National Protected Area Research Articles

Toward integrating private conservation lands into national protected area systems: Lessons from a megadiversity country

AbstractPrivate conservation lands are essential for protecting biodiversity, but few national‐level studies have assessed their coverage and the legal frameworks that support them. Here, we review the legal mechanisms enabling conservation on private lands in Brazil and evaluate these lands' potential to reinforce the national protected area system. We found that conserving native vegetation on private lands is the most important mechanism to protect biodiversity in five out of the six Brazilian biomes. Because Brazil has a law that mandates landowners to set aside conservation areas, remnants of native vegetation were protected rather than converted to other land uses in areas of old economic frontiers. These remnants can be the cornerstones of effective regional conservation systems. Still, upgrading these remnants to privately protected areas and integrating these privately protected areas into the national protected area system remains a challenge. We suggest that the Brazilian experience provides important lessons on how other countries can design innovative policies to recognize and expand private land conservation.

Possible models of implementing private protected area concept in Lithuania

Nowadays people are more aware of the importance of the surrounding nature: landscape, biodiversity, and natural resources. However, society is facing many ecological challenges, so individuals and communities are becoming more involved in conservation. While government is not always capable of providing the best care of nature and all its components, ordinary people, or non-government organizations “step up” and help them. One way of doing that is creating private protected areas. Many countries in the world have examples of this kind of protected areas’ governance type: some are more regulated in legal systems, some are less, but they all provide crucial benefits to conservation if managed properly. In Lithuania protected areas are governed only by the government but usually the lack of funds affects the quality of conservation. Because of that, it is necessary to analyse different mechanisms of creation of private protected areas, take examples from best practices in the world and consider implementing it in the national protected area system.

Scheduling incremental actions to build a comprehensive national protected area network for Papua New Guinea

AbstractSystematic conservation planning identifies priority areas to cost‐effectively meet conservation targets. Yet, these tools rarely guide wholesale declaration of reserve systems in a single time step due to financial and implementation constraints. Rather, incremental scheduling of actions to progressively build reserve networks is required. To ensure this incremental action is guided by the original plan, and thus builds a reserve network that meets all conservation targets, strategic scheduling, and iterative planning is needed. We explore the issue of scheduling conservation actions using the national scale conservation plan for Papua New Guinea (PNG), commissioned by the PNG Conservation and Environment Protection Authority that identifies a comprehensive set of priority areas that meet conservation targets in both the land and sea. As part of the planning process a subset of areas were identified in collaboration as priorities for immediate action—termed areas of interest (AOIs). However, the extent to which targets are met if action stopped after implementing the AOIs is unknown. We test three possible implementation scenarios based on these priority areas to measure target achievement and shortfalls. We then consider how iterative planning would interact with scheduling actions to identify new long‐term priorities that will meet missing targets. Our results show that while a large number of conservation targets are met within the AOIs there are shortfalls for protecting threatened and range restricted endemic species. Meeting targets for these would require an updated set of national priorities and an additional 13% of land area compared with if all areas identified in the original assessment were protected in a single time step. This provides important insights into the benefits of strategic scheduling of implementation, as well as the need for capacity to monitor action and update priorities as implementation proceeds.

The role of privately protected areas in achieving biodiversity representation within a national protected area network

AbstractAs the world nears the target of protecting 17% of terrestrial environments, there remain significant gaps in achieving the ecologically representative system of protected areas (PAs) called for under the Convention on Biological Diversity. There is increasing recognition of the contribution that privately protected areas (PPAs) can make to protecting biodiversity, offering the potential to increase existing levels of protection for species and ecosystems, but also to protect biodiversity that currently lies outside existing PA networks. Despite the potential importance of PPAs for achieving an ecologically representative PA network, the complementarity between public and private PAs has received little attention. Our study provides a detailed assessment of the role PPAs play in protecting biodiversity in a megadiverse country. Using the Australian PA network as an example, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the contribution PPAs make to the representation and level of protection of species, ecosystems, and key biodiversity areas. We found that while making up only 1.3% of Australia's land area, PPAs protect a wide range of biodiversity, contributing to the protection of 85% of vertebrate species, 80% of threatened ecological communities, 95% of major vegetation types, and 40% of key biodiversity areas. However, our findings reveal that PPAs largely protect biodiversity already within the PA network, and because of their small size, they currently make only minor contributions to the adequacy of protection for biodiversity. Nevertheless, we show that conservation on private land will be critical to strengthening the PA network, with between 70 and 90% of currently unprotected or poorly protected biodiversity occurring largely on private land. Analyses such as ours, which examine the importance of both public and private PAs to achieve conservation targets, are essential to ensure effective planning of PA networks into the future.

Climate change exposure and vulnerability of the global protected area estate from an international perspective

AbstractAimProtected areas are essential to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem benefits to society under increasing human pressures of the Anthropocene. Anthropogenic climate change, however, threatens the enduring effectiveness of protected areas in conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem services, because it modifies and redistributes biodiversity with unknown consequences for ecosystem functioning within protected areas. Here, we assess (a) the climate change exposure of the global terrestrial protected area estate and (b) the climate change vulnerability of national protected area estates.LocationTerrestrial protected areas worldwide.MethodsWe calculated local climate change exposure as predicted climate anomalies between the present and 2070 using ten global climate models, two emission scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5) and the finest spatial resolution available for global climate projections (approx. 1 km). We estimated the climate change vulnerability of national protected area estates by analysing countrywide relationships between protected areas’ climate anomalies and other protected area characteristics, that is area, elevation, terrain ruggedness, human footprint and irreplaceability for globally threatened species.ResultsWe found predicted climate anomalies highest in protected areas of (sub‐)tropical countries. The correlations between climate anomalies and protected area characteristics strongly differ between countries. Globally, protected areas showing large climate anomalies tend to be at high elevation and highly irreplaceable for threatened species, increasing climate change vulnerability. These protected areas are relatively large in area, of high topographic heterogeneity and less pressured by humans, decreasing climate change vulnerability.Main conclusionThis study reveals potential hotspots of climate change impact inside the terrestrial protected area estate. It thus supports and guides climate‐smart conservation policy and management, particularly national to local authorities, to ensure the future effectiveness of protected areas in preserving biodiversity and ecosystem benefits under climate change.

Environmental concerns and attitudes of tourists towards national park uses and services

Human behaviour plays a significant role in preserving or degrading the environment. To put into practice the notion of ‘use without abuse’, it is vital for national park managers to be cognizant of tourists' attitudes and beliefs, which in turn affect their behaviours. This study evaluates the attitudes of domestic and international tourists regarding the appropriate uses of national parks, as well as their environmental concerns. The study also addresses the relationship between environmental concerns and tourists' perceptions of the appropriateness of activities, facilities and services inside national parks. A total of 379 domestic (n = 175) and international (n = 204) tourists participated in this study at Taman Negara (national park), Malaysia. The findings reveal that domestic tourists perceive motorised activities, accommodation and service facilities, and sport/recreation facilities as more acceptable than international tourists do. The results of this study may help managers of protected areas in Malaysia and other developing countries play a stronger role in improving visitors' awareness of environmental challenges and acceptable behaviours and activities. Management implicationsThis study reinforces established ideas for national park and protected area management:•Tourists' environmental concerns can negatively affect their attitudes towards the appropriateness of activities, facilities, and accommodations within national parks.•The attitudes of various groups of visitors regarding human uses of national parks vary between different cultural backgrounds.•To reduce the impact of tourism activities on the natural environment and minimising the environmental degradation of protected areas, decision-makers should incorporate into their management plans the environmental concerns and attitudes of visitors who use protected areas and national parks.

Assessing the effectiveness of a national protected area network for carnivore conservation

Protected areas (PAs) are essential to prevent further biodiversity loss yet their effectiveness varies largely with governance and external threats. Although methodological advances have permitted assessments of PA effectiveness in mitigating deforestation, we still lack similar studies for the impact of PAs on wildlife populations. Here we use an innovative combination of matching methods and hurdle-mixed models with a large-scale and long-term dataset for Finland’s large carnivore species. We show that the national PA network does not support higher densities than non-protected habitat for 3 of the 4 species investigated. For some species, PA effects interact with region or time, i.e., wolverine densities decreased inside PAs over the study period and lynx densities increased inside eastern PAs. We support the application of matching methods in combination of additional analytical frameworks for deeper understanding of conservation impacts on wildlife populations. These methodological advances are crucial for preparing ambitious PA targets post-2020.

Análisis de cambio en la cobertura vegetal y uso del suelo en la región centro-norte de México. El caso de la cuenca baja del río Nazas

Leija, E.G., Valenzuela-Ceballos, S.I., Valencia-Castro, M., Jiménez-González, G., Castañeda-Gaytán, G., Reyes-Hernández, H., Mendoza, M.E. 2020. Analysis of change in vegetation cover and land use in the north-central region of Mexico. The case of the lower basin of the Nazas river. Ecosistemas 29(1): 1826. https://doi.org/10.7818/ECOS.1826 Deforestation has an important impact on ecosystems, altering their capacity for providing environmental services, affecting particularly semiarid areas. The Parque Estatal Cañón de Fernández is located on the lower section of Nazas river, with 24936,6 ha and constitutes an important national and international natural protected area, because it supplies water to several cities in the north of Mexico and is recognized as a highly important habitat for aquatic birds. Nevertheless, the necessity of satisfying agricultural activities and a growing population has promoted land use and cover changes in the region. The aim of this research was to evaluate land cover and land use changes on the lower basin of Río Nazas between 1990 and 2016. Based on visual interpretation of Landsat Tm and ETM images we generated digital data bases for land cover and land use. On 2016 the natural vegetation was composed by xeric shrub and riparian forest. In twenty six years deforestation affected 32.1% of the total area. There is a necessity to develop public policies for improving water sustainable use to preserve this xeric ecosystem.

Trends in protected area representation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in five tropical countries

In late 2020, governments will set the next decade of conservation targets under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Setting new targets requires understanding how well national protected area (PA) networks are spatially representing important areas for biodiversity and ecosystem services. We analyzed the representation of biodiversity priority areas (BPAs), forests, forest carbon stocks, non-timber forest products (NTFPs), and freshwater ecosystem services (FES) within terrestrial PA systems in Cambodia, Guyana, Liberia, Madagascar, and Suriname in 2003 and 2017. Four of the countries (all except Suriname) expanded their terrestrial PA networks during the study period. In all five countries, we found that PAs represented BPAs, forests, and forest carbon stocks relatively well, based on their size. PAs did not represent NTFPs and FES particularly well, except in Cambodia where FES were well represented. Countries that expanded PA networks during the study period also increased representation of forests, BPAs, and ES; in Cambodia and Madagascar these increases were substantial. Representation could be improved across all five countries, however, indicating that additional efforts are needed to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem benefits to people in these countries.

Planning for climate change through additions to a national protected area network: implications for cost and configuration.

Expanding the network of protected areas is a core strategy for conserving biodiversity in the face of climate change. Here, we explore the impacts on reserve network cost and configuration associated with planning for climate change in the USA using networks that prioritize areas projected to be climatically suitable for 1460 species both today and into the future, climatic refugia and areas likely to facilitate climate-driven species movements. For 14% of the species, networks of sites selected solely to protect areas currently climatically suitable failed to provide climatically suitable habitat in the future. Protecting sites climatically suitable for species today and in the future significantly changed the distribution of priority sites across the USA-increasing relative protection in the northeast, northwest and central USA. Protecting areas projected to retain their climatic suitability for species cost 59% more than solely protecting currently suitable areas. Including all climatic refugia and 20% of areas that facilitate climate-driven movements increased the cost by another 18%. Our results indicate that protecting some types of climatic refugia may be a relatively inexpensive adaptation strategy. Moreover, although addressing climate change in conservation plans will have significant implications for the configuration of networks, the increased cost of doing so may be relatively modest. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.

Using Rao's quadratic entropy to define environmental heterogeneity priority areas in the European Mediterranean biome

Although environmental heterogeneity (EH) has recently gained increasing attention, its connection to conservation planning still remains limited. We aim to assess the efficiency of Rao's quadratic entropy for measuring EH and conducting prioritization schemes. We focus on EH priority areas in the European Mediterranean biome and we estimate to which extent they are included in national and international protected area networks. We estimate Rao and Shannon EH indices for the bioclimatic and topographic variables of the CHELSA and the ENVIREM datasets. We use systematic conservation planning algorithms, for each dataset and for several moving window extends and we estimate the overlaps among the different schemes.The Rao and Shannon EH indices do not measure EH levels in a similar way and Shannon indices tend to overestimate EH comparing to Rao. The overlaps between the ENVIREM and CHELSA prioritization schemes are moderate (Jaccard index = 0.4–0.6) and not sensitive to the moving window extend. We consider only the priority areas that are identified as such by both independent datasets. One third of the EH priority areas are located in Greece, one forth in Italy and one fifth in France and Spain. Only one third of the EH priority areas are located within nationally designated protected areas and up to half are located in Key Biodiversity Areas and the Natura 2000 network.We conclude that Rao's methodology should be further used for environmental heterogeneity analyses. EH priority conservation areas are only partially included in protected area networks, mostly in mountainous areas.

Local Agency in Development, Market, and Forest Conservation Interventions in Lao PDR's Northern Uplands

Themes of inclusion, empowerment, and participation are recurrent in development discourse and interventions, implying enablement of agency on the part of communities and individuals to inform and influence how policies that affect them are enacted. This article aims to contribute to debates on participation in rural development and environmental conservation, by applying a structure-agency lens to examine experiences of marginal farm households in three distinct systems of resource allocation in Lao PDR’s northern uplands--in other words, three institutional or (in)formal structures. These comprise livelihood development and poverty reduction projects, maize contract farming, and a national protected area. Drawing on qualitative data from focus group discussions and household surveys, the article explores the degree to which farmers may shape their engagement with the different systems, and ways in which agency may be enabled or disabled by this engagement. Our findings show that although some development interventions provide consultative channels for expressing needs, these are often within limited options set from afar. The market-based maize system, while in some ways agency-enabling, also entailed narrow choices and heavy dependence on external actors. The direct regulation of the protected area system meanwhile risked separating policy decisions from existing local knowledge. Our analytical approach moves beyond notions of agency commonly focused on decision-making and/or resistance, and instead revisits the structure-agency dichotomy to build a nuanced understanding of people’s lived experiences of interventions. This allows for fresh perspectives on the everyday enablement or disablement of agency, aiming to support policy that is better grounded in local realities.

Molecular Identification and Virulence Potential of the Genus Aeromonas Isolated from Wild Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Mexico

The members of the Aeromonas genus are important foodborne pathogens, with a worldwide distribution. Wild rainbow trout, from the national protected area Santuario del Agua State Park, Corral de Piedra, were analyzed. Species of Aeromonas were isolated from the trout, and their pathogenic potential was analyzed based on different pathogenicity and virulence factors. The isolates were identified as A. allosaccharophila (n = 15), A. sobria (n = 8), A. veronii (n = 3), A. rivipollensis (n = 2), A. piscicola (n = 2), and A. popoffii (n = 1), by RNA polymerase sigma factor (rpoD) gene sequencing. Sequence similarity with the type strain was 92.2 to 99.6% for A. sobria isolates, 97.8 to 98.0% for A. allosaccharophila isolates, 99.2% for the A. popoffii isolate, 99.2 to 100% for A. piscicola isolates, and 98.2 to 99.2% for A. veronii isolates. Notably, isolates A30T2-gills and A30T2-spleen showed sequence similarity of 98.0% with strain A. media CECT 4232T and 99.0% with strain A. rivipollensis P2G1T. Virulence genes were detected by PCR at the following frequencies: fla and serine protease, 96.77%; aerA, 93.54%; aexT, 87.09%; lipases, 74.19%; ascV and ahyB, 67.74%; exu, 61.29%; act, 41.93%; ascF-G, 38.70%; lafA, 32.26%; alt, 6.46%; aopP, 9.67%; and ast, 3.23%. These results indicate that several Aeromonas species had the potential pathogenicity to infect wild rainbow trout in the waterway created by the Corral de Piedra dam, suggesting they could be an emerging zoonotic pathogen.

The contribution of land tenure diversity to the spatial resilience of protected area networks

Abstract The relationship between diversity and resilience is relatively well‐established for ecological systems, but remains much less explored for socio‐economic systems. Institutional diversity can have particular relevance for protected areas, whose managerial responses to environmental change depend on their legal basis, ability to make and enforce rules and socio‐political acceptance and endorsement. Protected area expansion strategies are increasingly turning to private land conservation to increase the configuration and connectivity of national protected area networks. Yet, we know little about the relative role of privately owned protected areas in protecting threatened and poorly protected (under‐represented) habitats, and in the overall connectivity of the national protected area network. We present an empirical assessment of protected area tenure diversity across South Africa. Privately owned protected areas comprise 25.58% (2,878,422.26 ha) of the area of the total protected area estate. Private nature reserves emerged as the dominant protected area type in under‐represented and threatened habitats, protecting, on average, 32%, 38% and 41%, respectively, of poorly protected, threatened and endangered vegetation classes. Private nature reserves had the largest overall effect, compared to other protected area types, on connectivity within the national network. A spatially randomized comparison showed that privately owned protected areas are overdispersed and more strategically positioned to connect other types of protected areas than would be expected by chance from their extent and abundance. Our results suggest that privately owned protected areas enhance the resilience of the national protected area network, making it more extensive and better‐connected, with greater levels of habitat redundancy. More generally, our analysis highlights the potentially valuable role of institutional diversity in building resilient habitat networks for biodiversity conservation. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

The characteristics of formation, development and evolution of National Protected Areas in China

This paper considers that the history of Chinese civilization is the historical foundation for the nationally protected areas and features the protected areas of China. After 1950, the formation, development and evolution of various protected areas conformed to the fundamental law of development of Chinese civilization. The protected areas are divided into three categories, namely the natural protected areas, cultural protected areas and comprehensive protected areas for the nature and culture. The natural protected areas are composed mainly of the national parks; the cultural protected areas are composed mainly of the Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level; and the comprehensive protected areas are composed mainly of National-level Scenic and Historic Interest Areas. In the new era of building an ecological civilization, it is crucial to develop a national protected area system including the aforementioned three protection systems in accordance with the unified deployment of the Central government. Three protection systems are supposed to cover various protected areas in China and develop a system of nationally protected areas with Chinese characteristics.

The impact of the economic crisis on the implementation of the EU Nature Directives in Greece: An expert-based view

Established under the European Union (EU), the thirty-year trans-national network, Natura 2000, is considered one of the largest biodiversity conservation frameworks worldwide. The global financial crisis has afflicted European economies since 2008 and has not only caused radical changes to the economic development but has also resulted in major implications on nature conservation activities in one of the weakest EU member states, however a biodiversity hotspot, Greece. The present research constitutes a broad-based assessment of the effects of the current economic crisis on the application of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives by the Greek state for the first time. By applying an expert elicitation method, Policy Delphi, we attempt to address the impact of the crisis on the administrative levels, competent authorities and procedural frames of the national protected area system, as perceived by 38 Greek key stakeholders and experts on the topic. An evaluation of the practices and obligations of 4 Management Bodies of the Greek protected area system was conducted to get an insight of the financial consequences on their operation. The structured and participatory approach followed in this study, allowed a systematic collection of experts’ transdisciplinary judgments on the state of the Greek Natura 2000 network in terms of implementation, management, administration, monitoring and legislation. With a strong tradition in managing its high nature value in a centralized way, in the face of the economic crisis, implementation challenges of the Greek state concerning Natura 2000 have been enlarged. According to a substantial part of the Greek conservation community that participated in the survey, many enforcement obstacles are considered, either direct or indirect consequences of the economic crisis, while some are inherent to the lack of a national comprehensive conservation strategy and not necessarily attributed to the austerity. However, the lack of national structural strength, as illustrated by the respondents, rather than the funding size proved to be an important cause of vulnerability for the Greek network. Based on the findings of this study we propose recommendations for improvements that align economic with conservation interests and measures that can substantially counteract the negative impacts of the economic austerity on the enforcement of nature conservation.

Fairness and Transparency Are Required for the Inclusion of Privately Protected Areas in Publicly Accessible Conservation Databases

There is a growing recognition of the contribution that privately-owned land makes to conservation efforts, and governments are increasingly counting privately protected areas (PPAs) towards their international conservation commitments. The public availability of spatial data on countries’ conservation estates is important for broad-scale conservation planning and monitoring and for evaluating progress towards targets. Yet there has been limited consideration of how PPA data is reported to national and international protected area databases, particularly whether such reporting is transparent and fair (i.e., equitable) to the landholders involved. Here we consider PPA reporting procedures from three countries with high numbers of PPAs—Australia, South Africa, and the United States—illustrating the diversity within and between countries regarding what data is reported and the transparency with which it is reported. Noting a potential tension between landholder preferences for privacy and security of their property information and the benefit of sharing this information for broader conservation efforts, we identify the need to consider equity in PPA reporting processes. Unpacking potential considerations and tensions into distributional, procedural, and recognitional dimensions of equity, we propose a series of broad principles to foster transparent and fair reporting. Our approach for navigating the complexity and context-dependency of equity considerations will help strengthen PPA reporting and facilitate the transparent integration of PPAs into broader conservation efforts.

Grassland management in protected areas – implementation of the EU biodiversity strategy in certain post-communist countries

Abstract The post-communist countries of Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) when implementing agricultural and conservation policies, face other challenges than Western European countries: (1) specific institutional design for each, developed on the remnants of totalitarian system causing difficulties for transposing directives; (2) different integration of Natura 2000 network into national protected area governance resulting in slow elaboration of the management plans; (3) farming landscapes were better preserved than in Western Europe, but lacking the continuity of extensive farming so large areas of conservation; and (4) formal protection of sites, lacking in many cases financial support. This paper summarizes: the historical background of the last century that changed the farming landscapes of the CEE countries and the challenges in the management of protected areas in an unsteady socio-economic and political context. The results are focusing on the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Two main conclusions are proposed. First, socialism and capitalism slowly abolished family farming, causing people to become disconnected from the landscape - a key element in conservation oriented grassland management. Second, the gaps of knowledge on different aspects of policy implementation sabotage the results of conservation initiatives.

Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR.

Ecotourism as a strategy for achieving biodiversity conservation often results in limited conservation impact relative to its investment and revenue return. In cases where an ecotourism strategy has been used, projects are frequently criticized for not providing sufficient evidence on how the strategy has reduced threats or improved the status of the biodiversity it purports to protect. In Lao PDR, revenue from ecotourism has not been directly linked to or dependent on improvements in biodiversity and there is no evidence that ecotourism enterprises have contributed to conservation. In other developing countries, direct payments through explicit contracts in return for ecosystem services have been proposed as a more cost-effective means for achieving conservation, although further research is needed to evaluate the impact of this approach. To address this need, a new model was tested in the Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area (NPA) in Lao PDR using a direct payments approach to create ecotourism incentives for villagers to increase wildlife populations. Over a four-year period, we monitored along a theory of change to evaluate assumptions about the linkages between intermediate results and biological outcomes. Preliminary results show a negative correlation between ecotourism benefits and hunting infractions in target villages; no increase in hunting sign in the ecotourism sector of the NPA relative to a three-fold increase in hunting sign across the NPA’s non-tourism sectors; and an overall increase in wildlife sightings. This case provides key lessons on the design of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy, including how to combine threat monitoring and data on wildlife sightings to evaluate strategy effectiveness, on setting rates for wildlife sightings and village fees, and the utility of the approach for protecting very rare species.

Creating an integrated protected area network in Chile: A GIS assessment of ecoregion representation and the role of private protected areas

SUMMARYNational protected areas (NPAs) often exhibit biodiversity representation bias, do not adequately protect priority conservation areas (PCAs), and fail to meet conservation goals. Protected area (PA) discourse assumes private PAs (PPAs) are more systematically established than NPAs. The Chilean conservation community has proposed an integrated national–private PA network (IPAN) so PPA benefits can remedy NPA shortcomings. However, there has been no recent assessment of Chilean PPA ecoregion representation or data to support the usefulness of spending valuable resources creating an IPAN. Using the most recent Chilean private and national PA data, this study conducted a terrestrial ecoregion gap analysis under two scenarios. Scenario 1 assessed NPAs and nature sanctuaries. Scenario 2 assessed the IPAN. Both scenarios showed representation bias and failure to adequately protect PCAs or meet conservation goals. The IPAN fell short of expectations because PPAs exhibited bias similar to NPAs. The findings refute PA discourse by upending traditional beliefs regarding PPA effectiveness, and they identify a need to more critically assess the benefits of PPAs and IPANs on a country-by-country basis.