Why do we lose protected areas? Factors influencing protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement in the tropics and subtropics

Symes, William S.; Rao, Madhu; Mascia, Michael B.; Carrasco, L. Román

doi:10.1111/gcb.13089

Cited by 89 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(85 reference statements)

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“…Likewise, JSWNP, the third largest PA, was the only PA where two local communities were granted legal rights for a community capture fishery (JSWNP, 2013). This supports the earlier finding where larger PAs were more prone to PADDD due to higher opportunity cost (Symes et al, 2016).…”

Section: Gain and Paddd Events Trend Among Individual Passupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Furthermore, when corresponding individual PADDD types were compared we recorded very large differences in the number of events although the area impacted by PADDD did not differ that much. Probably, the relatively small size and remote location of PAs like Zoshing Reserve Forest (5 km 2 ) and Sinchula Reserve Forest (80 km 2 ; Symes et al, 2016) might have made it difficult to detect and record in the broader database. org, and when we discounted 2 PAs wrongly reported as degazetted in www.PADDDtracker.org we recorded 3 times more degazettement events than that recorded in www.…”

Section: Paddd Recorded In Wwwmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Half century of protected area dynamism in the country of Gross National Happiness, Bhutan

Dorji

Linke

Sheldon

2019

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Bhutan is recognized for conservation success under its pro-environmental development philosophy Gross National Happiness (GNH). However, an increase in area coverage alone cannot track the true contribution of protected areas (PAs) to biodiversity conservation. Capturing PA dynamism by tracking PADDD (PA downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement) and gain events can be used as a more comprehensive evaluation method. Based on existing data, we tracked gain events, enacted and proposed PADDD events, proximate causes of PADDD, and gain and PADDD events trends in Bhutan from 1966 to 2016. We also compared PADDD events recorded in www.PADDDtracker.org with the primary data sourced for our study. We discussed the findings in light of four tenets of GNH: good governance, sustainable socioeconomic development, preservation, and promotion of culture, and environmental conservation. We identified 81 gain and 29 PADDD events. All 12 proposed policy downgrading events in 2004 were proximally caused by infrastructure development, while all degazettement (n = 6) in 1993 and all downsizing events (two in 1984 and one in 1993) were proximally caused by conservation planning. Overall the gain and PADDD events were episodic but policy downgrading events occurred only from 2002. Based on our country data, we recorded 4.8 times more PADDD events than was recorded in www. PADDDtracker.org where even some degazetted PAs were not recorded. All gain events and even PADDD events, excluding one enacted and 12 proposed policy downgrading events caused by hydropower projects were aimed to improve conservation thus aligning with tenets of GNH. However, as hydropower is the specific cause for all proposed PADDD, Bhutan should be concerned about PADDD. Our findings provide further evidence for the dynamic nature of PAs, the widespread nature of PADDD and difficulty in detecting it. Furthermore, they also suggest the need to conduct archival case studies to better detect PADDD and PA dynamism. K E Y W O R D S gain events, hydropower, pro-environmental development philosophy, protected area downgrading downsizing and degazettement, proximate causes

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Section: Gain and Paddd Events Trend Among Individual Passupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Paddd Recorded In Wwwmentioning

confidence: 99%

Half century of protected area dynamism in the country of Gross National Happiness, Bhutan

Dorji

Linke

Sheldon

2019

Conservat Sci and Prac

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“…This suggests the larger NNRs, which have high opportunity costs, have more natural resource exploitation than the smaller ones (Symes et al. ). Because some species and ecological processes require large areas (Xie et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in area and number of nature reserves in China

Chen

Melville³

et al. 2019

Conservation Biology

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Nature reserves (NR) are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation. Over the past 60 years, the rapid expansion of NRs in China, one of the world's megadiverse countries, has played a critical role in slowing biodiversity loss. We examined the changes in the number and area of China's NRs from 1956 to 2014 and analyzed the effect of economic development on the expansion of China's NRs from 2005 to 2014 with linear models. Despite a continuing increase in the number of NRs, the total area of China's NRs decreased by 3% from 2007 to 2014. This loss resulted from downsizing and degazettement of existing NRs and a slowdown in the establishment of new ones. Nature reserves in regions with rapid economic development exhibited a greater decrease in area, suggesting that downsizing and degazettement of NRs are closely related to the intensifying competition between economic growth and conservation. For example, boundary adjustments to national NRs, the most strictly protected NRs, along the coast of China's Yellow Sea, a global biodiversity hotspot with a fast‐growing economy, resulted in the loss of one‐third of the total area. One of the most important ecosystems in these NRs, tidal wetlands, decreased by 27.8% because of boundary adjustments and by 25.2% because of land reclamation. Our results suggest conservation achievement, in terms of both area and quality, are declining at least in some regions in the Chinese NR estate. Although the designation of protected areas that are primarily managed for sustainable use has increased rapidly in recent years in China, we propose that NRs with biodiversity conservation as their main function should not be replaced or weakened.

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“…If so, an understanding of dispersal constraints and functional connectivity [29] within the landscape might allow one to better predict the potential of protected areas and community-managed lands to regain some of their extirpated species. Furthermore, there are nuances related to politics, economics, and other social aspects that need to be factored in when considering the strengthening of protected-area networks [30]. This is especially needed as protected areas are considered to be least effective in Asia when compared with other regions [12].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrestrial Species in Protected Areas and Community-Managed Lands in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India

Velho

Sreekar

Laurance

2016

Land

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Protected areas (including areas that are nominally fully protected and those managed for multiple uses) encompass about a quarter of the total tropical forest estate. Despite growing interest in the relative value of community-managed lands and protected areas, knowledge about the biodiversity value that each sustains remains scarce in the biodiversity-rich tropics. We investigated the species occurrence of a suite of mammal and pheasant species across four protected areas and nearby community-managed lands in a biodiversity hotspot in northeast India. Over 2.5 years we walked 98 transects (half of which were resampled on a second occasion) across the four paired sites. In addition, we interviewed 84 key informants to understand their perceptions of species trends in these two management regimes. We found that protected areas had higher overall species richness and were important for species that were apparently declining in occurrence. On a site-specific basis, community-managed lands had species richness and occurrences comparable to those of a protected area, and in one case their relative abundances of mammals were higher. Interviewees indicated declines in the abundances of larger-bodied species in community-managed lands. Their observations agreed with our field surveys for certain key, large-bodied species, such as gaur and sambar, which generally occurred less in community-managed lands. Hence, the degree to which protected areas and community-managed lands protect wildlife species depends upon the species in question, with larger-bodied species usually faring better within protected areas.

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Why do we lose protected areas? Factors influencing protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement in the tropics and subtropics

Cited by 89 publications

References 57 publications

Half century of protected area dynamism in the country of Gross National Happiness, Bhutan

Half century of protected area dynamism in the country of Gross National Happiness, Bhutan

Changes in area and number of nature reserves in China

Terrestrial Species in Protected Areas and Community-Managed Lands in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India

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