Title
Letters: Protected land: Many factors shape success
Author(s)
Gavin, Michael C.;McCarter, Joe;Berkes, Fikret;Sterling, Eleanor J.;Turner, Nancy J.
Published
2018
Publisher
Science
Abstract
The design of effective protected areas (PAs) is widely debated. In their Report “One-third of global protected land is under intense human pressure” (18 May, p. 788), K. R. Jones et al. show that the “human footprint” inside the majority of the world’s protected areas has increased and suggest that PA performance can be improved by “upgrading” PAs with increased restrictions on human activities. They link their metric to biodiversity conservation goals, but different components of the human footprint will vary widely in terms of impacts. For example, maintenance of pasture lands may be compatible with conservation in some PAs (1). Increased access to PAs (by way of roads and rivers, for example) also leads to diverse outcomes: Wildlife poachers have a different impact than visitors to sacred sites (2). Some components of the human footprint (such as roads) also affect indigenous lands, local resource rights, and cultural diversity, as areas of high biodiversity often correspond with high cultural diversity (3, 4).

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PUB23995