Abstract
Human impact on the environment is evident across the planet, including its most biodiverse areas. Of particular interest is the impact on the world’s last wilderness areas, in which the largest patches of land relatively free from human influence remain. Here, we use the human footprint index to measure the extent to which the world’s last wilderness areas have been impacted by human activities—between the years 1993 and 2009—and whether protected areas have been effective in reducing human impact. We found that overall the increase in human footprint was higher in tropical than temperate regions. Moreover, although on average the increase was lower inside protected areas than outside, in half of the fourteen biomes examined the differences were insignificant. Although reasons varied, protected areas alone are unlikely to be ubiquitously successful in protecting wilderness areas. To achieve protection, it is important to address loss and improve environmental governance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andam, K.S., P.J. Ferraro, A. Pfaff, G.A. Sanchez-Azofeifa, and J.A. Robalino. 2008. Measuring the effectiveness of protected area networks in reducing deforestation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105: 16089–16094. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0800437105.
Andrew, N., A. Nelson, and K.M. Chomitz. 2011. Effectiveness of strict vs. multiple use protected areas in reducing tropical forest fires: A global analysis using matching methods. PLoS ONE 6: e22722–e22722. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022722.
Brooks, T.M., H.R. Akçakaya, N.D. Burgess, S.H.M. Butchart, C. Hilton-Taylor, M. Hoffmann, D. Juffe-Bignoli, N. Kingston, et al. 2016. Data from: Analysing biodiversity and conservation knowledge products to support regional environmental assessments. Scientific Data 3: 160007. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.6gb90.2.
Butchart, S.H.M., M. Walpole, B. Collen, A. Van Strien, J.P.W. Scharlemann, R.E.A. Almond, J.E.M. Baillie, B. Bomhard, et al. 2010. Global biodiversity: Indicators of recent declines. Science 328: 1164–1168. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1187512.
Cardinale, B.J., J.E. Duffy, A. Gonzalez, D.U. Hooper, C. Perrings, P. Venail, A. Narwani, G.M. Mace, et al. 2012. Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature 486: 59–67. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11148.
Coetzee, B.W.T., K.J. Gaston, and S.L. Chown. 2014. Local scale comparisons of biodiversity as a test for global protected area ecological performance: A meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 9: e105824. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0105824.
Corlett, R.T. 2015. The anthropocene concept in ecology and conservation. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 30: 36–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2014.10.007.
Dushoff, J., M.P. Kain, and B.M. Bolker. 2018. I can see clearly now: Reinterpreting statistical significance. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 10: 756–759. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13159.
Ellis, E.C., K. Klein Goldewijk, S. Siebert, D. Lightman, and N. Ramankutty. 2010. Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19: 589–606. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x.
Heino, M., M. Kummu, M. Makkonen, M. Mulligan, P.H. Verburg, M. Jalava, and T.A. Räsänen. 2015. Forest loss in protected areas and intact forest landscapes: A global analysis. PLoS ONE 10: 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0138918.
Ho, D.E., K. Imai, G. King, and E.A. Stuart. 2011. MatchIt: Nonparametric preprocessing for parametric causal inference. Journal of Statistical Software 42: 1–28. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v042.i08.
Hulme, P.E. 2018. Protected land: Threat of invasive species. Science 361: 561–562. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau3784.
Jenkins, M. 2003. Prospects for biodiversity. Science 302: 1175–1177. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1088666.
Jones, K.R., O. Venter, R.A. Fuller, J.R. Allan, S.L. Maxwell, P.J. Negret, and J.E.M. Watson. 2018. One-third of global protected land is under intense human pressure. Science 360: 788–791. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9565.
Joppa, L.N., and A. Pfaff. 2011. Global protected area impacts. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 278: 1633–1638. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.1713.
Krausman, P.R. 2017. P-values and reality. The Journal of Wildlife Management 81: 562–563. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.21253.
Leroux, S.J., M.A. Krawchuk, F. Schmiegelow, S.G. Cumming, K. Lisgo, L.G. Anderson, and M. Petkova. 2010. Global protected areas and IUCN designations: Do the categories match the conditions? Biological Conservation 143: 609–616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2009.11.018.
Leverington, F., K.L. Costa, H. Pavese, A. Lisle, and M. Hockings. 2010. A global analysis of protected area management effectiveness. Environmental Management 46: 685–698. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9564-5.
McDonald, R.I., and T.M. Boucher. 2011. Global development and the future of the protected area strategy. Biological Conservation 144: 383–392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2010.09.016.
Mittermeier, R.A., C.G. Mittermeier, T.M. Brooks, J.D. Pilgrim, W.R. Konstant, G.A.B. da Fonseca, and C. Kormos. 2003. Wilderness and biodiversity conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 100: 10309–10313. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1732458100.
Newbold, T., L.N. Hudson, A.P. Arnell, S. Contu, A. De Palma, S. Ferrier, S.L.L. Hill, A.J. Hoskins, et al. 2016. Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment. Science 353: 288–291.
Olson, D.M., E. Dinerstein, E.D. Wikramanayake, N.D. Burgess, G.V.N. Powell, E.C. Underwood, J.A. D’amico, I. Itoua, et al. 2001. Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: A new map of life on earth. BioScience 51: 933.
Pettorelli, N., K. Safi, and W. Turner. 2014. Satellite remote sensing, biodiversity research and conservation of the future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 369: 20130190. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0190.
Pouzols, F.M., T. Toivonen, E. Di Minin, A.S. Kukkala, P. Kullberg, J. Kuustera, J. Lehtomaki, H. Tenkanen, et al. 2014. Global protected area expansion is compromised by projected land-use and parochialism. Nature 516: 383–386. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14032.
Ramankutty, N., Z. Mehrabi, K. Waha, L. Jarvis, C. Kremen, M. Herrero, and L.H. Rieseberg. 2018. Trends in global agricultural land use: Implications for environmental health and food security. Annual Review of Plant Biology 69: 789–815. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-arplant-042817-040256.
Rands, M.R.W., W.M. Adams, L. Bennun, S.H.M. Butchart, A. Clements, D. Coomes, A. Entwistle, I. Hodge, et al. 2010. Biodiversity conservation: Challenges beyond 2010. Science 329: 1298–1303. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1189138.
Sachs, J.D. 2012. From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals. The Lancet 379: 2206–2211.
Sanderson, E.W., M. Jaiteh, M.A. Levy, K.H. Redford, A.V. Wannebo, and G. Woolmer. 2002. The human footprint and the last of the wild. BioScience 52: 891. https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052%5b0891:THFATL%5d2.0.CO;2.
Sloan, S., and J.A. Sayer. 2015. Forest resources assessment of 2015 shows positive global trends but forest loss and degradation persist in poor tropical countries. Forest Ecology and Management 352: 134–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2015.06.013.
Tilman, D., M. Clark, D.R. Williams, K. Kimmel, S. Polasky, and C. Packer. 2017. Future threats to biodiversity and pathways to their prevention. Nature 546: 73–81. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22900.
United Nations. 2017. World population prospects: The 2017 revision, key findings and advance tables. Department of Economic and Social Affair, Population Division, ESA/P/WP/248.
Venter, O., R.A. Fuller, D.B. Segan, J. Carwardine, T. Brooks, S.H.M. Butchart, M. Di Marco, T. Iwamura, et al. 2014. Targeting global protected area expansion for imperiled biodiversity. PLoS Biology 12: e1001891. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001891.
Venter, O., E.W. Sanderson, A. Magrach, J.R. Allan, J. Beher, K.R. Jones, H.P. Possingham, W.F. Laurance, et al. 2016a. Global terrestrial human footprint maps for 1993 and 2009. Scientific Data 3: 160067. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.67.
Venter, O., E.W. Sanderson, A. Magrach, J.R. Allan, J. Beher, K.R. Jones, H.P. Possingham, W.F. Laurance, et al. 2016b. Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation. Nature Communications 7: 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12558.
Wasserstein, R.L., A.L. Schirm, and N.A. Lazar. 2019. Moving to a world beyond “ p < 0.05”. The American Statistician 73: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2019.1583913.
Watson, J.E.M., N. Dudley, D.B. Segan, and M. Hockings. 2014. The performance and potential of protected areas. Nature 515: 67–73. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13947.
Watson, J.E.M., D.F. Shanahan, M. Di Marco, J. Allan, W.F. Laurance, E.W. Sanderson, B. Mackey, and O. Venter. 2016a. Catastrophic declines in wilderness areas undermine global environment targets. Current Biology 26: 2929–2934. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.08.049.
Watson, J.E.M., K.R. Jones, R.A. Fuller, M. Di Marco, D.B. Segan, S.H.M. Butchart, J.R. Allan, E. McDonald-Madden, et al. 2016b. Persistent disparities between recent rates of habitat conversion and protection and implications for future global conservation targets. Conservation Letters 9: 413–421. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12295.
Watson, J.E.M., T. Evans, O. Venter, B. Williams, A. Tulloch, C. Stewart, I. Thompson, J.C. Ray, et al. 2018. The exceptional value of intact forest ecosystems. Nature Ecology & Evolution 2: 599–610. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0490-x.
Acknowledgements
We are thankful to the researchers who have developed and made available the datasets we used in this study. We are also thankful to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. E.A. is also thankful to the Freeman Foundation and Furman University, in the United States, for a Grant supporting her stay in China.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anderson, E., Mammides, C. The role of protected areas in mitigating human impact in the world’s last wilderness areas. Ambio 49, 434–441 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01213-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01213-x