Reserves in context: planning for leakage from protected areas

Renwick, Anna R., Bode, Michael, and Venter, Oscar (2015) Reserves in context: planning for leakage from protected areas. PLoS ONE, 10 (6). e0129441.

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Abstract

When protected areas reduce threats within their boundaries, they often displace a portion of these threats into adjacent areas through a process known as 'leakage', undermining conservation objectives. Using theoretical models and a case study of terrestrial mammals in Indonesia, we develop the first theoretical explanation of how leakage impacts conservation actions, and highlight conservation strategies that mitigate these impacts. Although leakage is a socio-economic process, we demonstrate that its negative impacts are also affected by the distribution of species, with leakage having larger impacts in landscapes with homogeneous distribution of species richness. Moreover, leakage has a greater negative effect when conservation strategies are implemented opportunistically, even creating the potential for perversely negative consequences from protected area establishment. Leakage thereby increases the relative benefits of systematic conservation planning over opportunism, especially in areas with high leakage and heterogeneously distributed species. Although leakage has the potential to undermine conservation actions, conservation planning can minimize this risk.

Item ID: 41988
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1932-6203
Additional Information:

© 2015 Renwick et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funders: Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions
Projects and Grants: ARC grants DE130100572 and DP110102872
Date Deposited: 08 Dec 2015 17:20
FoR Codes: 05 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 0502 Environmental Science and Management > 050202 Conservation and Biodiversity @ 100%
SEO Codes: 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9613 Remnant Vegetation and Protected Conservation Areas > 961399 Remnant Vegetation and Protected Conservation Areas not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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