Protected area asset stewardship

Abstract

Protected areas (PAs) are the main strategy to conserve natural values and reduce biodiversity loss. However, with increasing global food requirements, using land for protecting landscapes and species is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Here, we argue that framing PAs as spatial assets provides an ideal platform for generating investment and increasing their political/cultural resilience. Specifically, we define and characterize PAs in terms of their biophysical, human, infrastructure, institutional and cultural assets, making explicit the forms of value they create and for whom, and identifying types of investment needed to generate value in the medium and long term. These assets can be protected, managed and/or invested in to generate (monetizable and non-monetizable) forms of value. They can also be at risk from a variety of factors. Building on contemporary conservation policy, our asset framework provides an innovative approach to the development and management of PAs in the 21 st Century.

A culturomics approach to quantifying the salience of species on the global internet

“…For example, they offer a means to measure, map and report stocks of cultural natural capital in an ecosystem or region in near real time, and could therefore contribute to the broader assessment of nature's contribution to people (Díaz et al, ). All things being equal, species with high cultural significance are more likely to be assets that can generate value in the form of collective identities, brands, life‐quality and nature‐based economies (Jepson et al, ).…”

Recoverable Earth: a twenty-first century environmental narrative

“…These in turn are generating multiple forms of value for nature, people and society (cf. Jepson et al 2017 ) and new forms of ecological knowledge that are generating nature-based solutions to societal problems (cf. Nesshöver et al 2017 ), including climate change adaptation and rural depopulation.…”

Rewilding and gazetting the Iberá National Park: Using an asset approach to evaluate project success

“…We used the case study in Iberá to test the effectiveness of a recently proposed theoretical framework designed to illuminate and categorize PA benefits. The Protected Area Asset Framework (Jepson et al, 2017) is a conceptual tool that makes explicit assets inherent to PAs, how they generate value, and who benefits from this value creation. The framework departs from the notion of value standardized as money in trade relations, emphasizing the range of relational values derived by human-nature interactions.…”

“…The framework departs from the notion of value standardized as money in trade relations, emphasizing the range of relational values derived by human-nature interactions. It aims to aid in identifying the types of investments that enhance value generation and resilience of PAs in the medium to long term, thereby providing political and social justification for their existence and continued expansion (Jepson et al, 2017). The framework was used to analyse the activities assumed by the Trust in Iberá and understand the impact on local communities.…”