Abstract
Human Influence and Protected Area Management Track: Ecology and Conservation Author(s): Malanding Jaiteh, Eric Sanderson, Marc levy Growing concern about the state of the world's biodiversity has led to the establishment of thousands of protected areas in virtually every country, covering millions of hectares. Although a number of these parks have provided basic safeguard against biodiversity loss, many are affected by numerous biophysical, socioeconomic and managerial problems such as being situated on the least productive soils, habitat fragmentation, and illegal harvesting of resources. Overall the effectiveness of protected area management is dependent on the systems design, the adequacy of the management processes and the ecological integrity. The paper will examine the relative ranking of countries in terms of the adequacy of the protected systems and the level of threats and pressures as measured by the human influence index. The most effective are those countries with a protected area management system covering the widest range of ecosystems with the least threats and pressures. Malanding Jaiteh Columbia University CIESIN 61 Route 9W Palisades , NY 10927 US Phone: 845 365 8984 Fax: 845 365 8922 E-mail: mjaiteh@ciesin.columbia.edu Eric Sanderson Wildlife Conservation Society 2300 Southern Blvd. Bronx New York City , NY 10460 US Phone: (718) 220-6825 E-mail: esanderson@wcs.org Marc levy Columbia University CIESIN 61 Route 9W Palisades , NY 10964 US Phone: 845 365 8964 E-mail: mlevy@ciesin.columbia.edu |
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