Editorial: Responding to disasters - the role of protected areas

Abstract

The costs of storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, ocean surge and desertification are increasing; and with each event natural capital is also lost in terms of healthy ecosystems, species and ecosystem services. Despite increased spending on disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies, well over a million people died as a result of natural hazards in the last decade. We need to rethink how to manage DRR. One strategy poorly recognised and under-exploited to date is the role of natural ecosystems in protecting against and mitigating from disasters and the role of protected areas in maintaining these ecosystem services. This editorial reviews how protected areas can support DDR and draws specifically on responses to the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.

Spatial and Financial Aspects of National Parks Functioning in Poland Based on the Example of the Parks Situated along the Borderland of Lower Silesia Region and Liberecky and Kralovehradecky kraj

“…Even more so, since in many cases ecological disasters require the reevaluation of priorities by not only those who manage a particular protected area, but also by public authoritiesfrequently representing a few neighboring countries. The problem of a vicious circle -"environment degradationdecreasing immunityincreasing susceptibility to disasters resulting in even more extensive environment degradation" is quite universal and refers not only to Europe [11]. Geopolitical, economic and ideological changes resulted in the fact that the problems of natural environment and economic development became the global top problems frequently covered in professional in literature [8].…”