The Ecological Performance of Protected Areas

Gaston, Kevin J.; Jackson, Sarah F.; Cantú‐Salazar, Lisette; Cruz-Piñón, Gabriela

doi:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.39.110707.173529

Cited by 601 publications

(455 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…Finally, it is difficult to say whether the high representation of biodiversity achieved by the Protected Areas and Protected Landscapes is causal. These areas might have high representation even without designation, simply due to their being in areas of England that are poorly suited to intensive agricultural production (see Gaston et al 2008 for a review of this issue). It is, however, clear from earlier work ( Jackson & Gaston 2008b) that over half of the BAP (species of conservation concern) species are mostly or entirely present within Protected Areas, with our results showing that Protected Landscapes provide protection for a further subset of these species.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem service benefits of contrasting conservation strategies in a human-dominated region

et al. 2009

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The hope among policy-makers and scientists alike is that conservation strategies designed to protect biodiversity also provide direct benefits to people by protecting other vital ecosystem services. The few studies that have examined the delivery of ecosystem services by existing conservation efforts have concentrated on large, 'wilderness'-style biodiversity reserves. However, such reserves are not realistic options for densely populated regions. Here, we provide the first analyses that compare representation of biodiversity and three other ecosystem services across several contrasting conservation strategies in a human-dominated landscape (England). We show that small protected areas and protected landscapes (restrictive zoning) deliver high carbon storage and biodiversity, while existing incentive payment (agri-environment) schemes target areas that offer little advantage over other parts of England in terms of biodiversity, carbon storage and agricultural production. A fourth ecosystem service-recreation-is under-represented by all three strategies. Our findings are encouraging as they illustrate that restrictive zoning can play a major role in protecting natural capital assets in densely populated regions. However, trade-offs exist even among the four ecosystem services we considered, suggesting that a portfolio of conservation and sustainability investments will be needed to deliver both biodiversity and the other ecosystem services demanded by society.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem service benefits of contrasting conservation strategies in a human-dominated region

et al. 2009

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“…Facilitating range expansion, therefore, has the potential to become one of the most effective conservation strategies that can be deployed to minimize climatic and other risks to species [3,4]. However, such strategies still lack robust empirical underpinning: there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of static protected areas (PAs) to protect species per se ( [5][6][7] but see [8]), let alone if species distributions become more dynamic [9][10][11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protected areas act as establishment centres for species colonizing the UK

Hiley

Bradbury

Holling³

et al. 2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Protected area (PA) networks will remain valuable for conservation, as the global environment changes, if they facilitate the colonization of new regions by species that are shifting their geographical ranges. We tested the extent to which wetland bird species colonizing the UK since 1960 have exploited PAs. Colonization commenced in a PA for all six species that established permanent (greater than 10 years) breeding populations in the UK during this period. Subsequently, birds started to breed outside as well as inside PAs: the colonizing species showing declining fractions of breeding within PAs over time, a trend not seen in already-resident species. PAs were valuable as 'landing pads' for range-shifting species first arriving in a new region, and then as 'establishment centres' from which viable populations spread. Given future projections of range change across a broad range of taxonomic groups, this role for PAs can be expected to become increasingly important.

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“…The latter also often retain large-bodied species, now absent from the former (Greve et al 2008). These studies demonstrate the value of protected areas in conserving diversity in the region (for general review of protected area efficacy see Gaston et al 2008). Moreover, such space for time-substitution approaches often serve as the only means for doing so.…”

Section: Habitat Alterationmentioning

confidence: 89%

Temporal biodiversity change in transformed landscapes: a southern African perspective

Chown

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Landscape transformation by humans is virtually ubiquitous, with several suggestions being made that the world's biomes should now be classified according to the extent and nature of this transformation. Even those areas that are thought to have a relatively limited human footprint have experienced substantial biodiversity change. This is true of both marine and terrestrial systems of southern Africa, a region of high biodiversity and including several large conservation areas. Global change drivers have had substantial effects across many levels of the biological hierarchy as is demonstrated in this review, which focuses on terrestrial systems. Interactions among drivers, such as between climate change and invasion, and between changing fire regimes and invasion, are complicating attribution of change effects and management thereof. Likewise CO 2 fertilization is having a much larger impact on terrestrial systems than perhaps commonly acknowledged. Temporal changes in biodiversity, and the seeming failure of institutional attempts to address them, underline a growing polarization of world views, which is hampering efforts to address urgent conservation needs.

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The Ecological Performance of Protected Areas

Cited by 601 publications

References 118 publications

Ecosystem service benefits of contrasting conservation strategies in a human-dominated region

Ecosystem service benefits of contrasting conservation strategies in a human-dominated region

Protected areas act as establishment centres for species colonizing the UK

Temporal biodiversity change in transformed landscapes: a southern African perspective

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