The Ecological Benefits of Protected Areas in California Funded Through Local Direct Democracy

Recent research shows current conservation funding falls short of what is required to meet conservation targets. However the expansion of conventional funding sources to bridge this shortfall is not likely to occur. Conservation organizations may be able to leverage unconventional funding sources and protection mechanisms, such as protected areas (PAs) funded through the local ballot box, to fill the gap. However, there are concerns that such PAs may be biased in their protection. Additionally, before other forms of conservation can be included in planning, the quality of the benefit provided must be confirmed. In Chapter 1, we show how the protection of species and habitat types by ballot box PAs compares to two PA types funded by more conventional means in the state of California. We make these comparisons using two different data types for species and habitat types: presence and proportion of range covered. We find that ballot box PAs do not protect a different number of habitat types than would be expected from random nor do they represent habitat types disproportionally different than are found across the entire state of California. We find mixed results for species that are affected by the data type (presence vs. range) and species class (e.g. amphibian, bird, mammal, reptile). In Chapter 2, we show how the condition of PAs funded through action by local communities at the ballot box compares to protected areas funded by a state public agency as estimated by coverage by exotic species. We then show if properties of the PAs or human-mediated onsite disturbance are able to predict the coverage by exotic species. We find that exotic species coverage does not differ between PA types. In our sample, elevation was the only significant predictor of exotic species coverage. Our findings suggest that ballot box PAs protect representative habitat types, but may disproportionately protect more common species and that ballot PAs are in no poorer condition than a conventional PA type funded by a state public agency.