A century in the making: The journey of protected areas from the cradle
to becoming the candle
Abstract
Exactly 150 years have elapsed since the establishment of Yellowstone
National Park in the USA, the first of its kind globally. Few Americans
could have anticipated that this idea, would once and for all spark a
revolutionary shift in humanity’s relationship with nature and wildlife
worldwide. Currently, Protected Areas (PAs) are widely recognized as the
best available means to ensure the survival and recovery of native and
threatened animals and plant species. If success in conservation was
solely based on the number or size of PAs, conservationists would have
ample reason for celebration. However, the mainstreaming and adaptation
of the PAs concept to various countries and regions, each having its
socio-economic, cultural, and ecological realities have become room for
both innovations and challenges in the conservation sector. Almost a
full century since the establishment of the first NP on the African
continent in 1925, this paper anticipatedly examines the PAs systems of
the first three countries to embrace the NPs movement on the continent:
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Uganda. We have used
a probabilistic index method to comparatively analyse quantitative and
qualitative data, and assess the key indicators of the conservation
policy, institutions, and PAs network in these countries alongside the
USA. This approach enables us to discern divergent trajectories, detect
potential shortcomings, identify vulnerabilities, contextualise these
findings, and draw recommendations for future development. In contrast
to the rather longstanding, stable, and relatively well-established U.S.
PAs system, this research reveals frequent policy instruments amendments
and managing institutions reshuffles, numerous cases of overlapping
goals, conflicting missions, a rather static PAs typology, the
over-reliance on single species exacerbated by a growing focus on
revenue generation tendencies at the expense of the core conservation
mission in the DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda.