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WHY PROTECTED AREAS?
For Nature / For People
If you’ve ever visited a national park, you’ve been to a protected area (PA). PAs are the parks, nature reserves and sanctuaries—whether land or sea—least touched by human development. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) categorizes protected areas from strict nature reserves and national parks—where little or no human intervention is permitted—to less sheltered areas, such as wildlife sanctuaries, where more managed conservation can occur.For Nature
Protected areas and connecting corridors create green belts that give plants and wildlife the space and resources needed to maintain healthy natural populations. The world loses a species every 20 minutes; scientists estimate that this is hundreds of times the historical extinction rate. The best defense against this alarming destruction is to create new protected areas and support existing preserves. It is critical to protect biodiversity where it is most abundant. And there is no region in a temperate climate zone that has more biodiversity per square kilometer than the Caucasus. CNF is currently supporting five protected areas in Armenia and Georgia, and we want to do more. We’re already seeing benefits from preserving genetic diversity in existing populations and the re-establishment of populations decimated by poaching, illegal logging and habitat encroachment.
Baby Bezoars Return to BKNP
Found only in the Caucasus, the distinctive Bezoar mountain goat has been hunted to near extinction in Georgia. Today the Bezoar is returning to Georgia’s Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park (BKNP) using goats imported from Armenia where the population—while still threatened—is healthier. With support from CNF, baby goats are raised in a small breeding area to be released back to the park’s protected wilderness. Park rangers provide feed during the initial reintroduction phase and patrol BKNP to discourage poaching. Wildlife experts are tracking the results of the reintroduction project, which was conceived and executed by CNF’s partner, WWF.
For People
For many people, the idea that the world’s great nature reserves hold priceless cultural and spiritual riches that must be preserved for future generations—equates to a moral imperative. Increasingly, however, ethical arguments for conservation are seconded by economics.When individuals deplete shared resources for their own short-term private gain, it’s often referred to in economic terms as “the tragedy of the commons.” Air, water, fish stocks, and forests—assets that benefit everyone—are bound to be over-exploited absent ownership or proper regulation. Unfortunately, the world has witnessed countless examples of this theory in practice, including the devastating depletion of the once rich fishing stocks in the Georges Bank, by the 1970s.
Protected areas offer a positive counter force to this tragedy of the commons. They are “regulated commons”—areas whose development and exploitation is limited by law, regulation or private action. Their protected status ensures that natural assets are preserved for the common good.
Marine protected areas enliven the oceans and forests, and other protected lands enrich the soil, filter and regulate water, clean our air, store carbon and support biodiversity—the web of life—on which we all depend. Economists have recently valued the annual cost of forest loss worldwide at more than $2 trillion. Protected areas also benefit local communities in very measurable ways, for example by providing revenue from tourism. For more on the economics of biodiversity and conservation, see "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)".
Marine Life Returns to Georges Bank The Georges Bank marine protected area off of the coast of the United States shows the effect a protected area can have on its surroundings. The blue polygons in the diagram to the right are the protected areas with dots indicating fishing boats. The highest concentration of fishing is shown in warmer colors (green to red) and reveals a clear pattern: the renewed healthy fish stocks are attracting fishermen to the edges of the protected areas.
To the right: Georges Bank Marine Protected Area - Courtesy of Oceanus magazine, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Click to enlarge.