Protected Areas
Protected areas are well-defined land spaces recognized and adequately managed through legal interventions to achieve the goal of nature conservation (Lewis et al., 2019). Protected areas include large tracts of lands set aside and protected by the laws of natural environmental conservation. They also include portions of grounds spared and for the protection of wildlife, beautiful sceneries, or areas of special interests due to the presence of rare plant and animal species in them. Furthermore, these areas may also be places that exhibit unique geological formations with ecosystems crucial for scientific research (Lewis et al., 2019). The various aspects of protected areas are related to conservation biology because they all focus on conserving biodiversity. Although the protected areas are essential to preserving biodiversity, they pose negative social, economic, and political implications to the people living around these areas.
Land protection is a critical topic that people need to care about to address climate change issues. A strong relationship exists between protected areas and climate change. For example, a protected area inhabiting a flourishing ecosystem can play an essential role in mitigating the adversities caused by climatic change by absorbing atmospheric carbon. The topic is also important because people can learn how to support species to adapt to prompt shifts in climatic patterns by offering them migration habitats. Moreover, it enables people to learn how to protect themselves from unforeseen climatic events such as floods and other weather-induced catastrophes.
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The negative social impacts of the protected areas on the communities living around them have variable recognition (Naidoo et al., 2019). The establishment of these areas has necessitated the need for the relocation of these communities. Many people have lost their ancestral land in the process of setting up these areas. The evictions method does come with additional expenses on transport, hardships in finding new places to stay, and sometimes the authorities' compensations may not be enough. In the context of poverty mitigation, the assessments on biodiversity conservation indicate that the protected areas increase poverty rather than reducing it due to the impoverishment resulted from the evictions.
Land protection also does have negative economic impacts on the communities living around the protected areas. For instance, land protection limits how the local community members can extract their natural resources (Naidoo et al., 2019). Besides, it also limits how locals can establish housing and other commercial development projects. Furthermore, land protection can lead to joblessness, especially among those depending on agriculture to generate income. In this case, joblessness can substantially decline the local communities' total tax revenue.
The issue of land protection also poses some negative political impacts on the local communities. The political implications come in the form of policies. The policies oversee all the various activities involving land use. Land-use regulations can take distinct forms, such as the conventional command and control strategy (Naidoo et al., 2019). The method entails the zoning of people and density monitoring. Although these policies may prove useful, local communities may experience a substantial loss of their social welfare due to higher housing costs and impractical land-use patterns.
In conclusion, area protection is essential in a way that entails critical concepts of conservation, such as land use and policies. The topic is also significant because it touches on climate change, which has proven to be a big worry to many countries. However, specific issues need to be addressed concerning the protected areas' negative social, political, and economic impacts. For instance, the various responsible authorities should develop the most suitable way to relocate the communities affected by land protection activities and exposing them to economic opportunities to sustain themselves. The strategy will help eradicate poverty, but it will lead to harmony between the local communities and the authorities.
References
Lewis, E., MacSharry, B., Juffe‐Bignoli, D., Harris, N., Burrows, G., Kingston, N., & Burgess, N. D. (2019). Dynamics in the global protected‐area estate since 2004. Conservation Biology , 33 (3), 570-579.
Naidoo, R., Gerkey, D., Hole, D., Pfaff, A., Ellis, A. M., Golden, C. D., & Fisher, B. (2019). Evaluating the impacts of protected areas on human well-being across the developing world. Science Advances , 5 (4), eaav3006.
