Protecting imperiled “paper parks”: potential lessons from the Sierra Chinajá, Guatemala

Abstract

In many developing nations, ''paper parks'', or protected areas that have little or no formal management on the ground, have resulted from the failure of protected area systems to achieve their foremost goal: biodiversity conservation. This analysis incorporates biophysical, socioeconomic, and land use/tenure data collected by a multidisciplinary team of Guatemalan and American researchers in order to identify potential management plans and multiple-use/concession arrangements. The Sierra Chinajá is a classic paper park protected area in Guatemala. Many factors have rendered Guatemalan protected areas management policies ineffectual in the Sierra Chinajá despite the fact that it has been an ''area of special protection'' since 1989. Proximate causes of forest conversion mask underlying driving forces responsible for rapid biodiversity loss. Despite the fact that Guatemala's protected areas management system is similar to that promoted by international conservation organizations it has yet to effectively conserve biodiversity. These factors suggest that protected areas management in Guatemala, and other developing nations possessing unique cultural and natural histories, must be rooted in the local context as promulgated by the local non-governmental organization ProPéten in their proposal for an official Indigenous Reserve category. The proposal suggests the devolution of management responsibilities from federal institutions to local communities in the effort to develop a community-based, site specific conservation agenda.Resumen En muchos países en desarrollo, las ''áreas protegidas en papel'' o parques que no poseen un plan de manejo formal, han sido el resultado de la incapacidad del sistema nacional de áreas protegidas de alcanzar su meta mas importante: la conservación de la biodiversidad. El siguiente análisis incorpora datos biofísicos, socioeconómicos, de uso y C. A. Bonham (tenencia de la tierra recolectados por un grupo multidisciplinario de investigadores guatemaltecos y norteamericanos con el objetivo de formular una estrategia de conservación que incorpore concesiones de usos múltiples. La Sierra de Chinajá es un ejemplo clásico de un ''área protegida en papel'' en Guatemala. Muchos son los factores por los cuales la política de áreas protegidas ha fracasado en la Sierra de Chinajá, a pesar de estar clasificada como un ''Á rea de Protección Especial'' desde 1989. Las causas subyacentes responsables por el cambio en la cobertura forestal están escondidas debajo de los síntomas más visibles de la perdida de biodiversidad. A pesar de que el Sistema Guatemalteco de Á reas Protegidas es similar al promovido por organizaciones internacionales aun no es efectivo en la conservación de la biodiversidad. Estos factores sugieren que el manejo de las áreas protegidas en Guatemala, y en otros países en desarrollo que poseen historias naturales y culturales únicas, deben estar enraizadas en el contexto local, como ha sido propuesto por la organización Pro-Peten en su propuesta por una categoría de manejo denominad...

Protected areas in Chile: are we managing them?

“…Considering all the protected areas in Chile, the vast majority of management plans were considered null (older than 10 year, 61.6%) or deficient (not effective, 17.4%), which placed them in the internationally recognized category of "Paper Parks" [2]. One strategy that could help to solve this problem is a reappraisal of the existing protected areas, particularly the older ones, followed by the generation of adaptive and updated management plans because the protection targets for each conservation object may have changed.…”

“…Following this declaration, the number of PAs increased in the subsequent years to the present, resulting in more than 10 million km 2 of MPAs worldwide and a 360% growth in only 10 years [1,18,19,22,33]. For example, the 1.1 million-km 2 Marae Moana: Cook Islands Marine Park, which was created in 2012, as well as the 1.3 million-km 2 Parc naturel de la mer de Corail in 2014 and the more recent (2015) 500,000-km 2 Palau National Marine Sanctuary. This trend is also observable in Chile, where the largest MPAs in South America, the Motu Motiro Hiva Marine Park (150,000 km 2 ) and the NazcaDesventuradas Marine Park (300,035 km 2 ), were created in 2010 and 2016, respectively.…”

“…management plans, funding, governance, etc. ), these protected figures fall into the paper parks category [2], which describe a relevant worldwide problem of countries that nowadays are rapidly increasing its protected territory. Although based in a small sample size, some assessments indicate that most protected areas (76%) have only basic management or major deficiencies, while only 24% have sound management [17,20].…”

Social-ecological Resilience and Biodiversity Conservation in a 900-year-old Protected Area

“…There has recently been a shift from a model of PA management that removes humans from the land, to one that involves local communities in the process of conservation management (Phillips 2003, Bonham et al 2008. PAs can therefore increasingly be viewed as coupled social-ecological systems.…”

New Issues on Protected Area Management

“…Regrettably, empirical and scientific evidences refute the previous assumption (Butchart et al, 2010). Luckily, that vision is currently outdated and much literature has been written on "paper parks", although they still prevail in certain contexts (Bonham et al, 2008;Davis, 2001). …”