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Science 5 January 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5501, pp. 125 - 128
DOI: 10.1126/science.291.5501.125
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Reports

Effectiveness of Parks in Protecting Tropical Biodiversity

Aaron G. Bruner,1* Raymond E. Gullison,2 Richard E. Rice,1 Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca1

We assessed the impacts of anthropogenic threats on 93 protected areas in 22 tropical countries to test the hypothesis that parks are an effective means to protect tropical biodiversity. We found that the majority of parks are successful at stopping land clearing, and to a lesser degree effective at mitigating logging, hunting, fire, and grazing. Park effectiveness correlates with basic management activities such as enforcement, boundary demarcation, and direct compensation to local communities, suggesting that even modest increases in funding would directly increase the ability of parks to protect tropical biodiversity.

1 Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International, 2501 M Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20037, USA.
2 Centre for Biodiversity Research, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Boulevard, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.bruner{at}conservation.org

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