Protected Areas: Management, Benefits and Social Impacts

This book consists of several chapters dealing with the issue of environmental preservation of protected areas from a variety of perspectives. Chapter 1 deals with public management policies in Morocco, which in recent years have shifted from focusing on mass tourism to a more sustainable alternative by investing in protected areas, and the various roadblocks the country has faced in its attempt to do so. Chapter 2 focuses on Lar National Park, a protected area located northeast of Tehran, and how best to manage and preserve the area's wildlife in consideration of the needs of native people. Chapter 3 analyzes environmental conservation laws in Nepal in connection with the rights of local people to access resources inside protected areas and proposes policies that would ensure a sustainable coexistence between humans and wildlife. Chapter 4 describes the impact that globalization has had on the introduction of invasive plant species in protected areas and the various ecosystem services these species can provide. Chapter 5 discusses how human society threatens protected areas in Argentina, and how environmental justice studies can contribute to improving the management effectiveness of protected areas considering their relationships with local communities. Chapter 6 details how protected areas can improve human well-being across several dimensions, and Chapter 7 explains how arsenic contamination in fishing resources impacts Brazilian ecology and culture. Finally, Chapters 8 and 9 consider threats to marine protected areas in Brazil and the impacts and challenges of ecotourism in protected areas, respectively.