Protected areas with deforestation more likely to lose status in Brazilian state

A recent study finds that when parks and reserves don’t do a good job of safeguarding the forest they contain, they’re more likely to be stripped of their status as protected areas. “It’s a vicious cycle,” said Mike Mascia, who directs the social sciences department at Conservation International, in a statement. “If a protected area has suffered from deforestation, then it becomes vulnerable to loss of legal protections. And if a government scales back some or all legal protections, then the remaining forest may be even more vulnerable to the forces that led to deforestation in the first place.” Rainforest in Brazil. Photo by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Mascia was a coauthor of the research, published Feb. 12 online by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Aiming to better understand the global trend in which governments downgrade, downsize and degazette protected areas — known by the acronym PADDD — the team looked at 62 protected areas in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. Once packed with Amazonian rainforest, Rondônia has been hit hard by deforestation, and instances of PADDD have occurred, typically to make way for agriculture and hydropower projects. And they’ve all happened under the umbrella of a single state’s laws. In some cases, protected areas have lost all of their protection, referred to as degazetting. Mascia and his colleagues found that if a protected area did a poor job of keeping forests standing, it was more likely to be degazetted. Conversely, the scientists also found that protected…

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