Assessing the effectiveness of a national protected area network for carnivore conservation.

ABSTRACT: Protected areas (PAs) are essential to prevent further biodiversity loss yet their effectiveness varies largely with governance and external threats. Although methodological advances have permitted assessments of PA effectiveness in mitigating deforestation, we still lack similar studies for the impact of PAs on wildlife populations. Here we use an innovative combination of matching methods and hurdle-mixed models with a large-scale and long-term dataset for Finland's large carnivore species. We show that the national PA network does not support higher densities than non-protected habitat for 3 of the 4 species investigated. For some species, PA effects interact with region or time, i.e., wolverine densities decreased inside PAs over the study period and lynx densities increased inside eas

SUBMITTER: Terraube J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7289803 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature