The Unfenced Desert Towards a strategy for eco ... - Nwrc.gov.sa

Chapter 2
“The historical approach of establishing national parks that are somehow isolated from the greater society
has been overtaken by a new approach to conservation of species and ecosystems…”
Our Common Future (WCED 1990)
Global trends in protected area management, and the
potential role of eco-tourism.
Trends in PA Management: The integration of conservation and
sustainable development.
“If we our treat national parks, nature reserves and protected areas as ‘islands set aside from human use’
they will come under increasing…risk of submergence in a human sea.”
Martin Holdgate, IUCN Director General, 1989.
“The preservationist approach [to protected areas] requires an essentially militaristic defense strategy and
will almost always heighten conflict.”
G. E. Machlis and D. L. Tichnell (quoted in: Brandon and Wells 1992).
The earliest development of areas of natural beauty for recreation involved the taming of
small patches within a sea of wilderness so that people could enjoy nature without its
associated discomfits and dangers. This was the concept behind the development last
century of a spa utilising the hot springs at Banff, Canada. Surrounded by a vast
wilderness of mountain forests the early visitors to the Banff hot springs must have felt
that human impact on nature was negligible.
It was not to remain negligible however, as expanding human populations and growing
industrialisation increased the potential for humans to change the natural environment.
In recognition of this threat to scenic natural sites, and with awareness of the value of
such sites for human recreation, the world’s first national park was created at
Yellowstone in 1872. For many decades afterwards the concept of the national park was
shaped by the Yellowstone model to be the protection of special sites set aside from the
ravages of ordinary use (Wells and Brandon 1992; my emphasis). Other countries soon
followed, with national parks established in Australia (1979), Mexico (1898) and
Argentina (1903) (Ceballos-Lascurain 1996); one hundred years after the creation of
Yellowstone there were around 1000 national parks world-wide (Lucas 1992).
The increase in numbers of such protected sites brought with it increased awareness of
the wider role that protected areas could and should play (Wells and Brandon 1992), and
by the late 1960s there was a a growing realisation that a “preservationist approach” was
not always appropriate (Honey 1999).
The World Conservation Strategy (IUCN 1980) explicitly acknowledged for the first time
that surrounding communities tend to bear the costs of protected areas but receive few if
any benefits, and called for the linking of protected area management with the economic
activities of local communities. This was endorsed by the 1982 World Congress on
National Parks and Protected Areas (WCNPPA), which called for increased
consideration of the role of local people in protected area management.
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