This is the tenth (and final) blog in a series of weekly blog posts covering conservation topics with a focus on protected areas and the laws and institutions that support them (or don’t).

When you think about national parks, wildlife reserves, marine sanctuaries, or other protected lands or waters, what pops into your mind? Perhaps you envision amazing animals, peaceful getaways, or the potential for fun adventures. Chances are that you live nearby a protected area, whether it be local, state, or nationally designated. In fact, there are more than 200,000 nationally established protected areas in the world according to the latest estimates from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. You can locate your local protected areas here. Protected lands and waters provide endless resources to people, including carbon storage, filtration of clean water, natural products, and a sense of peace and serenity in nature. Maps that display protected places are usually viewed as a snapshot. However, have you ever thought about the dynamic nature of protected areas? It turns out that although the number of protected areas and the land and waters they cover has been increasing in recent years, there are many instances around the world of changes that have reduced the size or status of protected areas or even removed protection completely.

Protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD) is an acronym to encapsulate the legal changes that make protected areas weaker, smaller, or delete them entirely. Researchers have worked to collect data on PADDD and have made it available online at PADDDtracker.org. This site, although intuitive to use, has a few important technical components that users should be familiar with when exploring or using the data. This blog post presents a quick “primer” and answers to FAQs about PADDDtracker. The intended audiences of PADDDtracker include scientists, park managers and other conservation practitioners, students, and companies considering investments in conservation or other development projects.

First of all, what is a protected area?

For the purposes of defining a PADDD event for PADDDtracker, a protected area is:

“a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values.” (IUCN Definition 2008)

While doing research on PADDD, it’s important to identify whether a legal change is actually affecting a protected area as defined by IUCN and not some other type of intervention (a payment for ecosystem services scheme, a forest certification area, etc).

What do all of those D’s stand for? A dega-what?

A downgrade is the legal allowance of additional human activities within a protected area. These could include industrial development and extraction (e.g. oil drilling, agriculture, mining, tourism), or could even include subsistence-level harvesting of natural resources (artesanal fishing).

A downsize is the reduction in size of a protected area caused by a change in the law.

A degazette is the complete legal deletion of a protected area. To “gazette” is to write down or establish an area, so to degazette is to remove it from the law.

Why are some circles highlighted?

PADDDtracker differentiates between enacted (already passed into law) and proposed (put forth but not yet passed) PADDD events. Highlighted circles show proposed events. When doing research on PADDD, it’s important to verify the current status of proposals – some may have been enacted recently or may no longer be under consideration.

What are those other terms on the Advanced Search?

Cause: Many PADDD events (but not all) have a known proximate cause that primarily drove the legal change. The cause of legal changes can usually be identified within the law itself. If the cause of a PADDD event does not fall into one of the fourteen causes in the list (e.g. tourism development), it falls under “Other” or is perhaps “Unknown.”

IUCN category: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature provides guidance on the categorization of protected areas into 6 categories. Category I is the strictest, while VI is the least strict. Sometimes, a downgrade causes the change in the IUCN category of a protected area; however, this does not always occur.

Reverse: Sometimes, PADDD events are withdrawn, even after enactment. For example, there is currently a proposed law in Congress that would reverse the 1906 downsize of Yosemite National Park and add that portion back to the park. Hence, enacted events can be reversed, even years later. In addition, proposed events can also be reversed. In other words, proposals that are retracted or abandoned are considered as reversed PADDD proposals.

Offset: Occasionally, to compensate for the reduction or deletion of a protected area, a law subsequently adds a parcel of land to the park in a different location. Offsets may make up the difference in the area lost but also may not.

Systemic: Oftentimes, one law to change protected areas affects many parks simultaneously. For example, a law may affect all National Parks or all National Forests at the same time.

How can I get summary information on PADDD quickly and easily?

There are two easy ways to do this. The first: access an Event Profile for any PADDD event by clicking on the corresponding dot on the map and selecting Event Profile. This will give you a summary of the information about that particular legal change. Scroll down to access details about the event.

The second way to get information quickly: access a Country Profile by clicking on a locality on the map outside of a PADDD event dot on the nation you are interested in. Scroll down to access pie charts and a timeline summarizing the data for that country.

Where do the data come from?

Some data on PADDDtracker have been published in conjunction with peer-reviewed articles (e.g. Mascia and Pailler 2011; Mascia et al. 2014), but some have not been validated by peer-review. Some data are currently under review or in preparation for publication. A subset of the validated data can be downloaded here. A portion of the data on PADDDtracker, however, have been contributed by “the crowd” including users and contributors from around the world. Hence, there may be duplicate entries of PADDD events and some out of date information, for example, on the current status of proposed events.

How do I share PADDD on Social Media?

Sharing PADDD events and country profiles on social media – facebook and twitter – is easy. When you want to share a page, simply click on the facebook or twitter icon on the top right-hand corner of the screen to share instantly.

How do I conduct research using PADDD data?

Some of the data on PADDD are available to download. These data comprise the data which have been validated by peer review and do not include all PADDD data points that you see online. You can download the data here. Before working with the data, do read the technical guide (here) which defines key terms and provides decision trees about the delineation and definition of PADDD events and fields.

This is exciting. There is so much potential for research on PADDD! Where do I learn even more about PADDD and PADDDtracker!?

More information on PADDD can be found in the technical guide. This document will come in handy if you plan to work with PADDD data for research. For instance, the flow charts help you determine if something is actually a PADDD event and what category “D” it falls into. Also, for the latest science, check out the new peer-reviewed paper about impacts of PADDD on tropical deforestation and carbon emissions (Forrest et al. 2015 – open access).

Start exploring PADDDtracker today!

This is the last entry of the summer blog series. Next week, the fall blog series focused on evaluating conservation interventions and building the evidence base for conservation will begin.

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