However, PA effectiveness in maintaining wildlife populations within their boundaries can be challenged by inadequate governance and external pressures. This perception that some PAs are failing has precipitated calls to systematically quantify PA effectiveness and to improve methodologies in order to reach this goal. In this context, our research objectives are to develop matching methodologies allowing to pair sites inside and outside PAs that have similar ecological and socio-political characteristics in order to improve assessments of PA effectiveness. This is essential to understand barriers to effective PA management at different spatial and temporal scales. Two projects developed at GCC aim to understand PA ecological outcomes in terms of halting deforestation in tropical ecosystems and maintaining wildlife populations in boreal landscapes.
Projects and Researchers
Terraube, J., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Cabeza, M. 2017. The role of protected areas in supporting human health: a call to broaden the assessment of conservation outcomes. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 25: 50-58.
Terraube, J. 2019. Can protected areas mitigate Lyme disease risk in Fennoscandia? First Online in EcoHealth. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-019-01408-4