- Protected areas and biodiversity
conservation
Globally, countries establish protected areas – nature reserves, parks, historical
sites, monuments – to preserve rare and endangered species and their
ecosystems. Soule and Torbough contend: ‘As an effective strategy of
conserving biodiversity, the setting aside of protected areas is the sine qua non
of effective management’.^1 The United States (US) was the first nation to
create a protected area, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872; in 2005, at least
100000 protected areas are found in more than 100 countries. China and
Taiwan are latecomers to this form of biodiversity conservation, with histories
of less than 50 years.
In this chapter, we explain the evolution of protected areas and the functions
they perform. For China, we examine the distribution of conservation units,
geographically and administratively. Then we consider five large obstacles to
effective management: architecture of the system, administrative organization
and enforcement, limited financial support, human resource problems, and
conflicts between local populations and protected areas. We also give an
example of a relatively well-managed protected area, the Mount Gaoligong
Nature Reserve in the Yunnan Province. For Taiwan, we also treat the
distribution of protected areas. Then we turn to coordination, management,
and fiscal problems. The example for Taiwan is a proposed park to be
co-managed with aboriginal peoples. The chapter concludes with a
comparison of the protected area systems in China and Taiwan.
EVOLUTION OF THE PROTECTED AREA SYSTEM
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) defines a protected area as ‘an area of
land and/or sea specially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of
biological diversity, natural and associated cultural resources, and managed
through legal or other effective means’.^2 Protected areas perform a host of
functions; they:
● maintain valuable ecosystem services through the protection of soil and
watersheds;100