Parks, Refuges Poorly Managed in Many Developing Countries
12/3/99
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Title: World's wilderness in trouble: Parks, refuges poorly
managed in many developing countries
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 3, 1999
Most national parks and wildlife refuges in developing countries are
poorly managed and a scant 1 percent are permanently secure, the
World Bank and a leading wildlife protection group said Thursday.
Their report covers about half the world's remaining forested
wilderness and provides the first concrete evidence of a major global
problem even in government-protected areas, according to bank and
World Wildlife Fund officials, who have formed an alliance for forest
conservation.
The alliance launched a joint plan Thursday to improve management and
protection of 125 million acres of threatened national parks and
other protected areas by 2005.
"Forests around the world are disappearing at the rate of one acre a
second," said Kathryn S. Fuller, World Wildlife Fund president.
The report prepared for the alliance by the World Conservation Union
gives a dire picture of "paper parks" -- parks in name only -- saying
they are in danger of being overrun by human settlement, agriculture,
logging, hunting, mining, pollution, war, tourism or other pressures.
In all, 61 percent of forests in the countries studied -- China,
Papua New Guinea, Russia, Tanzania, Gabon, Mexico, Vietnam,
Indonesia, Brazil and Peru -- are considered secure, but only 1
percent are considered permanently secure, the study said.
About 22 percent of the supposedly protected parks suffered various
levels of degradation, with 5 percent degraded throughout and some of
it no longer worth protecting, the study said.
"We're talking about the last frontier on the planet," said Bruce
Cabarle, co-chairman of the alliance.
The plan to help preserve parkland calls for the bank and the
wildlife group to work with government conservation organizations,
indigenous people and others to "develop a system for implementation,
improving and monitoring management of these protected areas."
Most of the money will come from the $400 million Global
Environmental Facility managed by the bank. The fund donated by rich
countries provides grants for environmental projects and already has
committed $35 million for Brazil to establish more than 60 million
acres of protected area and $10 million for Peru to protect more than
12 million acres.
Alliance projects also are under way in Vietnam, where the local wood
furniture industry has contributed $1 million, and Georgia, where a
new forestry code has been adopted.
Bank President James Wolfensohn said the initiative is part of the
bank's goal of alleviating world poverty.
"Development can't be effectively achieved without regard for
environmental and social concerns," Wolfensohn said.