Reserves in practice
Often we are not able to meet our objectives in the previous "theoretical" approach.
So how well do reserves work in practice? As usual, it depends. There are stories of
success and failure. We'll look at these as we proceed.
Reserves need to meet the needs of the species:
This is getting old, but it's good to say it again. Unless a reserve includes the
habitat needed by a species, and/or eliminates the cause of the decline of the
species, it will not achieve it's objective. Two simple examples:
White rhino in South Africa was thought to be extinct in 1892 (mostly due
to hunting).
- in the early 1900's, about a dozen rhinos were found and then
protected in a game reserve.
- by 1994, numbers had recovered to 6,000
In contrast, reserves for protecting butterflies in Britain failed:
- extinction rates were similar in protected and unprotected areas
- the primary cause of the low success is that the required
successional plants were missing. The area had to be constantly
perturbed in the right way.
Some other examples illustrating specific points/problems:
Insufficient knowledge of the ecology/habitat:
- Western Swamp Turtle - thought to be extinct until rediscovered
in the 1950's.
- those areas where it was found were set up as two reserves.
- unfortunately, these areas were suboptimal habitat.
- all turtles in the larger reserve went extinct.
- only 20-30 survived in the smaller reserve.
- a program of swamp rehabilitation, increasing reserve size, and
removing fox predation is the solution.
- it is not clear if any of this has been implemented, but it is
now surviving in two reserves, one of which is being
restocked by captive-bred individuals.
Tourism and dual objectives:
The central Indian barasinga deer was in trouble due to dual
objectives.
- Reserve for the deer was set up in response to a decline in
numbers.
- unfortunately, the park also included provisions
for tourism and agriculture.
- to increase tourism, feeding stations for tigers
("tiger baiting") were set up.
- in addition, grazing and burning were permitted.
- by 1970, only 66 deer were left.
- one problem is that tiger feeding was confounded
with agriculture (both happened at about the same
time, so it was hard to tell which was more
important).
- tiger baiting was stopped, grazing prohibited (this
allowed better hiding places for fawns).
- in addition, the reserve was slightly enlarged, and
water supplies were improved.
- deer numbers are recovering.
Lack of enforcement:
We've talked about this many times. But one example is the
continuing demand for tiger products, which offset the initial gains
due to project tiger (we talked about this one quite a bit).
A reserve on paper without enforcement of applicable laws is
useless.
Another issue here is that reserves are sometimes counter-
productive. By setting up reserves, poachers know where the
animals are!
See also the box in the text on rhinos - numbers seem to decline
and recover depending on the degree of enforcement to prevent
poaching.
Reserves are not immune from environmental disasters:
The heath hen was established in a protected reserve (island) off
the U.S. east coast. Numbers recovered from 50 to 2,000.
- unfortunately, a rather unfortunate sequence of environmental
disasters hit the reserve and wiped out the heath hen:
- in 1916 a fire wiped out much of the breeding habitat.
- this was followed by a very harsh winter, and an influx of
goshawks.
- the remaining heath hens succumbed to a disease brought
onto the island by domestic turkeys.
- By 1927, only 13 were left, mostly male. The last one
died out in 1932.
More on dual usage:
A slightly different angle this time.
- Sometimes it might be judicious to allow some dual usage
under carefully controlled conditions - this might prevent
illegal activities.
- Some parks allow occasional forays into the park for
harvesting of grass or other materials providing it's done in
a prescribed manner.
We'll do a lot more with this dual usage idea shortly.
Larger is not always better:
Kauri snails do better in smaller patches, since pigs don't like
smaller patches (pigs eat snails).
Size is not a guarantee:
- Estimates show that even in North America, very few parks are
large enough to maintain a large assemblage of predators.
- This may require intensive management to sustain large
predators.
- Of course, this requires a thorough understanding of the
biology/ecology of the concerned species, something that is
often lacking.
Large carnivores:
These have their own set of problems:
- Raid livestock, and are thus resented by people living in
the area who often kill them.
- The authors suggest a cash compensation scheme for lost
livestock.
- unfortunately there are instances were people try to
collect far more cash compensation that they're
entitled to (often reporting many more animals lost,
or faking a killing, or even using different animals
to try and convince authorities that there was a
"leopard" kill.
- nevertheless, with some safeguards, it's probably
not a bad system.
- Of course, large carnivores also kill people. The
Sunderbans is a classic example. People enter the park for
wood & honey, and are often killed.
- Apparently people are allowed to enter the park.
- Management has included averse conditioning of tigers
with electric dummies, alternative food and water sources,
reduction of permits for entering areas known to be tiger
intensive (such as near tiger dens).
- Number of people killed has dropped, but then the number
of people entering the park has doubled because of this.
Off reserve conservation:
These are managed areas where the main objective is to allow some dual use while
affording a degree of protection. They are often divided into three categories:
- land linking reserves (i.e., corridors, etc.)
- land used to buffer reserves from surrounding land use practices
- multiuse land, with a secondary objective being conservation.
Technically, even other lands qualify though (such as privately owned land).
Remember that these lands are less than perfect, but they often help out quite a bit.
An example of this arrangement:
- 1.6 million hectare Maya Biosphere Reserve:
- contains four national parks and three protected "biotopes" making up
about half the area.
- the rest is a buffer for the reserves and is used by about 6,000 people
making use of the forest and forest products.
Another good example of where this is helpful is endangered Australian mammals again:
8 mammals are found only on a single reserve, though 2 also exist on private
lands.
10 species are found in off reserves as well as reserves.
4 are only on private lands (though unprotected - obviously it would be nice to
offer some degree of protection here).
More on dual use problems:
Often it is just assumed that dual use is all right. But this is often not the case.
Grazing has a negative impact in many instances.
Managing national forests for maximum lumbar yield has been detrimental to the
red-cockaded woodpecker (and 63% of known colonies exist in national forests).
Buffer zones:
An attractive idea that does not always work. However, an example cited in the
text concerns water buffalo.
- People living around the reserve resented the fact that they could not
enter the reserve for thatch, wood, fishing etc.
- buffalo raided surrounding farms.
- Buffers were set up to deal with both problems.
- Question - did people have to move to make room for the buffer?
- Not clear wether it worked.
Off reserve systems should be subject to the same considerations as reserves:
- the biology of what is going on should be the underlying factor taken into
consideration.
Off reserve systems can be shown to work quite well in some instances:
- About 1/3 of the black rhinos in Kenya are on privately held lands.
- (the costs is huge - $ 5,000,000.00 between 1984 and 1991)
- there is no guarantee, however, that these "private" reserves will stay that
way in the future.