Balancing conservation and social equity Researchers with the EU-funded TRECKQUITY project have developed a new approach for tracking the achievement of multidimensional social equity in the world’s protected areas. Climate Change and Environment © Brian Kinney, Shutterstock Due to the pressures of climate change, population growth and pollution – among others – the world is witnessing a rapid decline in biodiversity. As well-governed and effectively managed protected areas are a proven method for safeguarding both habitats and species populations, many governments are working to halt this loss of biodiversity by expanding protected areas. In fact, many have signed on to the Aichi Biodiversity Target (Aichi Target 11), which aims to conserve at least 17 % of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10 % of coastal and marine areas by 2020. In line with these objectives, governments are working to expand such protected areas as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, Banff National Park in Canada, Tablas de Daimiel in Spain and Tsavo East in Kenya. However, to be successful, these conservation efforts must be equitable, meaning they must strike a balance between protecting nature and protecting the well-being of local communities. “Protected areas should at least do no harm to local stakeholder groups, who disproportionately bear the burdens of biodiversity conservation, while many benefits accrue to other beneficiaries at broader scales,” says Dr Noelia Zafra-Calvo, a researcher with the EU-funded TRECKQUITY project. According to Dr Zafra-Calvo, one of the challenges that prevents achieving this balance is the inability to assess multidimensional social equity concerns in protected areas on a global scale. That is until now. Thanks to TRECKQUITY, conservationists now have access to an innovative approach for tracking the multiple dimensions of social equity in their conservation efforts. This includes: recognition (rights, cultural identities and traditional knowledge systems), procedures (accountability, access to justice and participation in decisions, transparency), and distribution (burdens and sharing of benefits). “We have proposed 10 criteria of multidimensional social equity that can be easily assessed by 10 indicators using a simple survey in any protected area worldwide,” explains Dr Zafra-Calvo. A new methodological approach Through their work, TRECKQUITY researchers have addressed the unresolved scientific question of “what is the world’s progress on reaching the societal goal and policy target of achieving social equity in protected areas?” “Our assessment has helped build a common understanding to facilitate the integration of current multidisciplinary approaches to assess social equity in nature conservation,” adds Dr Zafra-Calvo. The completion of this project resulted in a completely new methodological approach and further dataset for administering the survey. “Together, these results represent the first contribution to tracking our progress on reaching social equity in conservation interventions, which is necessary to supporting critical decision making and actions,” says Dr Zafra-Calvo. A first step The TRECKQUITY approach is just the first step in advancing our understanding of the relationship between social equity and conserving protected areas. “Next, we can use this understanding in global decision-making processes to achieve equitably-managed protected areas, such as the definition of the next biodiversity targets,” says Dr Zafra-Calvo. “Together with our approach, which can be easily implemented as a short survey by several stakeholders involved in the management of protected areas, we should take targeted management actions to urgently address social inequity in each of the world’s protected areas.” However, according to Dr Zafra-Calvo, doing this requires a combination of a TRECKQUITY-like survey with a more open-ended, long-term and multi-stakeholder approach capable of providing a more detailed description of the status of each protected area in terms of social equity. Keywords TRECKQUITY, European Union EU, conservation, protected areas, social equity
