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History of Protected Areas: What are protected areas protecting?

History of Protected Areas: What are protected areas protecting?. April 3, 2007 Bianca Perla. A Protected Area is….

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History of Protected Areas: What are protected areas protecting?

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  1. History of Protected Areas: What are protected areas protecting? April 3, 2007 Bianca Perla

  2. A Protected Area is… "an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means.“ -World Commission on Protected Areas http://www.iucn.org/themes/wcpa/

  3. IndigenousCultures "...we were the original conservationists…our ways of farming pollinated diverse seed species and maintained corridors between ecosystems." Maasai leader Martin Saning'o, eastern Africa “the Batwaa people, as one naturalist noted, were part of the fauna.” (Dowie, 2005)

  4. Protected Areas and Empires Ashoka 273-232 BCE 1 of 34 edicts Mauryan Empire, India 321-185 BCE

  5. Protected Areas (500 CE- 1872) • Forestris, Germany, 556 CE- non-timber products: grazing, honey, beeswax. • Hunting grounds- Normans England 1079, China, Persia, Romania 1457. • Japan 1500’s Protected forests for conservation of soil and water • 1800’s records of forest protected areas to conserve water and soil in Switzerland and Austria

  6. What are protected areas protecting? 500 CE-1872 • Sacred places, animals, plants, cultural heritage • Natural Resources- Game, non-timber forest products, soil and water quality • People as part of protected areas • Protected areas managed for and by ruling class

  7. Early American Protected Areas 1872-1960 Late 1800’s- unique idea of wilderness arises in response to manifest destiny, combines with democratic ideals 1872- Yellowstone is established as the First National Park 1905- United States Forest Service 1916- National Park Service Organic Act 1917- Earliest call for taxonomically, ecologically comprehensive system of protected lands unheeded. 1960’s- Exportation of National Park Model

  8. Scientific reserves Indigenous protective covenants and traditions Royal hunting grounds United States Forest Service Early working forests, “Forestris” Sacred forest groves National Parks and wilderness

  9. Challenges • Funding: “if the railroads were conducted in the same manner as National Parks, no man would be brave enough to ride from Washington to Baltimore.” –Secretary of Interior Franklin K. Lane 1914 • Public Support: Bills to create the Park Service failed continually, the public didn’t know about parks or care about their condition, visitation was low. • Adhoc and unorganized: no plan for the parks and no enforcement.

  10. HoraceAlbright Stephen Mather

  11. Early Management Values and Research paradigms and protected areas Parks as scenic vistas (Swain 1970) Parks as biological islands (Turner et al. 2001) People as separate from protected areas. Top-down management. (Cronon 1996)

  12. Current Condition of Biodiversity in United States • 100 species extinct • 1/3of all flowering plants, certain invertebrate groups, and all vertebrates are species of conservation concern • 27 ecosystems have declined in area by 98% or more since European colonization • Threatened and endangered species increased 7-fold (174-1244) between 1976-2000. • 5% of land area is in protected areas but less than half of the vegetation types in US have 10% of land area in a protected area • Rock and Ice conservation (40% of at risk species are only on private land) From Shaffer et al. 2002

  13. http://www.nps.gov/archive/2016/ Park visitation http://www2.nature.nps.gov/stats/

  14. Rise of Private Protected Areas Nature Conservancy owns over 117 million acres of land and 5000 miles of river in all United States and 27 different countries (tnc.org) Conservation International works in more than 40 countries (www.conservation.org) In Southern Africa more land is held in protection by private entities than by the government or IUCN (Furniss 2005) US has more than 1500 Land Trusts (Shaffer et al. 2002)

  15. Cumulative growth in global protected areas in 5yr increments 1872-2003 (List of protected areas report, IUCN, 2003) 11.5 % of the world exists in protected areas

  16. Current Protected Area Treaties See also Parris 2003

  17. Current Protected Area Management Agencies INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Counterparts to U.S. institutions can be found in most countries of the world regardless of economic prosperity or size (Parris 2003) i.e. Australia National Parks and Wildlife Service, Gabon National Parks, Philippines Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, South Africa’s National Parks and Heritage Resources Agency. Non-profit programs assisting developing nations: Parks in Peril, World Land trust. UNITED STATES USNPS USFS BLM National Landscape Conservation System US Marine Protected Areas- joint managed by NOAA, DOI State Parks Over 1500 Private non-profit land trusts

  18. PROBLEMS • Despite over 11% of the world existing in protected area designations, biodiversity continues to decline on a global scale • IUCN World Parks Congress • Loss of large predators and other species (Cheville et al. 1998, Carroll et al. 2004) • Invasive species (Pauchard and Alaback 2004) • Biotic homogenization (Rooney et al. 2004) • Disruption of ecosystem processes (Hansen 2000) • Distrust and anger in some local communities near parks (Machlis and Field 2000, Stevens 1997).

  19. “We are enemies of conservation.” –Martin Saning’o, Masaai “If local people do not support protected areas than protected areas cannot last.” – S. Ramphal, President of IUCN, IV World Parks Congress, 1992 Protected areas impact, and are impacted by people living in the landscape surrounding protected areas: through decisions, perceptions, and socioeconomic factors that drive land-use change around protected areas (Achana and O’Leary 2000, Brandon and Wells 1992)

  20. “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

  21. Parks are not separate from surrounding landscapes Modified from Shafer 1990

  22. THE MATRIX • supports species populations • regulates organism movement • buffers sensitive areas or reserves • maintains integrity of aquatic ecosystems Lindenmayer and Franklin (2002) Photo: Turner et al. 2001

  23. International Protected Areas 1962- First World Conference on National Parks convenes in Seattle, WA 1968-UNESCO Man in the Biosphere Program- first attempt at including people-sustainability as focus rather than wilderness preservation-zoning methodology 1980- Integrated Conservation and Development Planning 1982-Rio Earth Summit Convention on Biological Diversity signed by 188 countries 1990’s- Ecosystem Scale planning Late 1990’s early 2000- Canada, Australia, New Zealand, some parts of Latin America create progressive policies relating to traditional land rights (i.e. Indigenous Protected Areas)

  24. Strict Nature Reserve/Wilderness Area: protected area managed mainly for science or wilderness protection • National Park: protected area managed mainly for ecosystem protection and recreation • III. Natural Monument: protected area managed mainly for conservation of specific natural features • IV. Habitat/Species Management Area: protected area managed mainly for conservation through management intervention • V. Protected Landscape/Seascape: protected area managed mainly for landscape/seascape protection and recreation. • VI. Managed Resource Protected Area: protected area managed mainly for the sustainable use of natural ecosystems. http://www.iucn.org/themes/wcpa/pubs/pdfs/iucncategories.pdf

  25. Protected areas are still the most effective tools for conservation in some cases… 1/3 of the worlds largest cities rely on protected watersheds for their water supply and in parts of West Africa the only forest remaining is in protected areas (Furniss 2005) Sometimes the only effective tool available to rapidly stop excessive degradation of highly threatened areas (McNeely 1994) Good for species that are intolerant of human disturbance, and highly endemic species with limited ranges (Putz et al. 2000) Provide less disturbed environments for control sites and safety nets (Lindenmayer and Franklin 2002) Diversification of the Protected Area Model holds promise of increasing the utility and effectiveness of protected areas: IUCN has 6 different categories for protected areas currently….

  26. What are protected areas protecting? • Sacred places, animals, plants, cultural heritage • Natural Resources/Ecosystem Services- Game, non-timber forest products, soil and water quality • Wilderness, scenery, natural/cultural heritage • Biodiversity • Sustainability, Ecosystem Services, Human well-being

  27. CONSERVATION SCIENCE Top-down management Democratization Lands in Trust People excluded Ecosystem management Adaptive Management People included Community driven People included Local-scale 321 BCE - 1872 > 2000 Early cultures > 321 BCE 1872 1960 1990 Landscape mgt Community driven People included What’s next ??????? Isolation Mgt Biol. Islands Biodiversity Enforced by rulers People excluded Management and Research paradigms and protected areas

  28. Royal hunting grounds Indigenous protective covenants and traditions TIME Early working forests, “Forestris” Sacred forest groves National Parks and wilderness Biosphere Reserves National Parks and wilderness Protected Landscapes Indigenous Protected Areas Natural Monuments National Parks Wilderness Conservation Easements Research Natural Areas Wildland Networks

  29. Challenges for Protected Areas--21st century: • Complexity • Large Scale • Socio-economic as well as ecological factors affect protected area success • Jurisdictional boundaries means data available is often not uniform and management mandates may conflict

  30. “One of the anomalies of modern ecology is that it is the creation of two groups, each of which seems barely aware of the existence of the other. The one studies the human community almost as if it were a separate entity, and calls its findings sociology, economics, and history. The other studies the plant and animal community and comfortably relegates the hodge-podge of politics to the liberal arts. The inevitable fusion of the two lines of thought will, perhaps, constitute the outstanding advance of the present century.” Aldo Leopold 1935

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