ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
Making parks make a difference: poor alignment of policy, planning and management with protected-area impact, and ways forward.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prioritizing reducing impacts on species to minimize residual reserves.Science advances · 2026Article
- Emerging design principles for environmental, economic, and equity successes in land conservation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Assessing the variability and vulnerability of carbon function in coastal soft sediment ecosystems to inform protection.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Balancing High Densities and Conservation Targets to Optimise Koala Management Strategies.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Role of protected areas in mitigating range loss and local extinctions of terrestrial mammals.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- Evaluating protected areas' coverage of threats to terrestrial biodiversity.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- Identifying priority areas for conservation to promote connectivity and mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of protected areas in the Caucasus Mountains in preventing rangeland degradation.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- Design and management considerations for the Kenya-Tanzania marine transboundary conservation area.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Review
- Insights from a 31-year study demonstrate an inverse correlation between recreational activities and red deer fecundity, with bodyweight as a mediator.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Incorporating sense of place into the management of social-ecological systems: The researchers' perspectives.PloS one · 2024Article
- Assessing the impacts of recreation on the spatial and temporal activity of mammals in an isolated alpine protected area.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Linking small-scale fisheries co-management to U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2022Article
- An Outcome-Oriented, Social-Ecological Framework for Assessing Protected Area Effectiveness.Bioscience · 2022Article
- The role of protected areas in maintaining natural vegetation in Brazil.Science advances · 2021Article
- Decision-support tools for dynamic management.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2020Article
- Conservation of terrestrial invertebrates: a review of IUCN and regional Red Lists for Myriapoda.ZooKeys · 2020Article
- Extensive vegetation browning and drying in forests of India's Tiger Reserves.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Gravity of human impacts mediates coral reef conservation gains.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Policy and practice around protected areas are poorly aligned with the basic purpose of protection, which is to make a difference. The difference made by protected areas is their impact, defined in program evaluation as the outcomes arising from protection relative to the counterfactual of no protection or a different form of protection. Although impact evaluation of programs is well established in fields such as medicine, education and development aid, it is rare in nature conservation. We show that the present weak alignment with impact of policy targets and operational objectives for protected areas involves a great risk: targets and objectives can be achieved while making little difference to the conservation of biodiversity. We also review potential ways of increasing the difference made by protected areas, finding a poor evidence base for the use of planning and management 'levers' to better achieve impact. We propose a dual strategy for making protected areas more effective in their basic role of saving nature, outlining ways of developing targets and objectives focused on impact while also improving the evidence for effective planning and management.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.