Protected areas make a vital contribution to the conservation of the world's natural and cultural resources. Values range from retention of representative samples of natural regions and the preservation of biological diversity, to the maintenance of environmental stability of surrounding regions. Protected areas can provide an opportunity for rural development and rational use of marginal lands, for research and monitoring, for conservation education, and for recreation and tourism. As a result, most countries have developed systems of protected areas which meet a variety of needs.
A definition of a protected area has been internationally agreed (IUCN, 1994a) as:
An area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means.
This definition provides a strict criterion against which land use management can be tested. In order for a site to be considered as a 'protected area', it must have the conservation of biological diversity as a primary objective, although some sustainable exploitation is permissible within this definition, provided it does not adversely detract from the primary objective. Areas that are managed for other purposes, for example soil or watershed protection may have biodiversity conservation values to a greater or lesser extent, but would not meet the strict IUCN definition. The conservation of forests therefore will be pursued both through the establishment of protected areas in the strict sense, through sustainable forestry management regimes, and through the development of areas focused on community-oriented conservation and development.
The purposes for which protected areas are managed differ greatly, including:
· Scientific research
· Wilderness protection
· Preservation of species and genetic diversity
· Maintenance of environmental services
· Protection of specific natural and cultural features
· Tourism and recreation
· Education
· Sustainable use of resources from natural ecosystems
· Maintenance of cultural and traditional attributes
In order to allow protected areas with similar objectives to be internationally compared, IUCN has developed a system of management categories. These are summarised briefly below (Box 1), and more fully in Annex 3.
Box 1 IUCN protected areas management categories
Ia Strict Nature Reserve (Strict protection)
Ib Wilderness Area (Strict protection)
II National Park (Ecosystem conservation and recreation)
III Natural Monument (Conservation of natural features)
IV Habitat/Species Management Area (Conservation through active management)
V Protected Landscape/Seascape (Landscape/seascape conservation and recreation)
VI Managed Resource Protected Area (Sustainable use of natural ecosystems)
1
Protected areas may range from strictly protected sites where natural ecological processes are unchecked, through varying degrees of management intervention and exploitation, to areas that are managed to provide a sustainable supply of goods and services to local communities.
Category VI protected areas allow for a degree of exploitation of natural resources. As will be discussed, such protected areas will probably play a growing role in the development of protected area systems to 2010. However, IUCN (1994a) clearly states that Category VI sites are those which contain predominantly unmodified natural systems, under management to ensure the long term protection and maintenance of biological diversity, whilst providing at the same time a sustainable flow of natural products and services to meet local community needs. The definition therefore precludes sites under commercial forestry management, where the ecosystems have been or will be, substantially altered, or where the conservation of biodiversity is not the overriding management objective.
Categories are applied by IUCN as means of classifying protected areas with broadly similar objectives together, regardless of national designation. In practice, much of the work of classification is carried out in collaboration with WCMC, especially during the periodical preparation of the United Nations List of Protected Areas (for example, IUCN, 1994b). This definitive audit of the world's protected areas network is derived from the global WCMC Protected Areas Database. Many of the statistics presented in this paper have been derived from the WCMC database.
The IUCN Management Category system implies, and indeed is intended to encourage, a variety of protected area types, typified by a broad spread of management objectives.
As an example, the draft WCPA Regional Protected Areas Action Plan for Australia and the Pacific (IUCN, 1996) argues that protected areas established in isolation from the surrounding landscape have no long term future. Long term viability of protected areas can only be ensured if protected areas are managed and promoted as an integrated component of marine and terrestrial ecosystems; are managed and integrated into regional administrative frameworks; and only if the social and cultural aspirations of local communities are supportive of protected areas.
In other words, it is increasingly likely that the conservation of forests in the Asia-Pacific region towards 2010 will not be based upon a rigid demarcation between protected areas and all other forms of land use. Instead, protected areas should form part of a landscape or ecosystem-wide management matrix, where the conservation of nature is the highest priority, surrounded by areas where other activities take place, up to and including sustainable commercial exploitation.
A brief review of the historical development of protected areas provides a basis for considering current trends, and identifying prospects for the future.
Taken as a whole (Figure 1a), or as sub-regions (Figures 1b-1g), the growth of protected areas tends to follow a similar pattern. Growth from the turn of the century to about 1960 was very modest, but then increased dramatically during the last two decades. This regional picture disguises the 'stop-go' progress that is seen in individual countries. Indonesia for example established many large protected areas in the late 1980s, with relatively little progress in recent years. Several other countries have radically transformed their protected area systems in a short space of time: Lao PDR and Cambodia, for example. There is also a trend towards larger protected areas being established, in accordance with conservation biology theory (Leader-Williams, et al., 1990).
Most other countries have made improvements to both their protected area systems and to standards of management, although this frequently falls short of that necessary for long term conservation. Some countries, for example Myanmar and Korea PDR, have yet to make a serious attempt to protect biodiversity through protected areas.
There are significant differences in the rate of development over the most recent period. Both Insular South-East Asia (Figure 1f) and South-East Asia (Figure 1e) both show unusually large gains in both numbers of sites and area covered in the period 1990-1994. Lao PDR and Cambodia have both established extensive networks of protected areas during the last 3-4 years, and this is revealed in Figure 1e. Governments, even in the least developed nations in the region, are prepared to reserve substantial tracts of land for conservation, suggesting that the case for biodiversity conservation has been accepted, at least on a superficial basis. The longer term challenge will be to provide the resources to maintain these sites as viable protected areas.
Figures 1d and 1g (South Asia and Pacific) both show a `flattening' of the growth curve during the period 1990-1994. This may reflect poor availability of data or a real effect. In the latter case it may be that the opportunities and motivation for establishing more protected areas is being exhausted, in which case the importance of conservation outside legally established protected areas is highlighted. India provides two-thirds of the protected areas in South Asia, and yet has less than 5% of its land area in protected areas. The opportunities for establishing new protected areas in India will diminish in the future as the population continues to grow and the extent of remaining natural habitat (currently approximately 17%) continues to shrink. The prospects for further development of the network to 2010 will diminish with time in which case it is unfortunate if progress has already declined.
The development of protected areas in Australia (Figure 1b) is strongly marked by the dramatic growth in the period commencing 1975, growing from some 200,000 sq.km to more than 600,00 sq.km of protected area. More than half of this increase is accounted for by the creation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 1979; covering some 348,000 sq.km it is the second largest protected area in the world. It is unlikely that such a large single protected area will be established again at any point in the future, and the growth in Australia has, in comparison, been relatively modest since then.
China's first protected area was established in 1956, with a limited number being created in the years following and by 1966 some 6,500 sq.km were protected. The Cultural Revolution brought a complete halt to the further development of protected areas from 1966 to 1972. Progress was made during 1973 to 1978 but this was overshadowed by the dramatic increases after 1979, with nearly 100 new reserves being established annually. Today there are more than 700 nature reserves, the principle protected area type, covering 680,000 sq.km or 7.10%. Much of this is evident in Figure 1c.
The extent of protected areas, classified by IUCN management category, in the Asia-Pacific region is summarised in Table 2. Annex 4 presents more detailed national statistics, grouping countries into sub regions.
The data presented in these two tables have been restricted by two criteria: IUCN management category and size. Only those protected areas qualifying for a protected areas management category, and covering at least 1,000 ha, are included. These restrictions help to ensure that only those areas meeting the international definition of a protected area are included. The use of a minimum size criterion ensures consistent international comparison, as information on smaller sites is frequently lacking. One disadvantage however is that the smaller island nations of the South Pacific tends to be under represented because protected areas in such countries are relatively small.
Table 2 Summary of Protected Areas (IUCN Management Categories I-VI) in the Asia Pacific Region
Category |
No. |
Protected Area |
% country land area protected | |
(Sq.km) |
% |
|||
Ia/Ib |
330 |
672,629 |
27 |
2.35 |
II |
788 |
636,198 |
26 |
2.22 |
III |
106 |
16,637 |
1 |
0.06 |
IV |
1,074 |
450,947 |
18 |
1.57 |
V |
192 |
554,347 |
22 |
1.94 |
VI |
445 |
154,366 |
6 |
0.54 |
Total |
2,935 |
2,485,127 |
100 |
8.86 |
Given these inclusion criteria, some 2,935 protected areas have been established in the-Asia-Pacific region, covering a total of 2.5 million square kilometres, approximately 8.86% of land area. This is higher than the global average (approximately 6% of land area), due to the well developed networks in large countries such as Indonesia (12.33%), Australia (12.30%) and to a lesser extent China (7.10%). These three countries alone account for 1.9 million square kilometres of protected areas in the region or three-quarters of the total.
Table 2 makes apparent the emphasis on strict protection in the Asia-Pacific region, with 1.3 million square kilometres in protected recognised as either Category I or Category II. Such sites are based on principles of strict protection, in the case of Category Ia/Ib, to the extent of excluding all intervention other than carefully regulated scientific research. Category II sites accommodate extensive tourism, but in both cases there should be little, if any, provision for exploitation. Exploitation is permitted to a very limited extent in protected areas classified under the IUCN system as being Category III, IV or V. Category VI are relatively rare, numbering only 445, and contributing only 154,366 sq.km to the overall network (equivalent to 6% of all Asia-Pacific protected areas).
Australia is unique in that a single country represents one entire sub-region and continent. The protected areas network is well developed, covering 12.3%4. Even so, most ecosystems lie outside protected areas, and many ecosystems within protected areas are inadequately represented (Thackway and Cresswell, 1995). Most IUCN Management Categories are used, indicating an even spread of management practice, from strict protection through to multiple use although Category VI sites are relatively rare (Thackway, 1996). The Commonwealth government is collaborating with State and Territory nature conservation agencies in the development of a National Reserve System (NRS). A bioregional planning framework encompassing all of Australia's major ecosystems, known as the Interim Biogeographic Regionalization of Australia, has been developed and endorsed by all agencies involved. This provides the basis for identifying gaps, and is used to set priorities for filling these gaps. In addition to establishing protected areas, the creation of indigenous protected areas, for example on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander freehold land, could herald a more participatory approach to protected areas than has usually been the case (Thackway, 1996).
The importance of integrating local people into conservation planning is repeated in the biologically rich Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. Although these forests cover only 0.1% of the continent, they support, for example, more than half of all Australia's fern, bat and butterfly species. Support from local landowners, economic benefits to local communities, and involvement of indigenous land owners are seen as key elements in the continuing conservation of the area (Hitchcock, 1996).
Insular South Asia is physically dominated by Indonesia, which covers a greater land area than all other countries in this sub-region put together. Consequently, Indonesia's protected areas network dominates the sub-regional statistics as well, the bulk falling into the relatively strictly protected IUCN Categories II and IV. Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore all have only modest protected areas networks. Brunei has give over nearly 20% of its land area to nature conservation, the heavily forested Ulu Temburong National Park alone covering a significant proportion of the country.
Although the Philippines established its first protected area in 1932, it has one the least successful systems in the region. Many areas were established without regard to the needs of local communities or long term defensibility against commercial exploitation. The protected areas network faded at the same time as natural forest cover was radically reduced, leaving a highly diverse and frequently endemic and threatened flora and fauna unprotected. The passage of the 1992 National Integrated Protected Areas System Act has paved the way for a fresh start, and eighteen priority areas have been identified. Given the pressures that exist and will continue to grow, the priority for the Philippines to 2010 will be to establish a genuinely secure protected areas representing adequate samples of remaining natural habitats. This will require sustained international funding (currently via the Global Environment Facility and the European Union) and government commitment, but the single most important factor will be the successful participation and support of local communities living in and around protected areas (Isberto, 1996).
Community-based management of protected areas is also being developed in Indonesia (Dias and Indiani, 1996) in a project that was intended to introduce new mechanisms through which people can meet their needs without encroaching or over-exploiting resources in protected areas. Pilot projects included income generation, for example butterfly ranching, eco-tourism, creation of community forests and stabilising land use and park boundaries. Although it will take several years to establish the long-term success of the project, a notable development has been the building of links between local people and park or forest staff who frequently regard each other with a mutual mistrust.
South-East Asia's protected areas were until recently largely found in Thailand and to a lesser extent, Viet Nam. However, two countries have recently developed extensive protected areas networks, Lao PDR and Cambodia. Lao PDR is one of the poorest nations on earth, with an economy largely based on the exploitation of natural resources. Consequently protected areas are expected to play a role in not only conserving biodiversity but also in sustaining economic growth (Chape and Inthavong, 1996). Some 17 National Biodiversity Conservation Areas have been established, all regarded as IUCN Category VI multiple use areas. The very strong integration of protected areas into the development process may be a model that other countries in the region should consider to meet both development and conservation imperatives. Viet Nam has made significant progress with only very modest resources and under the pressure of international isolation. Government policy is to further double the existing network (currently 3%) by the end of the century. Most problematic is Myanmar. Subject to extensive recommendations by FAO for new protected areas in the early 1980s (Nature Conservation and National Park Project FO:BUR/80/006), little if any progress has been made in implementation. Myanmar enjoys a very high level of biodiversity, and failure to provide for its protection is of international significance, although the Forest Department has established a significantly increased target for protected areas.
South Asia is dominated by India which although possessing a network that covers less than 5% of land area, contributes over half the sub-regional total. There is a tendency towards the more strictly protective management categories, especially II and IV, with only a very modest use of the Category VI. An important exception to this is Nepal which has developed two major Conservation Areas: Annapurna and Makalu Barun. These place the needs of local people high amongst management priorities and may act a model for the further development of protected areas. The Environmental Management in Forestry Development Project in Sri Lanka (Green, 1995). This entailed a review of all remaining natural forests with respect to ecosystem and species diversity, and soil conservation and hydrological value, with the objective of identifying an optimum network of conservation areas to protect the country's biodiversity within forests and its important watersheds.
The Pacific region is characterised by strong contrasts. Two nations, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, account for more than 90% of the land mass and the great bulk of the biodiversity in the region. Protected areas, however, are largely restricted to New Zealand, with only modest development in other countries. The summary percentage protection figures are particularly prone to inflation in the case of the Pacific, where marine protected areas are included in figure calculated as a percentage of land area.
One of the main constraints to the development of 'western' concept protected areas, based on the principle of exclusion of local people by governments, is the overriding importance of customary land tenure in the Pacific. One solution to this has been the development of Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) in Papua New Guinea. These are established, at the request of local landowners, to regulate hunting, for example of birds of paradise, and to protect habitat. The government provides legal recognition to WMA, but land ownership remains in the hand of local people. The WMA concept accommodates the particular conditions that prevail in many Pacific nations, although there is little to stop commercial logging in a WMA if the landowners so desire. It is reported that the 1996 National Forestry Plan sets aside more than half the country's forests (200,000 sq.km) for logging without regard for existing or proposed conservation areas, or areas identified as priorities for biodiversity conservation. The expansion of logging is set in the context of poor forest management and scant regard for environmental controls (WWF, 1996).
Following the Fifth South Pacific Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas in 1993, the concept of community-based protected has been promoted as the most promising approach for conservation in the Pacific region. The development of protected areas in the Pacific is likely to be slow in the period to 2010. Solutions are needed to address conservation of natural resources outside protected areas, by firmly establishing the principle and practical application of sustainable use. The GEF-funded South Pacific Biodiversity Conservation Programme has lead to the pioneering of number of conservation areas in which human activities will be guided to protect important ecological features and to enable sustainable use of natural resources. The Programme brings together local communities and government officials in a cooperative way, avoiding some of the unproductive confrontations of the past (Reti, 1994).
East Asia's protected areas are found largely in China, although all countries, with the exception of North Korea have well developed systems. Although the summary statistics are dominated by the presence of a limited number of very large and strictly protected areas in China, there is a good spread of sites through the IUCN management categories, suggesting that governments are implementing a variety of management strategies in protected areas. Although the summary statistics suggests that the region is approaching the 10% target established by IUCN, there remain serious deficiencies. It can be shown that entire ecosystems remain poorly or even entirely unprotected. For example, in China there are only three provinces in which nature reserves cover more than 10% of total area and six provinces in which their coverage is less than 1%. Such deficiencies are being addressed as China implements its Biodiversity Conservation Action Plan, formulated in 1994. By the year 2000, there will be up to 1,000 Nature Reserves, of which 150 will be administered at national level. By then the protected area system will cover 1 million km2 or 10.4% of the country.
The representativeness of the protected areas system in China (Taipei) has not yet been assessed but is unlikely to be adequate, given that levels of species diversity and endemism are extremely high (e.g. 27% of 4,000 vascular plants are endemic). Natural areas are being inventoried by the Forestry Research Institute and will contribute to a national systems plan. Japan's protected area system is considered to be representative of all major ecosystems, although protection of marine and coastal habitats require further evaluation. After more than a decade of little or no development, Mongolia's protected area system has more than doubled recently as part of an ongoing GEF-funded biodiversity conservation project.
The imperative for the further development of protected areas and the conservation of forests to 2010 is to ensure that the existing gaps in networks are identified and filled. In addition, gross coverage figures give no indication as to the long term viability of sites in the face of growing population and development pressures, or the effectiveness with which management objectives are achieved.
A study by WCMC provides an insight in to the contribution that the forestry sector makes to the conservation of biodiversity in the tropical Asia-Pacific region. Forest Departments were contacted for information on the function to which gazetted forest reserves were put, namely production, protection (e.g. watersheds and soil) and conservation. Table 3 provides a summary of the findings.
Table 3 Tropical Asia & Pacific - Extent of Notified Natural Forests (e.g. forest reserves), Classified by Forest Function
Sub-region |
Notified Natural Forests by function | |||||||
Production |
Protection |
Conservation |
Total | |||||
Area |
(%)** |
Area |
(%)** |
Area |
(%)** |
Area |
(%)** | |
South Asia |
594 |
14.4 |
10 |
0.2 |
3 |
0.1 |
607 |
14.7 |
Continental SE Asia |
201 |
10.6 |
97 |
5.1 |
198 |
10.4 |
496 |
26.1 |
Insular SE Asia |
717 |
29.3 |
331 |
13.5 |
67 |
2.7 |
1,115 |
45.6 |
Pacific* |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
Total |
1,512 |
16.9 |
438 |
4.9 |
268 |
3.0 |
2,218 |
24.9 |
All areas are given in sq.km x 1,000
Source: WCMC (1992)
* Insufficient data
** Percentages are of total land area in each sub-region.
Notified natural forests in the various categories account for 24.9% of the total land area and range from 14.7% in South Asia to 45.6% in Insular SE Asia. For lack of data, the proportion in the Pacific has not been reported. Production forest reserves in Tropical Asia-Pacific cover 16.9% of the region, compared to 4.9% assigned to protection and 3.0% to conservation functions.
There are opportunities to extend the forest sector contribution to nature conservation, especially in those sub-regions that retain a high percentage of forest cover. Where forest reserves predominate over wildlife conservation areas, there is a clear need to review their role. In Sri Lanka, for example, much of its biological diversity in terms of species richness is found in the rain forests of the south-west wet zone which fall mostly within the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. These rain forests have become increasingly fragmented and isolated due to population pressures, with the result that logging has now been banned in the wet zone until the conservation importance of these forests has been assessed. Already, the largest rain forest, Sinharaja, has been strictly protected under new conservation legislation introduced within the forestry sector (National Heritage Wilderness Areas Act 1988). Furthermore, some 30 forest reserves in the lowland wet zone have been designated as conservation forests.
It is evident that the forestry sector already plays a significant role in the conservation of biodiversity. The extent of this contribution outside the tropics is at present unknown, and is an important gap in current knowledge. It is an established fact that protected areas networks are far from comprehensive in their coverage, and collaboration between wildlife and forestry departments in system design would be an important and low-cost step in filling gaps. The data in Table 3 were collected during the early 1990s, and clearly show that the forestry sector does make a significant contribution. It would therefore be timely to repeat the exercise in order to fill any gaps in the data, and to ensure the data are up to date.
4 Note that this figure is inflated by the very large Great Barrier Reef Marine Park being included in the calculation of percent 'land' area protected. Thackway (1996) reports 7.8% protection for terrestrial habitats.
