Title
Chapter Title: A global perspective on the role of protected areas in protecting natural capital
Book Title: Valuing Nature: Protected Areas and Ecosystem Services.
Author(s)
Watson, J.E.M.
Published
2015
Abstract
The collective decisions of governments, publicly-funded bodies and local communities have resulted in a rapid growth of national parks, nature reserves and protected wilderness areas throughout the world. It is possible that apart from agricultural expansion, land and sea management has never changed so quickly over such a large area. As of April 2014, the official global portfolio of nationally-designated protected areas numbered over 163,000 and covered 18.4 million square kilometers, or 12.5%, of the terrestrial realm and about 10.1 million square kilometers (or 3%) of the world’s marine environments (IUCN and UNEP-WCMC, 2014).As natural ecosystems shrink and fragment in many parts of the world, protected areas are now expected to fulfil the different needs of a growing range of stakeholders, primarily around protecting natural capital. Natural capital is defined here as the stock of natural ecosystems that yields a flow of valuable ecosystem goods or services into the future. It is the extension of the economic notion of capital (manufactured means of production) to goods and services relating to the natural environment. The following is a summary of the findings of a review on the role of protected areas in protecting natural capital (Watson et al., 2014). It focuses on three components of natural capital that have been well studied: 1) species and ecosystems; 2) carbon; and 3) water.
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PUB15761