Protected Areas: When Good Intentions are not Enough

Despite the exponential growth of PAs worldwide in number and area over the last 50 years, evidence of biodiversity protection effectiveness in many cases is not convincing, and further studies at the local level are needed. Most research conducted in PAs has focused on the geological, biological, or ecological aspects of the site, while few studies have examined the policymaking process itself. However, the political history of a country with respect to environmental protection could inform us as to whether PA designation is based on a strong conservation commitment or, on the contrary, it is essentially a propaganda effort yielding what are globally known as “paper parks.” Argentina has a long history of environment protection despite being a developing country, and in 1906 it was the first Latin American nation to set land aside to protect the environment. Later Argentina declared this land a National Park in 1922. A succession of democratic governments interrupted by military regimes has modified parks and promulgated several laws that changed conservation priorities over time. This history shows that the conservation/protection goal of PAs was not always clearly manifest in government policies and actions. Despite the increasing number of PAs (47 by 2017) and the increase in area covered (4,441,808 ha total), most of these lands face the same challenges as other PAs in many developing countries: low badget, lack of field staff, absence of strategic planning, poor political support, and corruption, to mention the most obvious. To understand the impact of these problems on biodiversity, we aimed to determine if protected area designations conserve small mammal communities in Argentina’s first National Park (Nahuel Huapi National Park-NHNP). We compared small mammal communities in unprotected areas and areas with three protection levels: Strict Natural Reserve, National Park and National Reserve. We conducted a capture-mark-recapture study on 20 plots, five in each type of area. This study yielded no clear evidence that the NHNP protection system is conserving small mammal communities. However, higher abundances recorded inside the Strict Reserve suggest direct human interaction negatively impacts this assemblage.