Land-use and land-cover change shape the sustainability and impacts of protected areas

Protected areas (PAs) remain the dominant policy to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services but have been shown to have limited impact when development interests force them to locations with lower deforestation pressure. Far less known is that such interests also cause widespread tempering, redu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2018-02, Vol.115 (9), p.2084-2089
Main Authors: Tesfaw, Anteneh T., Pfaff, Alexander, Kroner, Rachel E. Golden, Qin, Siyu, Medeiros, Rodrigo, Mascia, Michael B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biodiversity
Conservation of Natural Resources - economics
Conservation of Natural Resources - legislation & jurisprudence
Conservation of Natural Resources - methods
Deforestation
Downsizing
Durability
Ecological effects
Ecosystem services
Environment
Environmental changes
Forestry
Government Agencies
Humans
Hydroelectric plants
Hydroelectric power
Impact analysis
Land cover
Land use
Protected areas
Risk Factors
Rural land use
Social Sciences
Studies
Sustainability
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Summary:Protected areas (PAs) remain the dominant policy to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services but have been shown to have limited impact when development interests force them to locations with lower deforestation pressure. Far less known is that such interests also cause widespread tempering, reduction, or removal of protection [i.e., PA downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD)]. We inform responses to PADDD by proposing and testing a bargaining explanation for PADDD risks and deforestation impacts. We examine recent degazettements for hydropower development and rural settlements in the state of Rondônia in the Brazilian Amazon. Results support two hypotheses: (i) ineffective PAs (i.e., those where internal deforestation was similar to nearby rates) were more likely to be degazetted and (ii) degazettement of ineffective PAs caused limited, if any, additional deforestation. We also report on cases in which ineffective portions were upgraded. Overall our results suggest that enhancing PAs’ ecological impacts enhances their legal durability.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1716462115