World Database On Protected Areas Research Articles

Light-Pollution-Monitoring Method for Selected Environmental and Social Elements

Light pollution significantly interferes with animal and human life and should, therefore, be included in the factors that threaten ecosystems. The main aim of this research is to develop a methodology for monitoring environmental and social elements subjected to light pollution in anthropogenic areas. This research is based on yearly and monthly photographs acquired from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite; land cover data from the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) program; and environmental data from the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). The processing of input data for further analyses, the testing of the methodology and the interpretation of the final results were performed in GIS-type software (ArcGIS Pro). Light pollution in the investigated area was analyzed with the use of maps generated for the years 2014 and 2019. The environmental and social elements were spatially identified in five light pollution classes. The research results demonstrate that the proposed methodology allows for the identification of environmental and social elements that emit light, as well as those that are subjected to light pollution. The methodology used in this work allows us to observe changes resulting from light pollution (decreasing or increasing the intensity). Owing to the use of publicly available data, the methodology can be applied to light pollution monitoring as part of spatial planning in anthropogenic areas. The proposed methodology makes it possible to cover the area exposed to light pollution and to observe (almost online) the environmental and social changes resulting from reductions in light emitted by anthropogenic areas.

Inclusive Governance and Biodiversity Conservation: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

We examine the conservation effects attributable to changes in the size of community-governed protected areas (PAs) by adopting a generalized difference-in-difference (DID) design with a two-way fixed effect regression model and synthetic control methods. Panel data from the extraordinary datasets of the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPAs) and the Red List of International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are used for 32 Sub-Saharan African countries in this study. Our generalized DID estimates show that countries with community-governed PAs have reduced the IUCN Red List threat level by 17% for mammals. We also find stronger evidence of the effect of community-governed PAs on the IUCN threat level using synthetic control method that allows us to match the “intervention countries” with those countries that exhibit similar pre-intervention threat level. Our results are robust on alternate specifications in which we exploit variations in the cumulative size of the designated PAs differentiated by the IUCN governance types. We also compare the effect of strictly state-governed PAs with community-governed PAs. Our findings provide evidence in support of recent qualitative studies that find positive responses of community participation towards common goods that carry potential economic incentives. This paper contributes to the idea that inclusive environmental policies and legislations yield environmental gains not at the cost of social exclusion.

Evaluating the official achievement of Aichi Target 11 for West African countries: A twofold challenge of accuracy and catching-up

Since Aichi Target 11 imposes 10% of national protected marine surface by 2020, the least developed countries have particularly shortcomings towards this goal, this article evaluates the progress of seven West African countries. We compared the area reportedly protected sites from two different sources, the world database on protected areas (WDPA) – which is the official tool to monitor the Aichi 11 Achievements – and the West African Marine Protected Area Network, which conducted a comprehensive survey in collaboration with the national institutions in charge of MPAs. Overall, the countries included in this study are unlikely to achieve the Aichi target. Comparing WDPA protected area figures against database created directly from national data showed large discrepancies. According to national data, Mauritania (3.71%) and Guinea-Bissau (2.15%) had the highest protected areas. Senegal had 1.61% of his EEZ under protection, while other countries had <1%. The difference between WDPA and national data was high with Guinea-Bissau already at 10% of EEZ protected areas status according to the WDPA. WDPA overestimated 5935 km2 of MPAs, corresponding to 41% of the actual total area. Possible explanations for the differences include: countries not transmitting information or doing so incorrectly; methodological transformations of data are inducing errors; and multiple MPA statutes leading to double counting of protected areas. This study also shows that for these countries, to achieve Aichi Target 11, large offshore MPAs are the only viable option, and therefore identifies potential sites, that should be considered in addition to conservation of coastal zones. However, their viability may be constrained due to oil activities and lucrative fishing. The increasingly anthropized littoral zone offers less space favourable to MPAs, while 138,723 km2 still need to be covered in these countries to reach 10% of marine protected area.

Is Aichi Target 11 Progress Correctly Measured for Developing Countries?

Developing countries are struggling to meet Aichi Target 11, which calls for 10% of national marine area under protection. In addition, the official tool to measure their progress, the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), tends to overestimate it. To reach this target, developing countries must set up large offshore Marine protected areas.

Sixty years of tracking conservation progress using the World Database on Protected Areas.

The world's protected area network is constantly changing, and the dynamics of this network are tracked using the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). This database evolved from a list of protected areas first mandated by the United Nations in 1959, and it now informs the key indicators that track progress toward area-based conservation targets. In this capacity, the WDPA illuminates the role of protected areas in advancing a range of international objectives and agreements, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite ongoing challenges in maintaining such a complex global dataset, the WDPA is continuously improving and taking advantage of new technology, making it widely applicable to diverse users, including those in sectors far from its original intended audience. In the future, the WDPA will expand to include areas that contribute to conservation and sustainable use outside of formal protected areas, and will increasingly link to other key global datasets. These innovations in the way the WDPA is managed and used will deliver vital knowledge to support a sustainable future for biodiversity and people globally.

Dynamics in the global protected-area estate since 2004.

Nations of the world have committed to a number of goals and targets to address global environmental challenges. Protected areas have for centuries been a key strategy in conservation and play a major role in addressing current challenges. The most important tool used to track progress on protected-area commitments is the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). Periodic assessments of the world's protected-area estate show steady growth over the last 2 decades. However, the current method, which uses the latest version of the WDPA, does not show the true dynamic nature of protected areas over time and does not provide information on sites removed from the WDPA. In reality, this method can only show growth or remain stable. We used GIS tools in an approach to assess protected-area change over time based on 12 temporally distinct versions of the WDPA that quantify area added and removed from the WDPA annually from 2004 to 2016. Both the narrative of continual growth of protected area and the counter-narrative of protected area removal were overly simplistic. The former because growth was almost entirely in the marine realm and the latter because some areas removed were reprotected in later years. On average 2.5 million km2 was added to the WDPA annually and 1.1 million km2 was removed. Reasons for the inclusion and removal of protected areas in the WDPA database were in part due to data-quality issues but also to on-the-ground changes. To meet the 17% protected-area component of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 by 2020, which stood at 14.7% in 2016, either the rate of protected-area removal must decrease or the rate of protected-area designation and addition to the WDPA must increase.

Towards reducing misrepresentation of national achievements in marine protected area targets

Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted 20 targets, known as the Aichi Targets, to benchmark progress towards protecting biodiversity. These targets include Target 11 relating to Marine Protected Area coverage and the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the accepted international database for tracking national commitments to this target. However, measuring national progress towards conservation targets relies on sound data. This paper highlights the large-scale misrepresentation, by up to two orders of magnitude, of national marine protected area coverage from two Pacific Island nations in multiple online databases and subsequent reports, including conclusions regarding achievements of Aichi 11 commitments. It recommends that for the target driven approach to have value, users of the WDPA data should carefully consider its caveats before using their raw data and that countries should strive for a greater degree of accountability. Lastly it also concludes that protected area coverage may not be the best approach to environmental sustainability and that the remaining 19 targets should be considered to a greater extent.

Documenting local contributions to Earth’s biodiversity heritage: the Global Registry

Despite global environmental policies calling for expanded representative, well-connected and effective protected areas, a significant proportion of areas governed and managed by local communities and indigenous peoples is largely under-documented by formal mechanisms and therefore not counted. International processes to inventory protected areas have been underway for decades, but only recently have diverse governance types been included in global databases. We outline the history and context of the development of the Global Registry of indigenous peoples’ and community conserved territories and areas, abbreviated as ICCAs. This registry was developed through a long-term consultation process and an international partnership. The Registry adheres to principles of Free, Prior Informed Consent and uses the same technical infrastructure and data standard as the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). We describe the local benefits of global registration for those who have participated, such as reduced conflict around mining prospects and increased revenue from community-based tourism. We also highlight globally relevant findings from the Registry: over 70 per cent of registered ICCAs have biodiversity conservation as a core objective, and registered ICCAs represent all IUCN management categories. We discuss the increasing alignment of the ICCA Registry with the WDPA, and describe the importance of both databases for documenting and analysing ICCAs. Lastly, we argue that careful documentation of these areas can enhance their value for effective biodiversity protection, and for the achievement of global conservation and development targets.

Evaluating official marine protected area coverage for Aichi Target 11: appraising the data and methods that define our progress

ABSTRACTThe adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, along with the 20 Aichi Targets, is a strong political endorsement for integrating biodiversity strategy across the entire United Nations system. Aichi Targets represent specific, time‐bound drivers for governments to safeguard both marine and terrestrial biodiversity.For the marine environment, Aichi Target 11 represents a call to effectively conserve at least 10% of coastal and marine areas by 2020. The core indicator to measure Aichi Target 11 is the extent of protected area coverage, and therefore it is essential that MPA data used to calculate this metric are robust.The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the authoritative source of data for measuring Aichi Target coverage progress. The WDPA assimilates global protected areas data as officially reported by the UN Member States themselves.Analysis of the WDPA (August 2014) calculated that MPAs now cover approximately 12,300,000 km2 or 3.41% of the world's ocean. Only 0.59% of the global ocean area (2 163 661 km2 within 1124 areas) is protected in no‐take areas.Only gathering and using State-sanctioned information may affect the accuracy of the WDPA MPA data. However, it is essential to first and foremost recognize national sovereignty and the rights of the Member State data providers in order to maintain a comprehensive approach to data gathering while ensuring international support for the resulting coverage figures that are used to measure global environmental targets.Further improvements could be made to the MPA data, for example by refining current MPA attributes and working with Member States and conventions to reduce or remove point data in the system. Moreover, broadening the scope of the WDPA to allow the inclusion of clearly marked non‐State‐sanctioned sites would complement existing official data and facilitate dialogue between Member States and other data providers towards MPA data improvement. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Urban forests and the conservation of threatened plant species: the case of the Tijuca National Park, Brazil

Increased human pressure on the planet’s resources has lead to extensive loss and degradation of natural habitats increasing overall species’ extinction risk. This has led to the consensus that protected areas are an essential strategy for maintaining biodiversity and the ecological services it provides (Chape et al., 2005; Gaston et al., 2008; Pimm et al., 2014). During the twentieth century, protected areas were created under several different categories of protection in almost all countries around the world (Phillips, 2004). Currently, the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) acknowledges the existence of more than 160,000 protected areas worldwide, covering more than 13% of the Earth’s land surface (WDPA, 2012). Brazil holds an outstanding position with fourth largest network of protected areas in the world (Gurgel et al., 2009), encompassing 12.4% of the national land area (WDPA, 2012). Protecting nature in wilderness regions is already recognized as an important way to preserve biodiversity. However,

Protected areas in Cameroon from Rio to Rio+20 (1992–2012)

SUMMARY The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognizes protected areas (PAs) as instrumental in fostering the attainment of international targets. At the end of the Rio+20 in Brazil, this paper focuses on PAs created in Cameroon since 1992. Statistics from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), and other sources illustrate that 15 PAs covering 1 901 739 hectares have been created and 13 others enclosing 666 026 hectares are at different stages of creation. They are 11 national parks covering 1 806 928 hectares representing 95% and 4 sanctuaries wrapping up 5% (94 811 hectares). The tropical humid ecosystem has 56% of the area protected; the tropical wooded savannah 30% and the montane ecosystem 7%. PAs overlap significantly (96%) with Key Biodiversity Areas suggesting they are conferring some protection on biodiversity.

Effects of Errors and Gaps in Spatial Data Sets on Assessment of Conservation Progress

Data on the location and extent of protected areas, ecosystems, and species' distributions are essential for determining gaps in biodiversity protection and identifying future conservation priorities. However, these data sets always come with errors in the maps and associated metadata. Errors are often overlooked in conservation studies, despite their potential negative effects on the reported extent of protection of species and ecosystems. We used 3 case studies to illustrate the implications of 3 sources of errors in reporting progress toward conservation objectives: protected areas with unknown boundaries that are replaced by buffered centroids, propagation of multiple errors in spatial data, and incomplete protected-area data sets. As of 2010, the frequency of protected areas with unknown boundaries in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) caused the estimated extent of protection of 37.1% of the terrestrial Neotropical mammals to be overestimated by an average 402.8% and of 62.6% of species to be underestimated by an average 10.9%. Estimated level of protection of the world's coral reefs was 25% higher when using recent finer-resolution data on coral reefs as opposed to globally available coarse-resolution data. Accounting for additional data sets not yet incorporated into WDPA contributed up to 6.7% of additional protection to marine ecosystems in the Philippines. We suggest ways for data providers to reduce the errors in spatial and ancillary data and ways for data users to mitigate the effects of these errors on biodiversity assessments.

Progress towards the CBD protected area management effectiveness targets

The management effectiveness of protected areas is a critically important consideration for their conservation success. Over 40 different protected area management effectiveness (PAME) data collection tools have been developed to systematically assess protected area management effectiveness. Many of these assessments have recently been collated into the Global IUCN Protected Area Management Effectiveness (PAME) database. We use the PAME database together with and the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) to assess current progress towards the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) 2010 and 2015 targets for PAME, which call for at least 30 per cent and 60 per cent of the total area of protected areas to have been assessed in terms of management effectiveness, respectively. We show that globally 29 per cent of the area protected has been assessed and 23 per cent of countries have reached the 60 per cent target. In addition 46 per cent of countries have reached the 30 per cent target. However, analytical results show that there are biases in the type of protected area assessed; protected areas with larger areas, and protected areas designated as National Parks (IUCN category II) are much more likely to have conducted a PAME assessment. In addition there is a paucity of PAME assessments from Europe and North America, where assessments of protected area management may already be integrated into protected area planning and monitoring systems, creating a challenge for reporting to the CBD. We further discuss the potential and limitations of PAME assessments as tools for tracking and evaluating protected area management, and the need for further assessment tools to address the ‘equity’ elements of Target 11 of the CBD.

The geography of high-value biodiversity areas for terrestrial vertebrates in Western Europe and their coverage by protected area networks

Abstract. We identified high-value biodiversity areas (HVBAs) of terrestrial vertebrates according to a combined index of biodiversity (CBI) for each major taxon and a standardized biodiversity index (SBI) for all taxa in 2195 cells of 50 × 50 km in Western Europe to evaluate whether these areas are included in the current protected area networks. The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and NATURA 2000 protected area network were used to assess the protected area cover in HVBAs. WDPA and NATURA 2000 were geographically quite complementary as WDPA is more densely represented in Central and Northern Europe and NATURA 2000 in the Mediterranean basin. A total of 729 cells were identified as HVBAs. From the total of these HVBA areas, NATURA 2000 network was present in more cells (660) than the WDPA network (584 cells). The sum of protected land percentages across all the HVBA cells was 28.8%. The identified HVBA cells according to the SBI included 603 or 78.2% of all vertebrate species in the study region, whereas the identified HVBA cells according to the SBI for individual taxa included 47 (90.4%) species of amphibians, 79 (74.5%) of reptiles, 417 (88.5%) of birds, and 130 (91.5%) of mammals. However, neither network was present in 7 or 3% of the identified HVBA cells. Thus, we recommend expanding protected areas in Europe to fill this gap and improve coverage of vertebrate species to strengthen biodiversity conservation.

Global implementation of marine protected areas: Is the developing world being left behind?

Abstract While the global network of marine protected areas (MPAs) has recently been evaluated in the light of bio-geographic targets, there has been no attempt to evaluate the relative conservation efforts made by the different nations with regards to their level of socio-economic development. Using information mostly gathered from the world database on protected areas (WDPA), this paper gives a comparative assessment of MPA progress in countries from different economic categories, ranging from advanced economies to least developed countries (LDCs). Potentially explanatory socio-economic and environmental factors, such as fishing activity and existence of vulnerable marine ecosystems, for variability between nations in the level of MPA implementation are also explored. Existing MPA databases demonstrate a clear gap between developed and developing nations in MPA establishment, with advanced economies accounting for two thirds of the global MPA network. Patterns of MPA use, however, remain extremely heterogeneous between countries within each development group. International agreements on marine conservation, above and beyond the influence of country socio-economic and environmental profiles, are identified as a stimulating factor to MPA implementation. The level dependence on marine resource extraction appears to impede MPA implementation, though the relationship is not statistically significant due to large heterogeneity among countries. Leading developed nations increasingly use MPAs to designate integrated and adaptive management areas, and implementation of large “no-take” reserves in relatively-pristine overseas areas continues to accelerate. These analyses highlight certain limitations regarding our ability to assess the true conservation effectiveness of the existing global MPA network and the need for improved indicators of MPA restrictions and management efforts.

A comparison of the management models of protected areas between China and the southern Africa region

A comparison of the management models of protected areas between China and the African south region allows reading and evaluating the similarities and differences in the use of management model as a management tool for protected areas and specifically some positive and negative features of the management approaches in these two regions. Previous to this study it verified the designation of protected areas as increasing at a faster rate than ever before, comparatively much faster now in China than southern Africa regions. With the aim of evaluating similarities and differences in the use of management model as a management tool for protected areas in China and southern Africa Region, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Qualitative data were mainly from policy documents, scientific articles and magazine reports, whereas quantitative (secondary data) statistical data from International Union for Conservation of Nature Resources (IUCN) and World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). In view of the data sources above, the study found that in China all the protected areas are state owned whilst in southern Africa regions there are some protected areas that are privately owned; also that the models or typology of governance applied are successful for the fact that they both combine co-management or collaborative management, community-conserved areas and private protected areas that are subject to greater success and can help design planning and management than those who use exclusively government management. To this, the study concluded that the use of management model is influenced by the type of governance a country applies to its reserved areas.

Angiosperm biodiversity, endemism and conservation in the Neotropics

We analyze distributional patterns of Neotropical flowering plants between 38° N and 55° S. Along with identification of centers of angiosperm biodiversity and endemism, we explore range size patterns and discuss implications for angiosperm evolution and conservation. Based on monographic and herbarium specimen data, a database for Neotropical angiosperms was created containing distributional and ecological data of more than 4,000 species and subspecific taxa, representing approximately 5% of all Neotropical angiosperms. Maps of species richness and endemism at 1° grid resolution were produced using a geographical information system (GIS). We found that the distribution area of most species was small (1% or less of the total Neotropical area) and that centers of narrow endemism were irregularly distributed, not coinciding with the hypothesized Pleistocene refugia and diversity hotspots. Based on identified centers of narrow endemism and forest conversion rates, we estimate that approximately 100 narrow endemic species are lost annually. Areas rich in narrow endemics but without protection status according to the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) Consortium are recognized. Our results suggest that the success of long‐term conservation of angiosperm diversity relies on future protection of areas covering a larger portion of the identified centers of narrow endemism.