Managing Protected Areas

A Global Guide

Michael Lockwood, Graeme Worboys, Ashish Kothari, Michael Lockwood, Graeme Worboys, Ashish Kothari

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136561757
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

This handbook, produced by world renowned experts from the World Conservation Union (IUCN), spans the full terrain of protected area management and is the international benchmark for the field. The book employs dozens of detailed international cases studies, hundreds of concise topical snapshots, maps, tables, illustrations and a colour plate section, as well as evaluation tools, checklists and numerous appendices to cover all aspects of park management from biodiversity to natural heritage to financial management.

The book establishes a conceptual underpinning for protected area management, presents guiding principles for the 21st century, reflects recent work on international best practice and provides an assessment of skills required by professionals. As the most authoritative guide ever compiled to the principles and practice of protected area management, this volume is essential for all professionals and students in all countries and contexts.

Part I

Setting the Context

1

Natural Heritage

Graeme L. Worboys and Colin Winkler

The nature of planet Earth is for many of us a source of inspiration, wonder and knowledge. Photographs of the planet taken from space dramatically show our brown and green continents, blue oceans, and frozen images of cloud patterns and weather systems in motion. They also show how finite the planet is in an immensity of space, and emphasize the precious and fragile nature of life on Earth. This life is supported by a number of interacting components, including the geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. It is rich, diverse and has developed through millennia of evolutionary processes. These global life-support systems cannot be taken for granted if life on Earth is to be sustained.

Protected areas are a critical land-use type for the future of life on Earth. At the beginning of the 21st century, in one of the greatest land- and seause transformations in human history, nations of Earth had reserved over 12 per cent of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and 0.5 per cent of its marine systems as protected areas. These lands and seas are typically the finest representative examples of natural and cultural heritage, and are often critical for the survival of key species. They are also critical for their contribution to maintaining the life-support systems of Earth. This land-use transformation is unfinished, as many important ecosystems, species and environments are currently poorly represented in protected area systems (see Chapter 8).

In this chapter, we introduce the natural heritage of Earth, and provide a biogeographical context for the establishment and management of protected areas throughout the world. We describe the evolution of the world’s environments and illustrate this with selected World Heritage protected area examples. Aspects of Earth’s abiotic environments, including geology, landforms, geodiversity, soils and climate, are described for their intrinsic qualities as well as to provide background for a description of biological diversity. The world’s flora, fauna, fungi and other organisms are introduced to provide an account of the richness of the planet’s biodiversity. Biogeographical realms and the global biomes are used to illustrate the major habitat types and ecosystems of the world. The World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) Global 200 and Conservation International’s biodiversity hotspots are also described. Stepping into detail from this global view, we also highlight the critical role that protected area managers play in managing and conserving at the individual protected area level. This individual effort directly contributes to the bigger picture of protecting life and life-support systems on Earth. For managers, this opportunity to help conserve parts of the finest natural heritage of this remarkable planet is a special privilege and an enormous challenge.

The evolution of global environments

One of the challenges for protected area managers is to comprehend the vast time scale of the natural heritage they are conserving. The geological time scale covers a vast period of over 4500 million years. To illustrate the magnitude of this time scale, the first hominids evolved just 4 million years ago and modern humans have probably evolved only in the past 100,000 years (Gore, 1997).

Every protected area exhibits a part of the planet’s evolutionary history, and some of them contain outstanding examples of geological evolution (see Appendix 1 and Case Studies 1.1–1.1). Such geological heritage warrants conservation, no less than do contemporary life forms and landforms. It provides a context for understanding and managing our current environments. It is a rich source of information for scientific enquiry, and its preservation within protected areas is essential if we are to educate current and future generations about the richness of our heritage and its possible futures. We live on a dynamic planet where geological forces, biosphere life support and evolutionary processes continue, despite direct and indirect human interventions. Significant samples of the world’s geological heritage have been permanently protected within the reserve system of various countries. Interpreting the past through this record allows us to prepare and manage for the future and involves, among other things, understanding the nature of climate change and species extinctions over time. Protected area managers need to have a very clear idea of this context when they set management goals.

The physical environment

In this section we give an overview of the richness and importance of the Earth’s geodiversity. This diversity includes variation in rocks, land-forms and soil types. The Earth’s atmosphere and, more particularly, climate and climatic change are also discussed.

Case Study 1.1

World Heritage fossil mammal sites, Riversleigh and Naracoorte, Australia

Riversleigh is part of Lawn Hill National Park, 200km north-west of Mount Isa in Queensland. It is one of the most significant fossil sites in the world and 10,000ha of the park were inscribed as a World Heritage property in 1994. The fossil sites meet the World Heritage criteria as ‘outstanding examples representing major stages of the Earth’s evolutionary history’ and as ‘outstanding examples representing significant ongoing ecological and biological evolution’. The Riversleigh fossils preserve the remains of a wide cross-section of vertebrate animals. It is one of the world’s richest Oligocene–Miocene mammal records, linking the period of 15 million to 25 million years ago. The fossils confirm that there was once a tropical rainforest over the Riversleigh site 25 million years ago; but the sequence continues and shows the profound effects on fauna when Australia’s rainforests largely vanished. The fossils include marsupial lions, carnivorous kangaroos, diprotodonts, 7m pythons, early ancestors of the now extinct Tasmanian tiger or thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), and primitive platypuses. Evidence from Riversleigh shows that the fauna of the lowland rainforests of 20 million to 15 million years ago became the progenitors for almost all of Australia’s living animals. Riversleigh tells us that Australia’s surviving rainforests are more than just beautiful remnants of a once green continent. They contain many of the descendants of the ‘seminal’ creatures that spawned thousands of new species to rapidly fill a continent that had become 44 per cent arid.

The Naracoorte Caves are found in the south-east of South Australia and feature 300ha of land inscribed in 1994 as World Heritage property within the Naracoorte Caves National Park. The fossil site found here complements the Riversleigh fossil site. The fossils in the caves illustrate faunal change spanning several ice ages and highlight the impacts of climate change and the influence of humans on Australia’s mammals from at least 350,000 years before present. Some 99 vertebrate species have been discovered, including exceptionally well-preserved examples of the ice age megafauna, as well as a host of modern species such as the Tasmanian devil, thylacine and others.

Sources: adapted from Archer et al (1994) and DEH (2004)

Riversleigh fossil site, Queensland, Australia

Source: IUCN Photo Library © Jim Thorsell

Case Study 1.2

Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Area, UK

The Dorset and East Devon Coast (often referred to as the Jurassic Coast) displays a remarkable combination of internationally renowned geological features and is considered one of the most significant Earth science sites in the world. It was inscribed as a World Heritage property in 2001, and comprises a near-continuous sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock exposures that represents almost the entire Mesozoic era – 190 million years of Earth history. The Triassic succession records span over 50 million years, including a global sea-level rise and flooding of a desert landscape. The succession of Jurassic rocks is considered to be one of the best sections of marine origin anywhere in the world and includes important vertebrate fossils. For most of the Jurassic, tropical seas covered Dorset and marine life flourished. Exceptionally well-preserved remains of a late Jurassic fossil forest estimated to be over 140 million years old have been found and these are considered to be one of the most complete fossil forests of any age. Many of the trees are preserved in situ with soils and pollen and display well-preserved growth rings. Folds and faults buckle and cut through the Jurassic and Cretaceous strata to form spectacular features, and dome-shaped folds and fractures within the rocks have created oil traps, including Britain’s largest onshore source of oil. Additionally, the coast contains an exceptional diversity of modern geomorphological features, landforms and processes that are considered the finest ‘text-book’ examples of their kind.

Source: adapted from Gray (2004)

Case Study 1.3

Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Area (Burgess Shale), Canada

The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks include the Yoho National Park, within which the Burgess Shale is an exceptional fossil locality of Middle Cambrian age (about 540 million years ago). It was inscribed as a World Heritage property in 1984. The Burgess Shale is special because of the preservation of a wide diversity of soft-bodied fossil invertebrate animals and has been intensely studied since its discovery in 1909 by Charles Walcott. At the time of deposition, the Burgess Shale area was near the equator and was the continental margin of North America. A 100m high near-vertical cliff of limestone occurred at the edge of the shelf. The Burgess Shale was deposited at the base of this cliff, probably in anoxic conditions, as indicated by the lack of burrows and trackways and the abundance of pyrite. All of the organisms within the Burgess Shale have been transported to this location, probably by small mudflows. Among the inclusions are Anomalocaris sp. (a large 60cm arthropod-like predator); Marrella splendens (a small arthropod somewhat reminiscent of a trilobite); Olenoides serratus (the largest of several species of trilobites found in the burgess shale); the sponge Vauxia gracilenta; Tuzoia, a bivalved crustacean; and Ottoia, a priapulid worm.

Source: adapted from MacRae (1995)

Geodiversity

Geodiversity is a term that came into use during the 1990s to describe variety within abiotic nature. It has been defined by Gray (2004, p8) as:

... the natural range (diversity) of geological (rocks, minerals, fossils), geomorphological (landform processes) and soil features. It includes their assemblages, relationships, properties, interpretations and systems.

The Earth’s geodiversity is important to society for the economic value of physical resources such as fossil fuels; minerals, including gold, iron and diamonds; and essential minerals for development, such as limestone, clay and sand (Wilson, 1994). It also has especially significant, intrinsic, aesthetic, cultural and social heritage values and many geoheritage sites are permanently protected. These include the Giant’s Causeway of Northern Ireland, important for its intrinsic qualities and in folklore; Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Australia for its intrinsic qualities and importance for spirituality; the archaeological and historical interest of houses carved in cliffs at Petra in Jordan; and the Grand Canyon in US for its intrinsic qualities and importance to tourism and recreation.

Structural geological features

The Earth is a dynamic planet. Plate tectonics, a consequence of the inner dynamics of the Earth at work, are causing the continents to slowly spread across the planet’s surface, as they have done for millennia. Faulting, folding and structural deformation are part of this dynamic, as are the processes of volcanism and igneous emplacement. The development of mountain ranges and the subduction of marine sediments are part of this process. External impacts have also affected Earth. Meteorites and other space matter have created impact craters and astroblemes on the Earth’s surface. Many parts of the world display evidence of such geological structures and their part in the evolution of the Earth. Many such sites are permanently protected.

Landforms

Just as there are processes creating new land or changing its nature, there are also the forces of wind, temperature, rain, ice and water and organisms all acting on the Earth’s rocks and strata. Such weathering and erosion forces help to shape and mould landscapes, help to create and develop soils, and help to develop landscapes such as deltas, sandy deserts, glacial moraines and solitary rock mountains.

The world’s landforms have evolved from a complexity of geological processes typically including one or more of the forces of tectonism, volcanism, sedimentary processes, erosion and weathering. Many of the world’s protected areas have been established to protect outstanding examples of landforms for their superlative aesthetic and often cultural and spiritual values. Some of these outstanding global landform types are presented in Table 1.1 along with notes about their chara...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Plates, Figures and Tables
• List of Boxes and Case Studies
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Part I Setting the Context
• Part II Principles and Practice
• Part III Appendices
• Appendix 1 Chronology of Earth's Evolutionary Development
• Appendix 2 Chronology of Protected Areas
• Appendix 3 Vth IUCN World Parks Congress Outputs
• Appendix 4 Convention on Biological Diversity Programme of Work on Protected Areas
• Appendix 5 Number and Area of National Protected Areas, by WCPA Region
• Appendix 6 World Heritage Areas, Biosphere Reserves and Ramsar Sites, by WCPA Region
• References
• Index