Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 142, Issue 8, August 2009, Pages 1639-1646
Biological Conservation

Efficiency and effectiveness in representative reserve design in Canada: The contribution of existing protected areas

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2009.02.034Get rights and content

Abstract

To be effective, reserve networks should represent all target species in protected areas that are large enough to ensure species persistence. Given limited resources to set aside protected areas for biodiversity conservation, and competing land uses, a prime consideration for the design of reserve networks is efficiency (the maximum biodiversity represented in a minimum number of sites). However, to be effective, networks may sacrifice efficiency. We used reserve selection algorithms to determine whether collections of existing individual protected areas in Canada were efficient and/or effective in terms of representing the diversity of disturbance-sensitive mammals in Canada in comparison to (1) an optimal network of reserves, and (2) sites selected at random. Unlike previous studies, we restricted our analysis to individual protected areas that met a criterion for minimum reserve size, to address issues of representation and persistence simultaneously. We also tested for effectiveness and efficiency using historical and present-day data to see whether protected area efficiency and/or effectiveness varied over time. In general, existing protected areas did not effectively capture the full suite of mammalian species diversity, nor are most existing protected areas part of a near-optimal solution set. To be effective, Canada’s network of reserves will require at minimum 22 additional areas of >2700 km2. This study shows that even when only those reserves large enough to be effective are considered, protected areas systems may not be representative, nor were they representative at the time of establishment.

Introduction

It is well known that protected areas planning in North America and elsewhere has historically been carried out on an ad hoc basis. Many of the earliest protected areas were designated for their scenic, recreational, and tourism values (Runte, 1997, Sellars, 1997), while others were designated to provide employment opportunities in impoverished regions (Runte, 1997, MacEachern, 2001). Today, however, protected areas are assumed to play an important role in preserving representative samples of ecosystem and species diversity (e.g., Parks Canada Agency, 2000). Recent research suggests that existing protected areas do not perform well in this capacity (e.g., Pressey and Nicholls, 1989, Rebelo and Siegfried, 1992, Saetersdal et al., 1993, Lombard et al., 1995, Pressey et al., 1996, Williams et al., 1996, Khan et al., 1997, Freitag et al., 1998, Jaffre et al., 1998, Nantel et al., 1998, Sarakinos et al., 2001, Heikkinen, 2002, Stewart et al., 2003, Branquart et al., 2008). An analysis of what particular gaps exist in current protected areas networks in relation to biodiversity representation can help planners identify priorities for establishment of new protected areas and/or restoration of existing ones. With limited resources for conservation, it is prudent to prioritize the siting of protected areas in places where they will be efficient and effective (Fig. 1). In contrast to ad hoc planning for protected areas, reserve selection algorithms can be used to identify sets of protected areas that capture all species, communities or other biological units of interest at least once within a pre-defined region (Margules et al., 1988, Pressey et al., 1996, Branquart et al., 2008). The commonly used heuristic algorithms generally are based either on maximizing species richness (richness-based) or the presence of rare species (rarity-based) (Pressey et al., 1996). These types of approaches have recently been applied in regional protected areas planning in various parts of Canada, for example in the central coast of British Columbia (Gonzales et al., 2003).

The goal of reserve selection algorithms is to identify an efficient solution to the challenge of representation of biodiversity within reserves; efficiency is defined as achieving representation of all species with the lowest cost, often measured as the fewest number of sites (e.g., Pressey and Nicholls, 1989). Targets for representation within the network of protected areas may include, for example, all of the species in a region, or all of the variety of ecosystem types or vegetation/landform complexes (Pressey et al., 1993). However, if individual protected areas within a network that is nevertheless representative are too small, then the network may be rendered unrepresentative over time by the loss of individual species within reserves. Thus, algorithms should also include criteria that enhance species persistence; ensuing networks should then effectively conserve and efficiently represent the regional diversity of species (Rodrigues et al., 2000, Cabeza, 2003, Kerley et al., 2003, Pressey et al., 2003, Solomon et al., 2003).

In Canada, Wiersma and Nudds (2006) postulated an efficient and effective reserve network for representing all disturbance-sensitive mammals using individual reserves that were expected to allow mammals to persist, even in the face of habitat insularization. The individual reserves showed little overlap with existing protected areas in Ontario (Nudds and Wiersma, 2004), indicating that existing protected areas, in their entirety as a network, are ineffective and/or inefficient (Rodrigues et al., 1999, Stewart et al., 2003). Nevertheless, it might be that combinations of existing and new and/or expanded areas, while necessarily constrained with respect to efficiency (that is, result in more sites than required for maximum representation) could be as effective in ensuring persistence (Rodrigues et al., 1999). Thus, it is important to evaluate the contribution of existing protected areas to the efficiency and effectiveness of reserve networks. The goal of this study was to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of existing protected areas across Canada for representation of disturbance-sensitive mammals, and where necessary, identify how many additional protected areas might be necessary to achieve an effective network.

Wiersma and Nudds (2006) used heuristic reserve selection algorithms to delineate efficient and effective networks of protected areas for disturbance-sensitive mammals in each of eight mammal provinces of Canada (Hagmeier, 1966; Fig. 2), based on both historical (Banfield, 1974) and current (Patterson et al., 2003) species’ ranges. (Wiersma (2007a) showed that similar results are obtained when analyses are conducted across other biologically-relevant regions, such as terrestrial ecozones.) The analysis of species data from two different points in time allowed for a comparison of representation requirements for a historical “benchmark” condition to the representation requirements at present. The first resulted in estimates of where protected areas might have been optimally located prior to widespread European settlement, and the second identified optimal sites that account for species range shifts that may have occurred during the intervening years. Both solutions were comprised of proposed protected areas that met a minimum reserve area (MRA) criterion for mammals, and thus species are expected to persist within them (Gurd et al., 2001). Here, we build on this work by assessing how well existing protected areas represent mammals compared to these optimal networks.

Instead of a simple contrast of the optimal sites in the proposed networks with existing MRA-sized protected areas, we “seeded” the algorithms with the existing protected areas that were sufficiently large to allow for long-term species persistence, and then identified where additional minimally-sized protected areas (if any) should be located to represent all species in each mammal province. If the existing suite of protected areas is an efficient (or nearly-efficient) and effective network for meeting representation targets in each mammal province, then there should be no difference in the number of protected areas required in the optimal network when existing protected areas are included, compared to the proposed optimal network when they are excluded. Further, if existing protected areas are an important component of near-optimal solutions to representation, then even in cases where more protected areas might be needed, these should be fewer than the number required to represent species when existing protected areas are excluded from the algorithms. This is the case observed with a representative protected areas analysis for reptiles and amphibians in north eastern India (Pawar et al., 2007). However, given the historical documentation attesting that establishment of many national and provincial parks was motivated by scenic, recreation, and economic values (Runte, 1997, Sellars, 1997, MacEachern, 2001), we expected that existing protected areas would not necessarily contribute parts of an efficient solution to effective biodiversity representation. Other regions globally have shown a bias to over-representation of high altitude habitats (Oldfield et al., 2004, Martinez et al., 2006) and less populated areas (Sarakinos et al., 2001). Evidence in Canada of a bias towards large protected areas at northern latitudes (Rivard et al., 2000), and historical and anecdotal evidence that many parks were located in areas with high scenic value (and not necessarily high ecological value), lead us to expect that existing protected areas may not even be effective, let alone efficient.

Section snippets

Target regions and mammal data

Analysis was carried out in ecologically defined target regions (mammal provinces) in Canada (Fig. 2). The Alleghenian–Illinoian mammal province in Canada spans east and west of the Great Lakes and so was analyzed as two provinces. The Saskatchewanean mammal province did not include any existing MRA-sized protected areas and was excluded, yielding a total of seven mammal provinces for analysis. Northern mammal provinces were excluded because of low mammalian diversity. Historical data on mammal

Results

The number of existing protected areas in each mammal province deemed sufficiently large for persistence of mammal diversity ranged from 1 to 10; no existing sets of reserves in any mammal province captured the full range of mammal diversity. Existing protected areas captured between 57% and 94% of the total historical species richness in each province and between 68% and 99% of the total modern-day species richness in each mammal province (Fig. 3). Between 1 and 7 additional MRA-sized sites

Discussion

As expected, existing large protected areas in Canada do not represent the full suite of disturbance-sensitive mammals, and thus function as parts of neither effective nor efficient networks. Interestingly, existing protected areas did a slightly better job of representing the modern species assemblage than the historical one (Fig. 3). This may be due to the fact that some of the more recently-established protected areas were designated for conservation of a specific species, or were

Acknowledgements

Historical mammal data was digitized using a grant from Parks Canada to TDN. Modern mammal data was provided by NatureServe in collaboration with Bruce Patterson, Wes Sechrest, Marcelo Tognelli, Gerardo Ceballos, The Nature Conservancy – Migratory Bird Program, Conservation International – CABS, World Wildlife Fund – US, and Environment Canada – WILDSPACE. E. Boulding, R. Corry, K. Lindsay, R. Pressey, J. Shuter, D. Sleep, W. Yang, and three anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on the

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