Protected areas have been around for thousands of years in one form or another. Modern protected areas, what the authors call ‘one of the best and most revolutionary ideas of the 20th century’ began in the USA in the late 19th century. The number of formal protected areas has grown rapidly to cover 12% of the globe and there are ongoing efforts to achieve even fuller coverage of the world’s habitats and species, in particular marine areas. At the same time areas conserved by indigenous and local communities, often over centuries, are being recognized and supported.
Despite this, protected areas are in a crisis. They have been historically defined by their role in conserving wild animals and plants. Indeed, they are the crown jewels of the conservation endeavour. Unfortunately, they are failing to deliver and biodiversity is increasingly under threat. Many protected areas still exist only on paper, have inadequate resources for their management, and are threatened by illegal encroachment and resource use or by legal degazettment and economic activities such as mining.
As if that were not enough, protected areas are highly contested. The previously broad consensus on their value has broken down. Protected areas are resisted by industries, which see them as impediments to profit making, by governments that believe they limit economic development, and by communities who experience them as infringements on their rights. In short, protected areas are in trouble and the publication of this book is timely. The arguments for protected areas are not being made strongly enough or clearly enough, and this readable book seems destined to change that.
An introductory chapter describes how natural environments support human well-being, discusses the values that provide this support, and proposes the integration of these values into understanding of protected areas. A series of chapters follows, each discussing a specific value, benefit or service that protected areas provide or could potentially do so. The values covered are wide ranging and, although not new or surprising, most are not being actively managed for. This book, by presenting in a clear and accessible fashion 12 values of protected areas provides 12 arguments that can be made to local communities, governments and the international community for investing in protected areas. Not all values will be present in all protected areas but the idea that multiple benefits can be expressed in one place and time is important.
Considerable thought and planning has gone into the design of this book. The reader is led through a common argument for the different values, made possible as each chapter has the same structure. A short personal essay suggests the essence of the value to be discussed and smoothly leads the reader into the more technical sections that follow. The Argument section describes the value and the benefits it confers, the Current Contributions section describes how and to what extent these values are conserved and delivered by protected areas, the Future Needs section describes steps required for protected areas to really engage with the value, and the Management Options section indicates how this can be achieved. A range of case studies and boxes brings home the arguments through tangible examples in which protected areas are delivering the broad range of values covered by this book.
The consistency and readability of the book is unusual in an edited volume, perhaps because the editors are also authors on all but one chapter. The broad grasp of the issues is just the kind of understanding that conservation practitioners must emulate. I commend this book to protected area managers, policy makers and all those arguing the case for protected areas and conservation. Students will find it invaluable as an introduction to protected area management. There is, however, some unevenness that is slightly disconcerting.
Chapters on the relationship between religion and protected areas and on the interactions between protected areas and cultural diversity introduce readers to a new way of thinking about conservation. By describing non-material, culturally based values, these chapters open a discussion of the relativity of values and question the current domination of scientific rationality and neo-liberal economics in conservation thinking and practice, and provide compelling arguments for looking at protected areas in a radically new way. The authors write that ‘…almost all protected areas are also cultural landscapes, with cultural significance for one people or another.’ Failure to design and manage them accordingly has pitted conservationists against communities in an entirely negative and unnecessary way. Understanding protected areas as cultural entities would help resolve many of conflicts bogging down so many protected areas while supporting the conservation of cultures threatened by the same processes threatening biodiversity. It would also, as the authors note ‘…certainly help improve public support for conservation.’ But despite signalling the paradigm-shifting importance of a values-based approach to protected areas, the rest of the book has the traditional focus on economic values. Even in chapters on health, tourism and human well-being, where a discussion of cultural values is clearly relevant, they are hardly noted. The resulting dependence on economic arguments suggests a degree of desperation pushing the authors away from the more radical reappraisal of protected areas that is perhaps needed.
Finally, and strangely, the chapter on biodiversity is relegated to the end of the book. If this was intended to emphasize one of the most important arguments for protected areas, one that responds to both economic and values-based perspectives, and surely the most important driver of conservation practice both currently and historically, it does not succeed. The degree to which protected areas and their role as havens of wild animals and plants for humankind, both living and future generations, have become contested, is reflected in the apologetic way biodiversity is treated in this book.
