Issues and Myths in Protected Area Conservation: Tradeoffs and Synergies (IMPACTS)

Protected areas are often viewed as an effective way of conserving ecosystems and wildlife around the world, and are rapidly expanding. If global targets are achieved they will soon cover 1/5 of the land surface and 1/10 of the coasts and seas, influencing the lives of millions of people who live in and around them. The social costs of these areas can be high ranging from eviction to resource use restrictions, and can often impact the poorest people most reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods.

International policy commitments emphasise that protected areas should at the very least not exacerbate poverty and should be equitably managed with local people involved in decision-making. Many conservation organisations now focus their mission not only on biodiversity but poverty alleviation and the promotion of human well-being. But progress on creating positive social impacts through conservation has been limited, and the factors involved in success complex and unclear. Often simplified assumptions are made about the relationships between social and ecological outcomes of protected areas. For example, by focusing on material outcomes and compensation, other aspects of human well-being such as relationships and subjective experiences are ignored. Looking at only average impacts ignores that there may be winners and losers across different groups of people.

It is generally agreed that conservation policy and practice should be evidence-based, but attempts to collate current evidence on the social impacts of protected areas have focused on quantitative data. This can simplify what are often complex processes and dynamic relationships between fine-scaled historical, cultural and institutional processes, local understandings about justice and social impacts, and ecological effectiveness. Qualitative evidence can provide important insights into processes involved in social impacts, how relationships between social and environmental outcomes may vary with different contextual factors, and intra-household, age and gender differences in impacts. Evidence that considers these kinds of nuances, and uses concepts of well-being and justice is emerging from ESPA projects and beyond.

The IMPACTS (Issues and Myths in Protected Area Conservation: Trade-offs and Synergies) project aims to enhance understandings of the social impacts of protected areas, and the ways they in turn influence ecological outcomes, in order to inform more socially and environmentally sustainable governance.

The project will convene an interdisciplinary expert Working Group who will work collaboratively to review and synthesise the current state of knowledge on the social and environmental outcomes of protected areas. It will involve a systematic and global review of a variety of different quantitative and qualitative evidence types including from the academic literature, non-academic reports, and ESPA projects, and use innovative narrative synthesis methods to analyse and present the results. The review will identify circumstances under which positive relationships emerge between (poverty alleviation) and environmental (ecosystem services) outcomes of protected areas: what works, where, how and why?

By engaging with policy-makers, conservation practitioners, and donors through workshops, non-technical briefings, and meetings, the project will inform policy and debate on protected areas and natural resource management more broadly, providing decision-makers and local communities with knowledge to advocate for and implement management that can enhance both social and environmental outcomes.

It will also benefit researchers by identifying gaps in the evidence base, and areas most in need of research, and will generate a comprehensive database of evidence which will be openly accessible to researchers wanting to find and use evidence on protected areas.

The IMPACTS project ultimately aims to help reduce poverty especially in low income countries. The global scale of the synthesis, and the focus on identifying policy relevant synergies and solutions has the potential to impact the millions of people living in and around protected areas (PAs), many of whom are in low income countries and who are reliant on ecosystem services.

Firstly, the synthesis will add value by generating conceptual advancement in our understandings of synergies between ecosystem and social outcomes in PAs, using an ESPA perspective. It will also enhance accessibility of ESPA's body of evidence, and place it in the context of wider evidence. Lastly, it will clarify the strengths and weaknesses, and gaps in current research on how PAs can better reduce poverty and enhance human well-being, to inform future research activity.

The impacts will reach the primary beneficiaries (poor people in low income countries) through intermediary users and creators of the research. The research process will engage these intermediaries at multiple scales to filter knowledge at different levels shaping policy and practice that ultimately impacts on the ways that protected areas are implemented and managed. These groups are:
1) policy makers at a country level and internationally - who will benefit from increased understanding of what works and the implications of the research for existing policies. This will influence the investments and design of policies that guide effective and equitable governance of protected areas, therefore improving management of ecosystems for wellbeing
2) protected area managers at a site level - who will gain a greater knowledge regarding factors that are likely to enhance synergies between environmental and social outcomes, and conceptual understanding of social-ecological systems, which will aid in management decisions
3) community and civil society organisations - who will be equipped with new knowledge regarding the impacts of protected areas, and aspects of governance that could improve outcomes, allowing them to advocate for more equitable management of protected areas. The project will engage with organisations that work with CSOs such as the Forest Peoples Programme.
4) donors e.g. DFID - who fund conservation and development projects and research, supporting their funding decisions, future programme development and the ways that they evaluate impacts
5) academics and researchers - by highlighting where to focus future research efforts.