Did global prioritization schemes impact the placement of protected areas?
2025

Impact of Global Conservation Prioritization Schemes on Protected Areas

Sample size: 968978 publication 10 minutes Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Tjaden-McClement Katie, Naidoo Robin, Brennan Angela, Burton A. Cole

Primary Institution: Department of Forest Resources Management, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Hypothesis

Do the Hotspots and Last of the Wild prioritization schemes positively influence the creation of protected areas?

Conclusion

The Last of the Wild scheme positively impacted the rate of protected area growth, while the Biodiversity Hotspots scheme did not.

Supporting Evidence

  • Last of the Wild had a positive impact on the rate of protection in its identified priority areas.
  • Biodiversity Hotspots did not show a significant increase in protected area coverage.
  • Protection rates in Hotspots closely tracked control areas, indicating no significant difference.

Takeaway

This study looked at two conservation plans to see if they helped protect nature. One plan worked well, but the other didn't help much.

Methodology

The study used matching methods and a Before-After Control-Impact causal analysis to evaluate the impact of two prioritization schemes on protected area establishment.

Potential Biases

Potential unobserved variables could have influenced the results.

Limitations

The study could not include biodiversity variables as matching covariates, which may have influenced results.

Statistical Information

P-Value

p = 0.00081

Statistical Significance

p<0.05

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1371/journal.pone.0307730

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