacity in the southern North sea

Fisheries social-ecological systems (SES) in the North Sea region confront multifaceted challenges stemming from environmental changes, offshore wind farm expansion, and marine protected area establishment. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of a Bayesian Belief Network (BN) approach in comprehensively capturing and assessing the intricate spatial dynamics within the German plaice-related fisheries SES. The BN integrates ecological, economic, and socio-cultural factors to generate high-resolution maps of profitability and adaptive capacity potential (ACP) as prospective management targets. Our analysis of future scenarios, delineating changes in spatial constraints, economics, and socio-cultural aspects, identifies factors that will exert significant influence on this fisheries SES in the near future. These include the loss of fishing grounds due to the installation of offshore wind farms and marine protected areas, as well as reduced plaice landings due to climate change. The identified ACP hotspots hold the potential to guide the development of localized management strategies and sustainable planning efforts by highlighting the consequences of management decisions. Our findings emphasize the need to consider detailed spatial dynamics of fisheries SES within marine spatial planning (MSP) and illustrate how this information may assist decision-makers and practitioners in area prioritization. We, therefore, propose adopting the concept of fisheries SES within broader integrated management approaches to foster sustainable development of inherently dynamic SES in a rapidly evolving marine environment.

Sustaining Livelihoods in Protected Areas: Lessons from State-initiated Projects in Mt. 
Hamiguitan Range 
Wildlife Sanctuary, Southern Philippines

The establishment of protected areas as a strategy for biodiversity conservation implies the need for sustainable alternative livelihoods of rural, forest-dependent communities. This article contributes to the discourse on balancing environmental conservation and economic well-being by examining state-initiated livelihood projects in Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary (MHRWS), Philippines, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As the literature emphasizes on impacts of livelihoods on communities, it is also important to deal on the dynamics in the conceptualization and implementation of these livelihoods from the perspectives and experiences of implementers and beneficiaries, to possibly ensure sustainability. The data from in-depth interviews with implementers and survey among partner beneficiaries, revealed that strategies like conceptualizing projects with defined principles and purpose, engaging and understanding the community, implementing adaptive and responsive strategies, providing sustained marketing and technical support, and establishing partnerships with agencies, serve as facilitating factors for these livelihoods. However, these projects are challenged by lack of sustainability plan, of coordinated governance, and of sufficient, full-time, and tenured personnel. Hence, while state-initiated livelihood projects could be sustainable given its (state’s) mandate and resources, there are also impediments due to some structural inadequacies.

The Spatio-Temporal Variation of Vegetation and Its Driving Factors during the Recent 20 Years in Beijing

As the most important city in China, Beijing has experienced an economic soar, large-scale population growth and eco-environment changes in the last 20 years. Evaluating climate- and human-induced vegetation changes could reveal the relationship of vegetation-climate-human activities and provide important insights for the coordination of economic growth and environmental protection. Based on a long-term MODIS vegetation index dataset, meteorological data (temperature, precipitation) and impervious surface data, the Theil-Sen regression and the Mann-Kendall method are used to estimate vegetation change trends in this study and the residual analysis is utilized to distinguish the impacts of climate factors and human activities on vegetation restoration and degradation from 2000 to 2019 in Beijing. Our results show that the increasing vegetation areas account for 80.2% of Beijing. The restoration of vegetation is concentrated in the urban core area and mountainous area, while the degradation of vegetation is mainly concentrated in the suburbs. In recent years, the vegetation in most mountainous areas has changed from restoration to significant restoration, indicating that the growth of mountain vegetation has continued to restore. We also found that in the process of urban expansion, vegetation browning occurred in 53.1% of the urban built-up area, while vegetation greening occurred in the remaining area. We concluded that precipitation is the main climatic factor affecting the growth of vegetation in Beijing’s mountainous areas through correlation analysis. Human activities have significantly promoted the vegetation growth in the northern mountainous area thanks to the establishment of environmental protection areas. The negative correlation between vegetation and the impervious surface tends to gradually expand outwards, which is consistent with the trend of urban expansion. The positive correlation region remains stable, but the positive correlation is gradually enhanced. The response of vegetation to urbanization demonstrated a high degree of spatial heterogeneity. These findings indicated that human activities played an increasingly important role in influencing vegetation changes in Beijing.

Use of ecosystem services and land ownership to prioritize conservation areas on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea

In the face of ecological challenges, sustainable implementation of conservation strategies necessitates a delicate balance between ecosystem services, biodiversity, land ownership, and cost considerations. This study presents a conservation strategy for Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, an area renowned for its unique ecological features. We developed the strategy by evaluating 12 scenarios involving the establishment of protected areas (PAs) and the use of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). The purpose of this evaluation was not to enhance ecosystem services and biodiversity directly but rather to identify strategies that could achieve these goals in a financially feasible way, considering the various cost and land ownership factors. Our findings revealed that conservation prioritization targets are primarily located in the central and eastern regions of Jeju Island, where ecosystem services are concentrated, and levels of biodiversity are high. The expansion of conservation targets from 17% to 30% entailed increased costs, largely due to the increased inclusion of private lands and agricultural areas. The introduction of OECMs provided a means to improve ecological network and representation within conservation networks. We also found that applying penalties to improve the boundary lengths of PAs could lead to more cost-effective conservation strategies. Although expanding conservation targets to 30% led to significant shifts in land ownership patterns and increased conservation costs, the benefits to biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services were substantial. This study provided valuable insights into the determination of conservation planning through the harmonization of biodiversity prot ection, provision of ecosystem services, and consideration of economic costs related to patterns of land use and ownership. The results can aid policymakers and stakeholders in making informed decisions about resource allocation in biodiversity conservation.

Light at the end of the tunnel: Innovative opportunities for saving tropical biodiversity.

The expansion of roads into wilderness areas and biodiversity hotspots in the Global South seems inevitable and is predicted to bring about significant biodiversity loss. Even so, existing widespread strategies aiming to mitigate the direct and indirect impacts of roads on the environment have been of limited effectiveness. These tactics, including construction of fencing, wildlife crossings on paved roads, and establishment of protected areas along the roads, are unlikely to be sufficient for protecting diverse species assemblages from roadkill, habitat fragmentation, and anthropogenic activity in tropics. This indicates the need for integration of more ambitious approaches into the conservation toolkit, such as the constructing tunnels, covered ways, and elevated roads. Although these tools could significantly support conservation efforts to save tropical biodiversity, to date, they are rarely considered. Here, we discuss factors which determine the need for application of these approaches in the Global South. We highlight the often-overlooked long-term benefits associated with the application of the proposed tools. We also discuss the potential challenges and risks, and the ways to minimise them. Hopefully this article will encourage practitioners to integrate these strategies into conservation toolkits and allow policy-makers and investors to make informed decisions on sustainable road infrastructure development in the Global South.

Potential Distribution and Identification of Critical Areas for the Preservation and Recovery of Three Species of Cinchona L. (Rubiaceae) in Northeastern Peru

The genus Cinchona L. has important medicinal, cultural, and economic value and is the emblematic tree of Peru. The genus is mainly found in the cloud forests of the Andes. However, the expansion of agriculture and livestock farming in the department of Amazonas is degrading these ecosystems and has reduced the size of the genus’s populations. In this work, we model the potential distribution under current conditions of three Cinchona species (C. capuli L. Anderson, C. macrocalyx Pav. Ex DC., and C. pubescens Vahl.) to identify areas with a high likelihood of species presence and their key conservation and reforestation zones. We fitted a maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model using nineteen bioclimatic variables, three topographic variables, nine edaphic variables, and solar radiation. Under current conditions, the potential distribution of C. capuli covers 17.22% (7243.98 km2); C. macrocalyx, 29.11% (12,238.91 km2); and C. pubescens, 22.94% (9647.63 km2) of the study area, which was mostly located in central and southern Amazonas. Only 24.29% (25.51% of C. capuli, 21.02% of C. macrocalyx, and 26.35% of C. pubescens) of the potential distributions are within protected areas, while 10,987.22 km2 of the surface area of the department of Amazonas is degraded, of which 29.80% covers the area of probable occurrence of C. capuli, 38.72% of C. macrocalyx, and 34.82% of C. pubescens. Consequently, it is necessary to promote additional conservation strategies for Cinchona, including the establishment of new protected areas and the recovery of degraded habitats, in order to protect this species.

Land cover changes and management effectiveness of protected areas in tropical coastal area of sub-Saharan Africa

Nature-based solutions to ecological challenges have continued to draw significant attention, and are connected to the increased establishment of protected areas as a means for climate and ecological crisis mitigation. This study presents an innovative approach that combines spatial and statistical analysis of land cover change and drivers to evaluate land use management and effectiveness of 22 designated protected areas (PAs) across the tropical coastal regions of sub-Saharan Africa. While the results provided insight into land use management and conservation priorities, it highlighted (1) the use of these protected areas for food production is prevalent, irrespective of its designation. Nevertheless, there is evidence of a decline in cropland in some of the protected areas, suggesting a shift in policy towards conservation land use. (2) The occurrence of forest loss suggests that conservation is weak in most of the protected areas, while wetland conservation efforts are stronger due to their land cover expansion. (3) Population density (human factor) is the most significant driver of land cover change in these protected areas, followed by elevation (natural environment), precipitation (climate), nighttime light (socio-economic), and slope (natural environment). (4) In terms of Ecosystem value, only 15 of the 22 protected areas exhibited an increase in their total ecosystem service value according to land cover change, indicating sustainable land use and measures effectiveness in these protected areas. However, based on an individual land cover assessment, most protected areas showed signs of loss, especially in forests. Given the projected population growth in Africa, a regular assessment of protected areas should be initiated to enable effective and timely management decisions. Additionally, policies to improve the management effectiveness of African protected areas through funding should be a top priority, while taking into consideration the livelihoods of the indigenous people in the area in order to find a sustainable balance.

Global marine conservation priorities for sustaining marine productivity, preserving biodiversity and addressing climate change

Marine primary productivity is a critical driver of functioning marine ecosystems, providing a foundation for biological diversity and associated economic productivity, and a key component of the oceanic carbon sink. However, it is largely under-represented within the global marine protected area estate and has been widely ignored in global priority assessments for marine conservation. Using global high-resolution data on marine primary productivity and human cumulative impact to marine systems, more than 18.6 million km² of high productivity-low impact areas in the global ocean were identified. These areas occur across all ocean basins and represent the vast majority of marine provinces and ecoregions. Over 80% of these highly productive waters with low levels of human impact lies within national jurisdictions and yet only 11% of the overall identified area is currently safeguarded within designated marine protected areas or sustainable management initiatives, leaving more than 16.5 million km2 of high productivity-low impact areas without those forms of formal protection. The multifaceted contribution of these areas to preserve biodiversity, support human welfare and help mitigating climate change suggest they are an essential, but currently overlooked, conservation priority for consideration in both global nature conservation and human wellbeing policy fora.

Detecting benefits of protection level on diversity facets in a sea of temporal scarcity

Abstract The establishment of protected areas to face global diversity declines has mainly prioritized taxonomic diversity, leaving aside phylogenetic and functional diversities, which determine ecosystem functioning and resilience. Furthermore, the assessment of protected areas' effectiveness is mainly done using short‐duration surveys (&lt;2 h), which may undermine the detection of rare species. Through a long‐duration video approach, reef fish taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional facets of diversity were assessed for 3 days within a fully protected area and a nearby poorly protected area in Mayotte Island (Western Indian Ocean). We found that temporally rare species contributed to more than 60% of the taxonomic facet and 85% of the functional facet of biodiversity found on each site. Those rare species, which harbour the most distinct trait values, also make reef fish diversity particularly vulnerable to their loss. Taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional richness were similar between the fully protected area and the poorly protected area, while the species, lineage and trait compositions were markedly different. These results pinpoint the importance of considering taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic dissimilarities while assessing protected areas' effectiveness, instead of using only richness. In addition, benefits of the fully protected area were detected only using more than 15 h of video survey, which emphasizes the importance of long‐duration remote approaches to capture the within‐ and between‐day temporal variations.

Balancing climate goals and biodiversity protection: legal implications of the 30x30 target for land-based carbon removal

This article examines the legal conflicts between land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies and the establishment of protected areas through the lens of international environmental law. We argue that the 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework's “30x30” target—which aims to protect 30% of global terrestrial and marine areas by 2030—constitutes a “subsequent agreement” under international law and thus clarifies the legal scope and content of the obligation to establish protected areas under Article 8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Since states have pledged 120 million square kilometers for land-based CDR, these commitments potentially conflict with the “30x30” target, especially if global cropland for food production is to be maintained. Consequently, some land-based CDR strategies may directly or indirectly impede the achievement of the “30x30” target, which could be deemed inconsistent with international law. However, as all international environmental law operates in a continuum, this does not imply that land-based CDR should be categorically ruled out. Rather, states should focus on emission reductions and implementing CDR options that provide the most co-benefits to climate mitigation and biodiversity protection efforts.

A new strategy for optimizing marine protection networks by considering functional connectivity: An example of Tachypleus tridentatus

The concept of creating a conservation network through the establishment of multiple protected areas to protect marine fauna is gaining momentum. To effectively establish a network that yields favorable outcomes, it is imperative to identify suitable areas that foster optimal connectivity. Given the swift development of coastal areas, it has become necessary to develop cost-effective measures that yield maximum conservation benefits. However, exploration of these ideas for application to marine conservation networks remains scarce. In this study, we used the horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus) in the Beibu Gulf as an example. The species and environmental data were collected through field sampling and remote sensing. The species distribution model, the least-cost path model, and circuit theory were employed to establish a marine conservation network. The functional connectivity metrics were employed to optimize both the interconnection and economic efficiency of the network. The results indicated a low presence of adult horseshoe crabs in the Beibu Gulf, with average densities of 1.47 and 1.43 ind./km2 among the 38 surveyed stations in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The species distribution model accurately predicted juvenile presence in mudflats and adult presence offshore, and it identified 43 potential areas that are suitable for the establishment of marine protected areas. The marine protected areas that ranked higher in importance contributed significantly to maintaining the integrity of regional connectivity. The network connectivity shows a law of diminishing returns as the number of marine protected areas increases. The framework developed in this study will provide decision support for building and optimizing marine conservation networks.

Multiscale spatial patterns and environmental drivers of seamount and island slope megafaunal assemblages along the Mozambique channel

Seamounts are vulnerable ecosystems targeted by fishing and potentially by future mineral exploitation. Their abundance, widespread distribution, and heterogeneity of faunal and abiotic components require integrated studies at multiscale to describe spatial patterns and identify environmental drivers needed by conservation plans. There is also a lack of knowledge on seamount benthic ecosystems in some regions, such as the Indian Ocean. These gaps, in the context of Marine Protected Areas establishment in the region, have motivated the present study focusing on the Mozambique Channel Eparses islands and flat top seamounts, along a 10-degree latitude gradient. These structures are characterized by complex volcanic and carbonate geomorphologies at multiscale and are distributed along a highly dynamic turbulent ocean circulation area with large anticyclonic eddies. For the first time, we analysed, from seabed image transects obtained by towed-camera on four seamounts, and two volcanic islands - Bassas da India and Mayotte - external slopes, and from multiscale environmental data, how benthic communities respond to this high habitat heterogeneity at regional, and local scales. This study reveals high discrepancies of benthic megafauna richness, density, and beta diversity among seamounts and among slopes of the same islands. Moreover, at similar latitude, seamounts display higher densities than island slopes. The highest densities found on a seamount of the Glorieuses archipelago are explained by strong currents and flat homogeneous geomorphology. Except on this seamount, the beta diversity is high, despite the quite limited depth range explored (84–734 m) and is the highest on island slopes and Hall Bank, driven by the diversity and hardness of the substrate. Beta diversity is mainly due to taxa turnover, with high contribution of the habitat-forming sponges and cnidarians, together with a few mobile taxa. We identified from biogeographic network analysis 12 dominant faunal assemblages, displaying a patchy distribution, with variability in composition both among and within sites. Currents and primary productivity explain ∼15% of the observed assemblage structure along the channel, while geomorphology (km scale), topography (60–500 m scale) and substrate (60-m units) explain together 24% of the faunal spatial patterns. Analysis of spatial structures along island slopes detected some small (100–200 m), medium (∼1 km) and large scale (∼2–6 km) megabenthic community structures, partly explained by topography, substrate, depth, and slope. Despite limited taxonomic identifications for this poorly sampled area, this study reveals an outstanding heterogeneity of megabenthic assemblages at multispatial scales in the Mozambique Channel seamounts and island slopes, in response to the complex hydrography and geology of the area. Further characterization of environmental drivers with greater focus at local scales including hydrographic variables are therefore needed to improve predictions of suitable habitats of vulnerable marine ecosystems.

Wildlife response to management regime and habitat loss in the Terai Arc Landscape of Nepal

The establishment of protected areas and buffer zones has been widely adopted in many countries to mitigate biodiversity loss. However, in contrast to the growing evidence about the beneficial impacts of protected areas, ecological outcomes of buffer zones have rarely been measured. Here, we use data from a large camera trap survey and multi-species occupancy modelling to assess the effectiveness of different management regimes (Bardia National Park, its buffer zone, and areas outside the buffer zone) at safeguarding wildlife in the Terai Arc Landscape of Nepal. Using areas outside the buffer zone as the counterfactual to compare occurrence probability of 25 mammal species >1 kg, we revealed a positive effect of the national park and the buffer zone on seven and six species, respectively. Three species had greater occurrence probability outside the buffer zone than in the national park, but no species had greater occurrence probability outside the buffer zone than inside the buffer zone. Analysis of species richness indicated that management regime differentially affects species groups. For non-threatened and herbivorous species, the buffer zone performed better than areas outside the buffer zone and similar to, or better than, the national park. However, for threatened species and large animalivores (carnivores and insectivores) the national park outperformed the other management regimes. Our results also suggest that the buffer zone partially mitigated the impacts of habitat loss outside the national park, indicating that management regime may play a role in modulating the effect of agriculture on wildlife in human-dominated landscapes in Nepal.

Biodiversity conservation and ecological value of protected areas: a review of current situation and future prospects

The establishment of protected areas (PAs) is an effective way to biodiversity conservation while maintaining the multiple functions of ecosystem services. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive analysis on the relationship between PAs, biodiversity conservation, and ecological value in the field of research on prospects. Therefore, based on the research progress of literature content, this paper systematically reviews and evaluates domestic and international studies in terms of the biodiversity conservation and the ecological value of PAs. The results showed that relevant studies in recent years have mainly analyzed the spatial layout, area changes and conservation effectiveness of PAs in relation to biodiversity; By constructing the connotation system of ecological value concept of PAs, the research progress of ecological value accounting, ecological value realization and transformation, and ecological value types of PAs is further discussed, and the prospects of biodiversity conservation and ecological value research of PAs is proposed. This study provides a reference for the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the construction and optimization of PAs system.

Review of terrestrial temporarily conserved areas in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

The establishment of protected areas is a cornerstone of conservation, but permanent protection could be inefficient or even impossible in some situations. We synthesized the literature on temporarily conserved areas (TCAs) across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. We used a comprehensive search string to retrieve peer-reviewed articles published from 2000 to 2021 from the Web of Science. We identified 27 relevant peer-reviewed articles that examined the potential benefits of TCAs in the study area, indicating TCA is a relatively understudied area of research in the peer-reviewed literature. The TCA studies were highly clustered; 77% of studies focused on protecting a single life stage of migratory species and 61% of studies related to temporary conservation of breeding or staging habitats for migratory birds. Ninety-three percent of studies focused on preventing human-driven threats, mainly on public lands of coastal areas, the Great Plains, and the Mississippi Valley in the central United States. Short-term and experimental studies were the dominant study types. TCAs have the potential to complement permanently protected areas and provide protection when permanent protection is difficult. Some included studies examined their conservation value, but the ecological, social, and economic outcomes of TCAs are unclear. More TCA research is needed to determine the role they could play in conservation worldwide. Embracing the concept of TCAs as conservation tool could lead to more comprehensive and consistent reporting of the outcomes of temporary area-based conservation measures. However, a global review and analysis of effectiveness of TCAs will be required if they are to play a formal role in meeting international targets for biodiversity conservation.