Protected areas have existed throughout history and in all regions of the world. In fact, in order to maintain defined attributes, any area that is subject to particular legal, administrative or traditional controls and management procedures is by definition a protected area. Over time, protected areas have become a universally adopted way of conserving natural ecosystems for reasons of a broad range of human values. Today, more than 20000 protected areas, covering nearly 5 percent of the earth's land surface, have been established in more than 130 countries. Such areas are meant to conserve the diversity of species (both plant and animal) as well as the genetic variation within them; maintain the productive capacities of ecosystems; preserve historic and cultural features of importance; secure landscapes and wildlife, which enrich human experience through their beauty; provide opportunities for community development, scientific, research, education, training, recreation and tourism; and serve as sources of national pride and human inspiration.
For the most part, early protected areas were zones in which use of only a limited part of the multiplicity of resources was restricted. Gradually, however, there emerged a tendency to interpret protected areas as a zone in which a particular element was of such importance that the entire zone needed to be shielded from all human activities. This tendency was crystallized in 1872 with the creation of Yellowstone, the first national park in the United States. A key element in the concept of national parks was that these areas would not be altered by human exploitation or occupation, i.e. parks = no people. The American model was adopted at first gradually, and then with increasing rapidity, by other countries around the world; by the 1990s most protected areas were based on the principle of limited if not zero human presence.
However, this tendency has proved to be counterproductive to the achievement of the overall goals of protected areas. First of all, many of the protected areas already had significant human populations living within their boundaries when they were created -in many cases populations that had existed there for millennia. Moreover, growing human pressures on the environment as a whole, and particularly in developing countries, make it totally unrealistic to presume that large additional areas can be set aside as sacrosanct natural habitats that may not be subject to human use or occupancy. In fact, such an attitude can serve only to weaken further the already limited national constituency for protected areas. The challenge is to find ways of conserving valued landscapes, ecosystems and biological diversity while deriving from them as positive a contribution as possible to the welfare of the people who live in and around them, as well as to the public at large.
There are two other basic constraints to the success of protected areas: insecure and insufficient funding; and inadequate management. Most protected areas tend to produce benefits that are difficult to quantify in monetary terms, thereby making it hard to justify budgetary needs in times of overall economic constriction. Moreover, even where parks are important sources of revenue, only a small portion of these funds tend to be funneled directly to parks management. In terms of management, most protected area managers have considered their challenges to be primarily ecological, rather than social, economic and political. Moreover, they have neglected the need to take a wider view involving the interrelationship between protected areas and the surrounding territory. In many cases, specific attention to development potential and needs in the surrounding territory, the so-called buffer zone, is proving to be a sine qua non to the success of protected area management.
The articles in this issue of Unasylva examine various facets of the challenges to protected area management. In the opening article, J.A. McNeely, Chief Biodiversity Officer of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and Secretary-General of the IVth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas, held in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1992, looks ahead to the challenges facing protected areas as we move towards the twenty-first century. R. Burkart provides an analysis of the historical development of protected area management in Argentina and the challenge of moving towards multiple, sustainable resource conservation and use. N.N. Phuong and S.A. Dembner examine attempts to improve the lifestyles of people living in or near protected areas in Viet Nam, primarily through development of sustainable agroforestry practices. T.T.K. Tchamie provides a poignant description, focusing on Togo, of the dangers of not giving sufficient consideration to the needs of local people in protected area management. M. Hadley of Unesco's Man and the Biosphere Programme examines efforts to link conservation, development and research in biosphere reserves in humid Africa. M. Sulayem and E. Joubert analyse management of protected areas in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an example of efforts in North Africa and the Near East. Following this analysis, P. Dabrowski and G. de Hartingh-Boca examine the relationship between tourism and nature conservation.
There can be no illusions about the severity of the challenges that protected area managers now face and will continue to face in the future. At the same time, however, there can be no doubt about the continued and ever-increasing importance of their role in ensuring a sustainable and productive future for humanity.
