In the year 2000, the United Nations alongside several other organisations agreed on the ‘Millennium Development Goals’ (MDG); eight goals to improve the conditions of the world’s poorest countries by 2015. The seventh Goal to ‘Ensure environmental sustainability’, affects every country around the world. It aims, amongst others, to integrate principles of sustainable development into country policy and programmes, to reverse the loss of environmental resources and to reduce biodiversity loss.¹ 

A suggested policy measure is to set up protected areas (PA’s) and to conserve previously established ones. PA’s are “a clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystems services and cultural values”. ² Around 120,000 designated protected areas can be found all over the world covering 13.9% of Earth’s land surface. Marine protected areas cover 5.9% of territorial seas but only 0.5% of the high seas. ³  

PAs are essential for humankind. According to the UN Millennium Project 2005 over one billion people depend on PAs for a significant percentage of their livelihoods whether it is food, fuel or support to economic activity. ⁴  PA’s also reduce risks from natural hazards, supply clean water, maintain food security, contribute to climate mitigation, offer revenue through nature based tourism and protect cultural and spiritual resources.⁵  At a local level PA’s are often most essential to the poor. Women particularly depend on the collection of wild natural products inside PAs.  For example in Caprivi Game Park, Namibia, women could raise their household incomes by sustainable harvesting techniques of palms.⁶    

PAs play an important role in the protection of natural resources and the biodiversity of ecosystems not only inside the PAs but also in the surrounding areas: Eight years after the creation of Mombasa Marine National Park in Kenya, fish catches in the vicinity of this MPA reached three times the level of catches further away.⁷ Around a third of cities get water sourced from watersheds inside PAs.⁸

PAs differ in terms of their management and governance. The variation of management models range from strict, exclusionary protection to protected landscapes and seascapes that include farmland, forestry and settled areas. Governance can be carried out by local, regional and national authorities as well as trusts, indigenous people, local communities and private individuals. ⁹ The major challenge is to achieve the immediate needs of a local community without losing sight of the global perspective and benefits. 

An estimated US$ 6.5-10 billion/year is currently spent on supporting the global protected area system.¹⁰ However this is not nearly enough to manage the current network of PA’s optimally, furthermore there are disparities between developed and developing countries; protected area systems in more developed regions (North America, Australia/New Zealand) receive far more support compared with the gaps experienced in poorer and less developed regions (developing Asia, Africa). More support needs to be given to both, better manage existing PA’s and expand them. 

According to the most widely cited estimates, an expanded protected area network covering 15% of the land and 30% of the sea would cost approximately US$ 45 billion per year, including effective management, compensation for direct costs, and payment of opportunity costs for acquiring new land. The ecosystems within that network would deliver goods and services with a net annual value greater than US$ 4.4 trillion. This suggests that investment in protected areas would help maintain global ecosystem service benefits worth 100 times more than the costs of designating and managing the network. ¹¹

Five years are left until the MDGs should be achieved. The maintenance and protection of PAs is an important part of reducing the global biodiversity loss and to meet the MDGs. Ideally PAs should cover 15% of land and 30% marine areas. Investing in this global network of PA’s would add up to US$ 45 billion/year over 30 years including management and opportunity costs.¹² At first sight these costs seem to be enormous and unaffordable but if the PA is governed and managed properly the benefits are much higher than the costs.  Each US$1 invested in PA management helps to maintain or even to increase the delivery of ecosystem services worth US$ 100 of benefits. ¹³ PAs are important especially for the development of rural areas and can provide opportunities by creating jobs and generating income.  For example the estimated benefits of an effective protection of the Ream National Park, Cambodia, are 20% higher than the current destructive use.¹⁴ This would especially favour local villagers who would earn about three times more under a system of protection.¹⁵ 

Discover the benefits 

The Brazilian tropical island Fernando de Noronho has been a national park since 1988. The former naval base is famous for its beautiful beaches and is a popular attraction for tourists. To maintain the island’s ecological and socio-economic balance its government ruled that the number of tourists should be kept to a limit. Given that only people permanently living on the island are allowed to provide tourism services, most of the 3000 inhabitants have a stable income. For example more than 100 families developed small family hotels on the island.¹⁶

The Whangamarino wetland is situated in the North of New Zealand. It is a highly biodiverse peatland and home to many rare plant communities. 60% of them are indigenous several others are endangered, rare or vulnerable. In addition to that the PA plays an important role in flood control and sediment trapping with an estimated benefit of US$ 601,037 (in 2003). If the wetland did not exist, stopbanks would need to be created along the river by the regional council at a cost of many millions of dollars. ¹⁷

More information on PAs can be found on the website of the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring (http://www.unep-wcmc.org/protected_areas/index.html/).

At the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) you can have a look such as Marine Protected Areas (http://www.mpa.gov).

In the world database of PAs you can have a look where PAs exist (http://www.wdpa.org).

If you are interested in improving the management of PAs please visit Earth Conservation Toolbox (http://www.Earthtoolbox.net) or the Gaps Guide (http://www.protectedareas.info) which also contain a large collection of case studies.

For Marine Protected Areas please go to http://www.protectplanetocean.gov.

1. URL:  http://www.undp.org/mdg/goal7.shtml (last access: Oct 7, 2010) [↩]
2. Taken from D2: TEEB for local and regional policy makers, chapter 7, p. 127, box 7.2 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZsEA4Fcc-wU%3d&tabid=1020&mid=1932 Dudley, N. (ed) (2008) ‘Guidelines for Applying Protected Area Management Categories’, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland [↩]
3. Taken from D1: TEEB for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, p. 5 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US Coad, L.; Burgess, N. D.; Bomhard, B. and Besançon C. (2009) Progress towards the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2010 and 2010 targets for protected area coverage. A technical report for the IUCN International workshop “Looking at the Future of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas”, Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, 14-17 September 2009. UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge. URL: http://www.unep-wcmc.org/protected_areas/pdf/Toward-progress.pdf (last access: Nov 6, 2009) [↩]
4. Taken from D1: TEEB for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, p. 4 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US UN Millennium Project (2005) Environment and Human Well-being: a Practical Strategy. Report of the task Force on Environmental Sustainability. Earthscan, London. URL: http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/Environment-complete-lowres.pdf (last access: Nov 6, 2009). [↩]
5. TEEB for national Policy Makers, Chapter 8 page 10-13 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US [↩]
6. Taken from D2: TEEB for local and regional policy makers, chapter 7, p. 129 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZsEA4Fcc-wU%3d&tabid=1020&mid=1932 WRI – World Resources Institute in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and World Bank (2005) ‘World Resources 2005: The Wealth of the Poor – Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty’. WRI, Washington, DC. [↩]
7. TEEB for National Policy Makers Executive Summary, Box 14: “The protective and productive potential of Marine Protected Areas.” Source: McClanahan, T.R and Mangi, S. (2000) Spillover of exploitable fishes from a marine park and its affect on the adjacent fishery. Ecological Applications 10: 1792-1805 [↩]
8. Taken from D2: TEEB for local and regional policy makers, chapter 7, p. 127  http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZsEA4Fcc-wU%3d&tabid=1020&mid=1932 Dudley, N. and Stolton S. (2003) ‘Running Pure: the importance of forest protected areas to drinking water’, WWF, IUCN Gland Switzerland and The World Bank Washington D.C. [↩]
9. Taken from D2: TEEB for local and regional policy makers, chapter 7, p. 127, box 7.2  http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZsEA4Fcc-wU%3d&tabid=1020&mid=1932 Borrini-Feyerabend, G., Kothari, A. and Oviedo, G. (2004) ‘Indigenous and Local Communities and Protected Areas: Towards Equity and Enhanced Conservation’, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. [↩]
10. Taken from D1: TEEB for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, p.25  http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US Gutman, P. And Davidson, S. (2007) A Review of Innovative International financial Mechanisms for Biodiversity Conservation – with a Special Focus on the International financing of Developing Countries’ Protected Areas. WWF-MPO Washington D.C., October 2007. URL: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/final_z.pdf (last access: Nov 6, 2009) [↩]
11. TEEB for National Policy Makers, Chapter 5, page 15. Source: Balmford, A.; Bruner, A.; Cooper, P.; Costanza, R.; Farber, S.; Green, R. E.; Jenkins, M.; Jefferiss, P.; Jessamy, V.; Madden, J.; Munro, K.; Myers, N.; Naeem, S.; Paavola, J.; Rayment, M.; Rosendo, S.; Roughgarden, J.; Trumper, K. and Turner, R. K. (2002) Economic reasons for conserving wild nature. Science 297: 950-953. [↩]
12. Taken from D1: TEEB for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, p. 25 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US Balmford, A.; Gravestock, P.; Hockley, N.; McClean, C. J. and Roberts, C. M. (2004) The worldwide costs of marine protected areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 101: 9694-9697. URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/101/26/9694.full.pdf+html (last access Nov 6, 2009). [↩]
13. Taken from D1: TEEB for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, p. 20  http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US Balmford, A.; Bruner, A.; Cooper, P.; Constanza, R.; Farber, S.; Green, R.E.; Jenkins, M.; Jefferiss, P.; Jessamy, V.; Madden, J.; Munro,K.; Myers, N.; Naeem, S.; Paavola, J.; Rayment, M.; Rosendo, S.; Roughgarden, J.; Trumper, K. and Turner, R. K. (2002) Ecocnomic reasons for conserving wild nature. Science 297: 950-953. URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 (last access Nov 6, 2009). [↩]
14. Taken from D1: TEEB for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, p. 17  http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US De Lopez, T. T. (2003) Economics and stakeholders of Ream National Park, Cambodia. Ecological Economics 46: 269-282. (from MMAS booklet). URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(03)00142-3 (last access: Nov 6, 2009). [↩]
15. Taken from D1: TEEB for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, p. 17 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jYXV-t7xjLE%3d&tabid=1019&language=en-US  De Lopez, T. T. (2003) Economics and stakeholders of Ream National Park, Cambodia. Ecological Economics 46: 269-282. (from MMAS booklet). URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(03)00142-3 (last access: Nov 6, 2009). [↩]
16. Taken from D2: TEEB for local and regional policy makers, chapter 7, p. 129, box 7.4 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZsEA4Fcc-wU%3d&tabid=1020&mid=1932 MMA – Ministerio do Meio Ambiente (2001) ‘Fernando de Nornha Archipelago/Rocas Atoll Tropical Insular Complex: Nomination for Inclusion as an UNESCO World Heritage Natural Site’. URL: www.whc.unesco.org/en/list/1000/documents/. IBAMA – Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources et al (2005) Plano de Manejo da Área de Proteção Ambiental. Fernando de Noronha – Rocas – São Pedro e São Paulo: Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente, Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio. [↩]
17. Taken from D2: TEEB for local and regional policy makers, chapter 7, p. 135, box 7.12 http://www.teebweb.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ZsEA4Fcc-wU%3d&tabid=1020&mid=1932    Department of Conservation (2007) ‘Economic Values of Whangamarino Wetland’ DoC, Auckland, New Zealand. [↩]