The Performance and Potential of Protected Areas: An Analysis by Watson et al., Exercises of Biology

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Critical Analysis of “The potential and performance of protected areas” Lindsay Smith BIOL

Given our current environmental climate, it is no surprise that there has been a push for research analyzing the sustainability and performance of our wildlife habitats. This is precisely what Watson et al. (2014) attempted to do in their paper “The performance and potential of protected areas”, by investigating the extent of unrealized benefits protected areas have, and how nations can realistically reach that potential. Approximately 5.6% of the Earth’s surface is covered by protected lands, equalling the total area of South and Central America. Originally, landscapes were deemed as protected in order to preserve iconic areas, such as coral reefs in Australia or the volcanoes found in Rwanda. The main goal of protecting this land was not for conservation and maintaining biodiversity, but as a way to have financial gain. These protected areas are turned into parks or tourist attractions, and in some cases, can raise over US$200 million (Watson et al., 2014). With recent advancements in the field of conservation, the goals of protected areas have shifted from economic gain to focus more on conservation. These goals have been set out by the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) to best preserve endangered wildlife, and maintain the most efficient level of biodiversity in a given area. Unfortunately, Watson et al. discovered that even with these goals, protected areas are not reaching the potential they have for conservation. In fact, they discovered that very few, if any, of the goals set out by the CBD to improve biodiversity would be met. They deducted that this was most likely due to poor management of the protected areas, meaning these protected landscapes were not protected very well, or at all. Watson et al. concluded that in order to make better use of these areas, stricter law enforcement, better funding, and overall understanding of the benefits of protected areas would need to be in place in order for the protected areas to reach their maximum potential. Although this article discusses a very important topic, I found the conclusion incredibly naive. As stated above, the original purpose of protected land was to secure areas where tourist attractions could thrive and make a fair amount of money. Even with new scientific advancements in the methods and technology we use to determine biodiversity and abundance, protected land performance is still relatively low when you consider the potential they have such as reducing habit loss and maintaining population levels (Watson et al., 2014). Because these lands originated as attractions or parks, their contact with local communities has always been a factor in proper management. The scientific community has outlined the need for conservation and improved methods to preserve our lands, however governments, such as the United States, have shown the lack of regard for the scientific research released. Many of the protected lands have turned into camping grounds or attractions, which tend to have an educational component teaching the general public about conservation, but still disrupt the potential the lands have to actually protect the wildlife. This leads to a lack of funding towards protected lands, and proper enforcement can not be provided to guarantee the parks or campsites present on the protected areas are remaining pollution or disturbance free. It is too simple to say that nations need to provide better resources, when they have had the ability to do so for many years, but have consistently chosen not to. Yet another article outlining the possibility of environmental stress will not change the political climate until specific and realistic steps are put into place for governments to follow word for word. With this being said, I still believe our protected lands are essential in conservation education. Watson et al. describe how easily these areas can improve biodiversity and conserve populations of threatened species, and I do think with some time this potential is achievable, however I think these lands should shift from complete park/tourist attractions, and have areas that are completely untouched by human interventions. This would allow the public to see how remarkable our environment is, and increase the likelihood that they would listen when papers such as Watson et al. outline the severity of our climate if we continue to ignore the need for conservation. Not only this, but I feel as if protected areas need to remain in order to prevent different nations from urbanizing more than the area can handle, potentially causing local extinction of threatened species. Unfortunately there is no simple or direct answer to how we better the efficiency of our protected lands, but our environment would be much worse without them.