Conservation spillover effect of UNESCO World Heritage Sites into surrounding landscapes.

ABSTRACT: Protected areas (PA) are one of the primary tools for conserving and protecting biodiversity, but their goals have evolved overtime beyond nature conservation to include supporting human communities within and adjacent to the PA. UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) offer a unique perspective on the success of PAs as they fall under three categories, cultural, natural, and mixed heritage sites. The nature of these categories encapsulates the inclusion of human communities in the goals of the WHS. To understand the impact and relationship the WHS has with its surrounding landscape, we assessed changes in three indicators, land use and land cover (LULC), human footprint (HF), and forest landscape integrity index (FLII), across three spatial scales, 1, 10, 100 km from the WHS boundary. We found

SUBMITTER: Hyland EB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10573298 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature