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Understanding protected area resilience: a multi‐scale, social‐ecological approach
Author(s) -
Cumming Graeme S.,
Allen Craig R.,
Ban Natalie C.,
Biggs Duan,
Biggs Harry C.,
Cumming David H. M.,
De Vos Alta,
Epstein Graham,
Etienne Michel,
Maciejewski Kristine,
Mathevet Raphaël,
Moore Christine,
Nenadovic Mateja,
Schoon Michael
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
ecological applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.864
H-Index - 213
eISSN - 1939-5582
pISSN - 1051-0761
DOI - 10.1890/13-2113.1
Subject(s) - ecology , ecological resilience , ecological systems theory , psychological resilience , scale (ratio) , functional ecology , sustainability , environmental resource management , resilience (materials science) , ecosystem , geography , environmental science , biology , psychology , physics , cartography , psychotherapist , thermodynamics
Protected areas (PAs) remain central to the conservation of biodiversity. Classical PAs were conceived as areas that would be set aside to maintain a natural state with minimal human influence. However, global environmental change and growing cross‐scale anthropogenic influences mean that PAs can no longer be thought of as ecological islands that function independently of the broader social‐ecological system in which they are located. For PAs to be resilient (and to contribute to broader social‐ecological resilience), they must be able to adapt to changing social and ecological conditions over time in a way that supports the long‐term persistence of populations, communities, and ecosystems of conservation concern. We extend Ostrom's social‐ecological systems framework to consider the long‐term persistence of PAs, as a form of land use embedded in social‐ecological systems, with important cross‐scale feedbacks. Most notably, we highlight the cross‐scale influences and feedbacks on PAs that exist from the local to the global scale, contextualizing PAs within multi‐scale social‐ecological functional landscapes. Such functional landscapes are integral to understand and manage individual PAs for long‐term sustainability. We illustrate our conceptual contribution with three case studies that highlight cross‐scale feedbacks and social‐ecological interactions in the functioning of PAs and in relation to regional resilience. Our analysis suggests that while ecological, economic, and social processes are often directly relevant to PAs at finer scales, at broader scales, the dominant processes that shape and alter PA resilience are primarily social and economic.