(C) Mongabay.com This story was originally published by Mongabay.com and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Protected areas benefit nature & people, study says — with caveats [1] [] Date: 2024-07-02 08:38:55+00:00 A new paper in the journal Current Biology that attempts to track how protected areas (PAs) fare on biodiversity protection and economic growth found that PAs “don’t have a negative impact on local economic growth.” However, experts say that the encouraging results must be interpreted with abundant caution because the study uses narrow definitions of conservation success and economic development. The top 10 countries that were most likely to report harmony between the two objectives included five African countries: Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Zambia and South Sudan. The performance of PAs in key biodiversity areas such as the Amazon and Southeast Asia was also lackluster, but this was in comparison with other areas, said Binbin Li, first author of the study. “It is not at the same level [as other regions], but it is not rare.” A global campaign to expand protected areas is underway, triggered by the adoption of the Kunming- Montreal Global Biodiversity pact in 2022. Described by backers as a “landmark deal for biodiversity and people,” the deal calls for conserving at least 30% of the planet’s land and water. This has injected an urgency into the task of assessing the global experience with existing protected areas (PAs) with an eye on biodiversity preservation and human welfare. A new paper in the journal Current Biology attempts to track how PAs fare on both fronts. “Protected areas, on average, do not have a negative impact on local economic growth,” said Binbin Li, first author of the new study. Li is an environmental scientist at Duke Kunshan University in China. It is a finding that is sure to attract the attention of environmentalists, conservation practitioners and the wider conservation world. However, experts say this must be interpreted with abundant caution and not viewed as a blanket endorsement of PAs. Setting aside areas like national parks and wildlife reserves is one of the most widely used conservation strategies by national governments and a keystone of the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework. However, national priorities don’t always reflect the will or needs of the local populations most impacted by creating these sanctuaries for nature. Time and again, researchers have found that community buy-in is critical to the acceptance of such conservation measures. However, assessing how well designated safe havens work to preserve biodiversity is tricky. What is even trickier is capturing their impact on neighboring communities. There is a longstanding debate about whether economic development and wildlife protection can occur in tandem. When PAs are set up, trade-offs — in which one set of goals is promoted at the cost of another — are often a source of conflict. The analysis of around 10,000 protected areas found a synergistic relationship between PAs and economic growth in about half of the PAs, which means improvements in one aspect did not impinge on the other. In some cases, conservation improvements were occurring alongside economic advancement. This does not mean the PAs were responsible for economic advancement or vice versa. In fact, in 43% of the cases, the installation of PAs appeared to have detrimental effects on the local economy. The results are also hampered by important limitations. The research uses narrow definitions of both conservation success and economic development. Economic growth is measured in nighttime light density (think of the brilliant satellite maps of nightlights circulating online). Economists have shown that more artificial light during the nighttime can be a useful measure of material improvement in people’s lives. It could indicate urbanization, better access to electricity and more economic activity. Yet, PAs are not merely land parcels stitched onto the local landscape but sites carved from existing landscapes imbued with social, economic and cultural significance. “We can’t assume that, if light density increases the settlement overall, or individuals within it, have seen increased ‘development’” said George Holmes, an expert on the interaction between protected areas and resident communities at the University of Leeds. “They may have more light, but there may be other, greater negative impacts.” He said that using a single indicator like nightlight misses out on other vital aspects of human well-being such as health, precarity and education. “We miss out on many, many other kinds of development impacts and the unequal distribution of these impacts.” Changes in nighttime lights apply to entire communities but do not tell us about how groups or individuals within communities fare. Li recognized that measuring changes in nighttime light does not capture important aspects of development. It was a question of using the best available data, she said. Nighttime light data is available for longer periods and for most parts of the globe. The group defined effectiveness as a PA’s ability to resist land use changes like conversion of forested land for agriculture or woody encroachment on grasslands. Tracking impacts on biodiversity, which would directly capture conservation successes, is notoriously hard to do, so the group settled on land use change. Such a tantalizing result raises obvious questions about what makes some PAs click on both dimensions. Though they found that a country’s human development index (HDI) played a role, it wasn’t a straightforward linear relationship. A higher HDI did not guarantee a higher chance of reaching both goals simultaneously. The top 10 countries that were most likely to report harmony between the two objectives included five African countries: Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Zambia and South Sudan. However, Ethiopia, which the study says is a top performer, also struggles with protecting wildlife and the interests of its citizens. As Mongabay reported, when Bale Mountains National Park was granted UNESCO World Heritage Site status in September 2023, it led to the eviction of more than 20,000 people. Other nations that record high rates of synergy, like Madagascar, also report high deforestation rates. Li told Mongabay that absolute measures like forest loss “have lost favor” as measures of conservation success. If the rate of natural landcover loss is zero or lower [inside the PA] than similar places but not protected, we consider the PA is doing its job,” she said. The team found that local GDP is another important predictor. “If a place is really poor before the PA is established, we expect a low possibility for synergy,” Li said. “If we don’t solve poverty issues, we cannot solve biodiversity issues.” The case of roads is also complicated. The work shows that “roads are not outrightly bad for biodiversity conservation” and that synergy is most likely at moderate road density. Where there are no roads to begin with, there is a low probability of achieving synergy. Road access helps communities with sparse connectivity, but a denser road network impacts a PA’s performance. Interestingly, PA size was also a significant predictor of success. Large PAs have a low probability of achieving synergy because they can prove too large to manage effectively. Stretched budgets are often spread even thinner in expansive reserves, and they are harder to monitor and patrol. The performance of PAs in key biodiversity areas such as the Amazon and Southeast Asia was also lackluster. Li said that the proportion of PAs that attain synergy is low in some of the most biodiverse areas. But this is in comparison with other places, she said. “It is not at the same level, but it is not rare.” The most crucial question for Li is what we can learn from areas that show synergy. “In some regions, we have to solve local poverty issues first because if we do not address poverty issues, we just put more money into protecting nature or wildlife, and that won’t be able to give us the co-benefits we want.” Banner Image: Traditional huts at the village of Rira inside Bale Mountains National Park, next to the house is sand and fine stone probably used to build a new house. Image by Solomon Yimer for Mongabay. Citations: Li, B. V., Wu, S., Pimm, S. L., & Cui, J. (2024). The synergy between protected area effectiveness and economic growth. Current Biology. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.05.044 Zhang, Y., Xiao, X., Cao, R., Zheng, C., Guo, Y., Gong, W., & Wei, Z. (2020). How important is community participation to eco-environmental conservation in protected areas? From the perspective of predicting locals’ pro-environmental behaviours. Science of The Total Environment, 739, 139889. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139889 Brooks, J., Waylen, K. A., & Mulder, M. B. (2013). Assessing community-based conservation projects: A systematic review and multilevel analysis of attitudinal, behavioral, ecological, and economic outcomes. Environmental Evidence, 2(1). doi:10.1186/2047-2382-2-2 Koricha, H. G., & Jemal Adem, M. (2024). Investigated the role of community based approaches for biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development in bale mountains National Park, southeast Ethiopia. Scientific Reports, 14(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-024-60177-5 [END] --- [1] Url: https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/protected-areas-benefit-nature-people-study-says-with-caveats/ Published and (C) by Mongabay.com Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/mongabay/