Baldi Germán, Texeira Marcos, Martin Osvaldo A, Grau H Ricardo, Jobbágy Esteban G
Instituto de Matemática Aplicada San Luis, Universidad Nacional de San Luis & CONICET , San Luis , Argentina.
Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura, Universidad de Buenos Aires & CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
PeerJ. 2017 Feb 15;5:e2989. doi: 10.7717/peerj.2989. eCollection 2017.
Protected areas, regarded today as a cornerstone of nature conservation, result from an array of multiple motivations and opportunities. We explored at global and regional levels the current distribution of protected areas along biophysical, human, and biological gradients, and assessed to what extent protection has pursued (i) a balanced representation of biophysical environments, (ii) a set of preferred conditions (biological, spiritual, economic, or geopolitical), or (iii) existing opportunities for conservation regardless of any representation or preference criteria.
We used histograms to describe the distribution of terrestrial protected areas along biophysical, human, and biological independent gradients and linear and non-linear regression and correlation analyses to describe the sign, shape, and strength of the relationships. We used a random forest analysis to rank the importance of different variables related to conservation preferences and opportunity drivers, and an evenness metric to quantify representativeness.
We find that protection at a global level is primarily driven by the opportunities provided by isolation and a low population density (variable importance = 34.6 and 19.9, respectively). Preferences play a secondary role, with a bias towards tourism attractiveness and proximity to international borders (variable importance = 12.7 and 3.4, respectively). Opportunities shape protection strongly in "North America & Australia-NZ" and "Latin America & Caribbean," while the importance of the representativeness of biophysical environments is higher in "Sub-Saharan Africa" (1.3 times the average of other regions).
Environmental representativeness and biodiversity protection are top priorities in land conservation agendas. However, our results suggest that they have been minor players driving current protection at both global and regional levels. Attempts to increase their relevance will necessarily have to recognize the predominant opportunistic nature that the establishment of protected areas has had until present times.
如今，保护区被视为自然保护的基石，其形成源于一系列多重动机和机遇。我们在全球和区域层面探讨了保护区沿生物物理、人类和生物梯度的当前分布情况，并评估了保护工作在多大程度上追求：（i）生物物理环境的均衡代表性；（ii）一组优选条件（生物、精神、经济或地缘政治方面）；或（iii）无论任何代表性或偏好标准的现有保护机遇。
我们使用直方图来描述陆地保护区沿生物物理、人类和生物独立梯度的分布情况，并使用线性和非线性回归及相关性分析来描述关系的符号、形状和强度。我们使用随机森林分析对与保护偏好和机遇驱动因素相关的不同变量的重要性进行排名，并使用均匀度指标来量化代表性。
我们发现，全球层面的保护主要由隔离和低人口密度所提供的机遇驱动（变量重要性分别为34.6和19.9）。偏好发挥次要作用，偏向于旅游吸引力和靠近国际边界（变量重要性分别为12.7和3.4）。机遇在“北美及澳大利亚 - 新西兰”和“拉丁美洲及加勒比地区”对保护的塑造作用很强，而生物物理环境代表性的重要性在“撒哈拉以南非洲”更高（是其他地区平均水平的1.3倍）。
环境代表性和生物多样性保护是土地保护议程的首要任务。然而，我们的结果表明，它们在全球和区域层面推动当前保护工作方面一直是次要因素。要提高它们的相关性，就必须认识到迄今为止保护区建立所具有的主要机会主义性质。
