IUCN/WCPA Protected Areas Program: Making Space for People and Biodiversity in the Anthropocene - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 330

22.1 Introduction

Protected areas 1 have emerged as a cultural feature and perhaps the largest land
resource allocation decision in human history. They are considered necessary, but
not suffi cient, tools to avert or reduce the rate of biodiversity loss. There is mounting
evidence that they are effective in maintaining biodiversity, but biodiversity continues
to be lost in spite of the rapidly growing number of protected areas. Today protected
areas are, in reality, a suite of land/sea-based mechanisms to achieve nature conser-
vation, and more properly should be known as “conservation areas” because protec-
tion alone has never been suffi cient to achieve their intended objectives. In the face
of global climate change, and more broadly global environmental change, they are
not protected from large scale processes such as rising CO 2 concentration, ocean
acidifi cation, accumulation in other biogeochemical cycles, increased severity and
variability of hydro meteorological events, and rising temperatures, among many
other problems.
Over the last decade the term “Anthropocene” (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000 ),
has gained acceptance and simultaneously generated debate around biodiversity
conservation. It even has been proposed that we concentrate on processes and leave
biodiversity as such as a casualty of triage in a world that does not give intrinsic

1 For the purpose of this paper protected areas will mean those fulfi lling the International Union for
Conservation of Nature defi nition of: a clearly defi ned geographical space, recognized, dedicated
and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long term conservation of
nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values ( http://www.iucn.org/about/work/
programmes/gpap_home/pas_gpap/ )
E. Mueller
World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), San José , Costa Rica
e-mail: [e-mail]
M. Vierros
International Organizations Center, United Nations University Institute
of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), Yokohama , Japan
e-mail: [e-mail]
L. Welling
Climate Change Response , U.S. National Parks Service , Fort Collins , CO , USA
e-mail: [e-mail]
S. Woodley
World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Ottawa , Canada
e-mail: [e-mail]
N. Dudley
World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Natural Solutions, Bristol , UK
e-mail: [e-mail]