Page 346 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

receive funding adequate to manage resources, provide for Biodiversity
recreation, and protect wildlife from poaching and trees from preservation
logging. As a result, many of the world’s protected areas are
merely paper parks—protected on paper but not in reality. Local activities
Some types of protected areas fall under national Core area and limited
development
sovereignty but are designated or partly managed by the such as research,
United Nations. Biosphere reserves are tracts of land with education, and
exceptional biodiversity that couple preservation with sus- Buffer zone tourism
tainable development to benefit local people. Biosphere Sustainable agriculture,
reserves are designated by UNESCO (the United Nations Transitional area human settlements,
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) fol- and other land uses
lowing application by local stakeholders. Each biosphere (a) The three zones of a biosphere reserve
reserve consists of (1) a core area that preserves biodiver-
sity; (2) a buffer zone that allows local activities and lim-
ited development; and (3) an outer transition zone where
agriculture, human settlement, and other land uses are pur-
sued sustainably (FIGURE 12.23a).
The Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala (FIGURE 12.23b)
is an example. Rainforest here is protected in core areas, and in
the transition zone timber harvesting takes place in concessions,
some of which are FSC certified. A 2008 study by the nonprofit
Rainforest Alliance found that FSC certification here gave peo-
ple economic incentives to conserve the forest. The study found
that rates of deforestation and wildfire were much lower in the
FSC-certified areas where sustainable logging occurred than in
the core area that was supposed to be fully protected.
World heritage sites are another type of international pro-
tected area. Nearly 1000 sites in more than 150 countries are
listed for their natural or cultural value. One such site is the (b) Sustainable harvesting by local people
Serengeti. Another is a mountain gorilla reserve shared by FIGURE 12.23 Biosphere reserves couple preservation
three African countries. This reserve, which integrates national with sustainable development. Each biosphere reserve
parklands of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic (a) includes three zones. At the Maya Biosphere Reserve
of Congo, is also an example of a transboundary park, an area in Guatemala (b), local women process and sell Maya nuts
of protected land overlapping national borders. Transboundary harvested from rainforest trees. FSC certification in the transition
parks account for 10% of protected areas worldwide, involving zone here helped prevent illegal deforestation.
over 100 nations. An example is Waterton–Glacier National
Parks on the Canadian–U.S. border. manage protected areas. The U.S. government committed itself
Some transboundary reserves function as peace parks, to a program of debt-for-nature swaps through its 1998 Tropical
helping to ease tensions by acting as buffers between nations Forest Conservation Act. As of 2011, deals had been struck with
that quarrel over boundary disputes. This is the case with Peru 17 developing nations, enabling nearly $400 million in their
and Ecuador as well as Costa Rica and Panama, and many funds intended for debt payments to go to conservation efforts
people hope that peace parks might also help resolve conflicts instead. In the largest such deal yet, the U.S. government forgave
between Israel and its neighbors. Indonesia $30 million of debt while two conservation groups CHAPTER 12 • FOREST S, FOREST MAN A GEMENT, AND PR O TECTED AREAS
Beyond all these efforts on land, the importance of con- paid Indonesia $2 million. In return, Indonesia will preserve for-
serving the oceans’ natural resources is leading us to establish ested areas that are home to the Sumatran tiger and other species.
protected areas and reserves in marine waters (pp. 461–462).
Today 1.6% of the world’s ocean area and 7.2% of coastal
waters fall within designated protected areas. Habitat fragmentation makes preserves
more vital
Economic incentives can help Protecting large areas of land has taken on new urgency now
preserve land that scientists understand the risks posed by habitat fragmen-
tation (p. 302). Often, it is not the outright destruction of for-
Innovative economic strategies can facilitate international ests and other habitats that threatens species and ecosystems,
efforts to protect natural lands. One strategy is the conserva- but rather their fragmentation (see THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE
tion concession discussed earlier (p. 332). Another is the debt- STORY, pp. 348–349). Expanding agriculture, spreading cit-
for-nature swap, in which a conservation organization raises ies, highways, logging, and other impacts routinely chop up
money and offers to pay off a portion of a developing nation’s large contiguous expanses of habitat into small, disconnected
international debt in exchange for a promise by the nation to ones (see Figure 11.11, p. 302). Forests are being fragmented
set aside reserves, fund environmental education, and better everywhere these days, as a result of logging (FIGURE 12.24a) 345

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