BIOL 3130 Final Exam Questions:
Answer:
The benefits of a properly managed protected area include:
- significantly reduced rates of habitat loss and fragmentation the main threat to biodiverstiy
- they provide food security and water for local populations.
- They have also been shown to maintain species population levels much better then other
management strategies.
- they also contribute to local economies via ecotourism, allowing conservation to be balanced
with community needs.
- Some of the drawbacks of protected areas are that the majority are not managed properly,
and although the amount of protected areas are increasing, the efficacy of the land is
decreasing.
- Lack of funding and government support has led to a lot of protected areas being unenforced,
resulting in habitat loss, fragmentation and diversity loss almost identical to unprotected areas.
- Current park design also fails to capture the entire ranges of most species in which they are
attempting to protect making it difficult for that species to continue to persist in that area.
- the current parks have also failed to capture diversity hot spots, and ecoregions important for
ecosystem processes
- Another downside to current park design is that they are coming increasingly closer to
humans, and could possibly inhibit the growth and development of growing community.
Effectiveness:
The authors never clearly stated how the parks effectiveness would be assessed, although they
make it relatively clear that it relates to stable populations of species and declined rates of
habitat loss and degradation. As well as accomplishing any other goal which the park set out to
accomplish when established, for ex., restabilising a certain species population in the area.
Analysis:
- There is insufficient global funding to properly manage current parks, let alone the creation of
new parks
- current amount of protected area pledged by CBD is not enough to evoke any real
environmental changes, yet it is to high for us to successfully implement
