Designing effective reserves (ESS HL)

Designing reserves at Higher Level: Different places from SL: the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Yellowstone, Banff and Nairobi National Park. At HL, weigh who pays for good design, which laws protect a corridor across a border, and whether zoning is fair to local people.

Design for the species you want to save: A reserve works only if it gives its target species everything it needs. So the design starts with the species' biology, then asks where the reserve should go.

Remember it as: Space, food, breeding, moving: then place.

Example (HL): jaguars of the Maya forest. A jaguar needs a large territory and plenty of prey such as deer and peccaries, and males travel far to find mates. Only a very large forest holds a jaguar population that can last. That is one reason the Maya Biosphere Reserve in northern Guatemala covers about 21 000 km², a fifth of the country.

Asked why a park was created in a place?: Read the figures for: high or endemic biodiversity, a threat such as deforestation, a link to another park, few villages, and a chance for ecotourism. Two different reasons, two marks.

Once the species is known, size and shape decide how much good habitat a reserve really gives.

Example (HL): Yellowstone and beyond. Yellowstone National Park covers about 9000 km², yet its grizzly bears and wolves range far outside it, and some are killed there. Scientists showed it is too small on its own for these animals, which led to the Yellowstone to Yukon plan to link parks along 3200 km of the Rocky Mountains.

Edge-to-area: say what it does: Not just 'long and thin is bad'. Say that a long, thin shape has a high edge-to-area ratio, so edge effects (and people, poachers, invasives) reach more of the reserve.

Reserves cut off by farms, towns and roads become islands. Wildlife corridors join them into a network.

Example (HL): Banff National Park, Canada. The Trans-Canada Highway cuts through the park. Six wildlife overpasses and 38 underpasses, with fencing that steers animals to them, have cut collisions between vehicles and large animals by over 80%. Bears, wolves and elk use them.

Species that cross borders: A migrating species needs protection in every country on its route. Agreements between countries are hard to reach, birds may be hunted where they are not protected, routes vary, and storms and predators strike on the way.

Pristine core, buffer, transition: A UNESCO biosphere reserve is zoned in rings: a pristine core, a buffer zone around it, and an outer transition zone that is sustainably managed.

Remember it as: Keep out, tread lightly, live well.

Example (HL): the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala (UNESCO, 1990). Its core zones are national parks such as Tikal. A large multiple-use zone, which works as a buffer, is managed by local communities that harvest certified timber and palm leaves. A 15 km strip on the southern edge, where farming is allowed, works as the transition zone. It shelters jaguars, scarlet macaws and Baird's tapirs.

Why allow hunting or trapping in a park?: In Canada's Algonquin Provincial Park, First Nations people may trap beavers. The reasons: their right to keep their culture; beavers are common (least concern) and recover quickly; trapping is small scale and only in some zones; it also cuts beaver damage.

People affect every reserve, inside it and from the land around it. Management tries to keep the benefits and cut the harm.

Example (HL): managing the Maya reserve. In the multiple-use zone, community forest concessions harvest certified timber, and forest loss there has been close to zero. In the western core parks, such as Laguna del Tigre, illegal cattle ranching, fires and drug trafficking cleared large areas. The same reserve shows that local benefit protects forest better than a line on a map.

Which measure worked best? Look at the population after each measure began, and at the records of deaths. Amur tigers in Russia rose from about 50 in 1940 to about 500 by 2009: the rise was fastest after the trade ban, while poaching went on after the hunting ban. So the trade ban looks most successful and the hunting ban alone least. Give a strength, a weakness and this kind of conclusion.

Help or hinder? Take both sides: A Discuss [6] on management gives at most four points a side, then a judgement. Take points from the whole case: the park and the city or farms around it.

Papers give a map of a real park and ask you to judge its design: its size, shape and position.

Remember it as: Size, shape, habitats, place, links.

Example (HL): Nairobi National Park, Kenya. Advantages: lions, rhinos and giraffes within 10 km of a capital city, and an open southern side that lets wildebeest and zebra migrate. Disadvantages: only 117 km², a city and fence on three sides, a railway built across it, and its migration route south being fenced and built on, so it risks becoming an island.

Design is not management: In a design question, points about tourists, trail erosion or rangers do not count. Also, 'close to the city' alone is not enough: say what it causes (poaching, pollution, fire, road deaths).

Describing a pattern from the map. Use the key and give the trend: 'most parks lie above 1000 m, in the mountains'. If you say there is no pattern, give the evidence, such as a park in a lowland wetland.

How this comes up: Paper 1: identify a design advantage and disadvantage [2], evaluate a design [4], discuss management [6]. Paper 2 Section B (c): to what extent do design and management decide success [9].