Parks and Reserves

Global Coverage and Location of Parks

According to estimates based on these IUCN definitions of parks and reserves, there are more than 117,000 such sites, covering approximately 19 million km2 (square kilometers), or approximately 4% of the Earth's surface. This is an increase in legal designations of such sites from only 9,214 in 1962, covering an area of 2.4 million km2. Overall, there are approximately 20 million km2 of [Page 2118]Earth's surface in some form of protection (some of which may not have much monitoring or effective management and so are referred to as “paper parks,” reflecting the fact that while these areas appear as parks on maps or paper, they are not actively protected or managed), which represents about 15% of Earth's surface. The oceans, in contrast, have only 1 million km2 in any form of protection, which represents around 0.5% of their total surface area.

Many of the world's largest parks occur in areas where the land is perhaps less suitable for other options—that is, land that is not settled or inhabited for a good reason. Such land has less worth economically speaking and was not developed, and so now it enters a park system. An example of this is the Greenland Natural Reserve, which encompasses a large area of ocean and ice caps, or the Ar Rub'al Khali Wildlife Management Area in Saudi Arabia, which encompasses a large part of the world's largest unbroken desert. In some areas, though, and increasingly with current park creation, parks are located within inhabited landscapes and on land that is more valued. In such cases, additional problems and potential conflicts can arise. Such park landscapes are often characterized by biological and sociopolitical dilemmas because of conflicts between biodiversity goals and local livelihood strategies. Throughout the developing world, parks are surrounded by landscapes that, while still containing considerable biodiversity, also have rapidly growing human populations. While areas around parks represent zones of risk and restriction, they are also potential zones of opportunity for current and potential migrant populations. This dual character of park landscapes will generate and/or intensify the distinctive patterns of land use around parks, which will in turn have important consequences for the park itself. Such conflicts will likely increase as human populations and competition for existing natural resources increase.

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