Version 1
: Received: 20 May 2024 / Approved: 20 May 2024 / Online: 21 May 2024 (07:23:06 CEST)
How to cite:
Sen, M.; Mohan, D. Can Change in Forest Cover Be Linked with the Management Effectiveness of Protected Areas? The Indian Scenario. Preprints2024, 2024051307. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1307.v1
Sen, M.; Mohan, D. Can Change in Forest Cover Be Linked with the Management Effectiveness of Protected Areas? The Indian Scenario. Preprints 2024, 2024051307. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1307.v1
Sen, M.; Mohan, D. Can Change in Forest Cover Be Linked with the Management Effectiveness of Protected Areas? The Indian Scenario. Preprints2024, 2024051307. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1307.v1
APA Style
Sen, M., & Mohan, D. (2024). Can Change in Forest Cover Be Linked with the Management Effectiveness of Protected Areas? The Indian Scenario. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1307.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Sen, M. and Dhananjai Mohan. 2024 "Can Change in Forest Cover Be Linked with the Management Effectiveness of Protected Areas? The Indian Scenario" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202405.1307.v1
Abstract
Protected areas serve as an effective mechanism usually supported by a statute to conserve and protect wildlife-rich areas worldwide. Such extensive external management needs elaborate planning, regular monitoring, and periodic assessment of results. Thus, management effective evaluation (MEE) has emerged as one of the major tools for quantifying the performance of any protected area, globally since 2006. India has successfully conducted a complete round of management effectiveness evaluation of all its terrestrial protected areas (except conservation reserves and community reserves), with 25 such areas already undergoing a repeat assessment. Simultaneously, India biennially carries out a country-wide status of forest cover in all its states and union territories. This study has correlated the trend in change of forest cover for the states that contain those 25 repeat evaluated protected areas with their change in MEE scores over the same period. Our study found a positive correlation between the change in forest cover and the change in management effectiveness score from 2005-06 to 2018-19. Owing to increased protection regimes in the PAs including the degraded areas if they make part of such areas, the habitat often shows recovery. Effective habitat conservation is thus intertwined with the monitoring and preserving the wildlife populations in the protected areas, thereby, reduction in forest cover equally impacts the management scores. However, in states where the loss in forest cover has been reported, more protected areas need to be assessed to plan complementary strategies for both habitat and species conservation.
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
