Conservation activity is still largely concerned with the concept of protected areas. Areas of high conservation value are set aside from the ravages of habitat destruction (Chapter 4) in order to preserve remnants of natural systems. If this approach is to be efficient we must examine the current protected area system to see to what extent it conserves biodiversity and explore how we might identify where new areas should be designated. Any weaknesses with the protected area approach also need to be considered.

By reading this chapter students will gain an understanding of the history of protected area designation, the range of methods that have been employed to select areas for protection and some of the challenges and limitations of protecting areas.

Introduction

The dominant conservation action to this day is to identify valuable natural and semi-natural areas and protect them, with the assumption that in so doing one also protects the species and communities they contain. This seems logical as one could argue that the only effective way of conserving biodiversity in the long termis to protect intact ecosystems. However, the size of these protected areas ranges from a few hundred square metres to the Greenland National Park at 972000 km2. The largest areas encompass whole ecosystems and are essentially functioning natural systems with minimal human influence. In contrast, many smaller protected areas, particularly in developed countries, are only fragments of once much larger ecosystems and their dynamics have fundamentally changed.