Many protected areas do not benefit wildlife (1 Viewer)

[Kits]

Many protected areas do not benefit wildlife, study says

Simply designating an area as "for nature" does not mean it is beneficial for wildlife, researchers find.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Farnboro John]

Well, doh. If you don't put effort in, you don't get result out. Surprise!

John

 

[pppppvvvv]

There is an obsession with "green" and wild areas being accessible and looking neat and tidy. Manicured. Which is obviously crap for wildlife.

The criticism our local council got for leaving a small dog walkers' field to go wild last spring was off the scale.

Wildlife trusts, RSPB etc seem to get it right though, don't they?!
Apart from that, wasteland, or land with no owner seems to be our prime habitat!

 

[Murmur]

This isn't exactly new: back in the '70s when I was doing my degree in environmental sciences and heftily involved in voluntary conservation work, it was pretty well known that active management of a particular area was necessary in order to encourage specific target species and any number of nature resereves and other areas were managed on that basis.

 

[Murmur]

Related to this subject, and demonstrating what has long been known, especially by anyone who's had any contact with National Parks, is this - Most UK national parks deliver ‘negligible benefits’ for wildlife

 

[opisska]

This title is a dumb generalization of a very specific study of wetlands and waterbirds. Wetlands are a specific habitats which is very easy the mess up. But concluding from that that "simply setting land for nature does nothing" is absurd. Especially in places, where "not protected" means "will be burned down" or "will be converted into a palm oil plantation" or just "will be concreted over". Please tell me how any setting aside isn't better than that ...

 

[pppppvvvv]

This title is a dumb generalization of a very specific study of wetlands and waterbirds. Wetlands are a specific habitats which is very easy the mess up. But concluding from that that "simply setting land for nature does nothing" is absurd. Especially in places, where "not protected" means "will be burned down" or "will be converted into a palm oil plantation" or just "will be concreted over". Please tell me how any setting aside isn't better than that ...

I think we are all coming from different examples here, and all going in different directions.

 

[Mono]

This is one of those many papers that get increasingly misrepresented by headline writers. The paper gets a sexier spin from the unversity press department, the journal PR team give it a yet more controversial spin and then the news media give that press release a click bait headline.

The full paper is pay-walled but the abstract conclusion is "we find that protected areas have a mixed impact on waterbirds, with a strong signal that areas managed for waterbirds or their habitat are more likely to benefit populations, and a weak signal that larger areas are more beneficial than smaller ones."

 

[jurek]

I agree that waterbirds are not representative for all biodiversity, and most protected areas are either used by man, or were created in barren areas which are lifeless.

However, strong management of protected areas by definition is impossible in large habitats, and by definition excludes non-target species. So a wetland managed for meadow birds will be poor for reedbed birds and birds of wet woodland, and vice versa.