Do Protected Areas Matter? A Systematic Review of the Social and Ecological Impacts of the Establishment of Protected Areas

Ben Ma, Yuqian Zhang, Yilei Hou and Yali Wen
Additional contact information
Ben Ma: School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
Yuqian Zhang: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
Yilei Hou: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Yali Wen: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 19, 1-13

Abstract: There is growing interest in evaluating the effects of establishing protected areas (PAs). However, the mechanisms through which the establishment of PAs achieved significant positive effects remain unclear, and how different conservation mechanisms have achieved significant positive social and ecological benefits has also not been sufficiently studied. In this study, we systematically reviewed exemplary cases from Asia, Africa, and South America, using panel data to assess the conservation effectiveness of nature reserves and national parks. By surveying 629 literature samples reported in 31 studies, we found that the establishment of PAs has positive influences on poverty reduction, family incomes, household expenditure, employment, forest cover, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and a reduction in forest fragmentation. Furthermore, we analyzed the specific aspects that influence the publication of a paper in a high-impact journal. We found that publication is more likely when the research uses panel data, matching methods of data analysis, large samples, and plots or PAs as research units and has significant evaluation results. Our results suggest that future studies should use panel data and matching method analysis to assess the impacts of PAs from multiple perspectives and focus on the effectiveness of specific conservation mechanisms in achieving positive effects.

Keywords: social effects; ecological effects; protected area; systematic review; conservation mechanism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/7259/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/7259/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:19:p:7259-:d:423696

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().