Parks, Reserves, and Refuges

Parks, reserves, and refuges provide global resources for environmental protection and education. They [Page 1295]fall under the broad umbrella of what is referred to internationally as “protected areas.” These areas have been defined by international organizations or conventions as “area[s] of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means” (International Union for the Conservation of Nature 1994), or “geographically defined area[s] which [are] designated or regulated and managed to achieve specific conservation objectives” (Convention on Biological Diversity Article 2). Globally, protected areas are considered a primary strategy to protect in situ biodiversity, according to Aaron G. Bruner, Raymond E. Gullison, Richard E. Rice, and Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca, and they are referred to using a host of different terms. For instance, Australia has more than 40 types of formally designated protected areas that include conservation covenants, management agreement areas, nature parks, wilderness protection areas, and so on. In addition to formally designated areas, there are a variety of de facto types of privately or community owned and managed protected areas that may also achieve conservation goals. To make sense of the variety of management schemes and goals, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) developed a categorization scheme representing gradations of human intrusion (see Table 1).

The World Database on Protected Areas (UNEP-WCMC 2010) indicates that by 2008, 21 million square kilometers of terrestrial and marine areas had been formally incorporated into more than 120,000 protected areas. This area is greater than the combined land areas of the United States and China and represents 12.2% of the Earth's land area, 5.9% of territorial seas, and 0.5% of extraterritorial seas.

This entry begins with a brief history on the global context of parks, reserves, and refuges. It continues with a presentation of the critiques of protected areas, and then it concludes with a discussion concerning future directions.