Jackson Sarah F, Gaston Kevin J
Biodiversity and Macroecology Group, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom.
Ecol Appl. 2008 Jun;18(4):1050-60. doi: 10.1890/07-0662.1.
Evaluations of the effectiveness of protected areas often report their inadequate representation of regional variation in environmental conditions, land cover, and biological diversity. One frequent contributory explanation is the heavy reliance placed upon the designation of public as opposed to private lands for statutory protection. Given that protected area designation in Britain has no such constraint, and indeed that more than half of such areas are on private lands, we tested the a priori assumption that within this region the representation of environmental conditions and land cover within statutory protected areas would be more equitable. Despite the reduction in land ownership constraints on where protected areas can be established, a marked bias in protected area coverage remains. Protected areas in Britain tend toward regions of higher elevation, soils of lower economic potential, and coastal/estuarine habitat and fail adequately to represent areas of lower elevation and woodland habitats. Improving the current situation requires not only a more systematic approach to site selection, but a more equitable and diverse portfolio of incentives for private landowners to facilitate the decision to manage sites for conservation.
对保护区有效性的评估常常指出,保护区在环境条件、土地覆盖和生物多样性的区域差异方面代表性不足。一个常见的原因解释是,法定保护严重依赖于指定公共土地而非私人土地。鉴于英国的保护区指定没有这样的限制,实际上超过一半的此类区域位于私人土地上,我们检验了一个先验假设,即在该区域内,法定保护区内环境条件和土地覆盖的代表性会更加公平。尽管在保护区设立地点上土地所有权限制有所减少,但保护区覆盖仍存在明显偏差。英国的保护区倾向于海拔较高、经济潜力较低的土壤以及沿海/河口栖息地,未能充分代表低海拔地区和林地栖息地。要改善当前状况,不仅需要更系统的选址方法,还需要为私人土地所有者提供更公平、多样的激励措施,以促使他们做出管理土地用于保护的决定。