Special places

I've handed the reins of my blog over to Mark Avery for most of June. Mark's sharing the successes and challenges of saving nature around the world in the run up to the Rio+20 Earth Summit.

Everywhere you go you see wildlife, but some places are better than others. A cornerstone of nature conservation is to try to protect the very best places for wildlife.

The first National Park (NP) in the world was Yellowstone NP in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, USA, and was designated in 1872. Across the Pacific Ocean, Australia’s first National Park was Royal NP south of Sydney in 1879. Virunga NP in the Democratic Republic of Congo was Africa’s first National Park and came into existence in 1925. Americans sometimes describe National Parks as ‘America’s best idea’ (although their inventor was the Scottish-born John Muir). The UK took up this idea rather belatedly with the Peak District NP in 1951.

In reality, there have long been areas set aside, and managed, for nature to thrive but originally these were seen as hunting preserves and over time the emphasis has shifted to protecting places for nature’s sake and so that people can enjoy the wildlife riches of the planet. 

National Parks are slightly different concepts in different countries, and across the world we have added to the complexity of the network of protected areas for wildlife by adding all sorts of new and varying designations and titles. In the UK we now have Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Areas of Special Scientific Interest (in Northern Ireland alone), Special Protection Areas for birds, Ramsar sites, Nature Improvement Areas and many many more. It’s an alphabet soup of designations and, I think, a list of off-putting and unappealing names.

Few people live further than a few miles from one of the c7000 Site of Special Scientific Interest (and ASSIs) in the UK and yet I doubt that 2% of people could name a single site let alone the one nearest to where they live. These designations, as designations, have not captured people’s attention or imagination. Somewhere along the line we forgot to give them a good image.

But although the woman on the Clapham omnibus will not be able to name her nearest SSSI I bet she will know of the existence of Wimbledon Common (which is her nearest SSSI) and may enjoy its open spaces and the breath of nature it brings into London. And I would be sure that most local voters would want Wimbledon Common to be protected more or less as it is for the future.

The mere survival of some of these wildlife areas in our crowded island says much for the effectiveness of the protected area system but we can also demonstrate that these designations have worked for the species they were designed to protect. A study published in the journal Science in 2007 showed that those species that had highest protection under the EU Birds Directive had fared better in the EU than outside the EU and had fared better in the years after the Directive came into force than they had before. And species fared best in those countries which had protected the greatest areas for them.

Enthusiasm for protected areas is growing and their proven success persuaded countries to commit, in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010, to targets to increase the global coverage of protected areas on land and sea by 2020.

It’s a pity that we didn’t put all the world’s protected areas in place soon after the USA kicked it all off in the late 19^th century – the world would be richer in wildlife and for people now if we had. And it’s a pity that we conservationists have surrounded the whole process of protecting the best places for wildlife in such a welter of jargon and acronyms. But despite our slow start and horrible language we have systems for protecting wildlife sites across the planet that are effective – and that is something of which we all should be both grateful and proud.

However, whether John Muir succeeded in his mission to save the American soul from complete materialism is, perhaps, another matter.

If you’re worried about the damage being done to a local wildlife spot, but don't know what to do about it, have a look at our local planning packs. Our advice coupled with your local knowledge and personal experience may be all you need to step up and make a difference.

Dr Mark Avery is a former Conservation Director of the RSPB and now is a writer on environmental matters. We’ve asked Mark to write these 20 essays on the run up to the Rio+20 conference.  His views are not necessarily those of the RSPB.  Mark writes a daily blog about UK nature conservation issues.