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PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 43
CONDITION‐BASED PROTECTED AREA ZONING
TIED TO CONSERVATION PLANNING AND
TARGETS
Jonathan Kohl1* and Bernal Herrera‐Fernández2
* Corresponding author: jon@pupconsorum.net
1PUP Global Heritage Consorum, Tres Ríos, Costa Rica
2Tropical Science Centre, San José, Costa Rica
ABSTRACT
Human use protected area zoning assigns different uses of land and marine resources to different management
zones, in theory, to avoid or curtail activities incompatible with management objectives. Despite its global
popularity, however, human use zoning generates problems such as the separation of compatible uses and
consequent user conflict (e.g., researchers and ecotourists). It allocates more resources to manage human uses than
to biophysical conditions that protected areas are charged to conserve. It reduces manifestations of the same use
(e.g., intensive and small-scale agriculture) into just one scale of impact. It uses objective criteria to define zones in
situations where subjective values may conflict. In response, alternative zoning schemes have emerged, among them,
resource condition-based approaches. These, however, tend to be highly technical, poorly evaluated, and show little
evidence of adoption by protected area systems, especially in developing countries. This paper therefore proposes a
condition-based approach that addresses these weaknesses by using pre-defined conservation targets as the
principal criteria to define zones, thus clearly linking conservation planning (such as the Open Standards for the
Practice of Conservation) and management zoning. Condition-based zoning focuses on strategic conservation
actions with the use of conditions, indicators, standards, and corresponding preventative and corrective
management actions, rather than being prescriptive and punitive as with the human use zoning model. Furthermore,
the article proposes technology and methodology that are more appropriate for the technical capacity of developing
countries. It also traces the development of condition-based zoning from early urban zoning and presents a pilot
application in Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.
Key words: human use zoning, Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica, limits of acceptable change, management
plan, Open Standards, ecological integrity
10.2305/IUCN.CH.2021.PARKS‐27‐1JK.en
INTRODUCTION
Protected areas have long stood as a cornerstone
strategy to protect biodiversity, but strict preservation
rarely serves as an area’s sole objective because
protected areas must provide multiple values for
multiple users in society. One tool often employed to
manage these value demands is zoning. Managers have
deployed zoning in recent decades to allocate different
uses to different spaces within protected area
boundaries. The assumption is that by zoning off
human activities incompatible with natural resource
conservation from areas of greatest natural value,
managers better protect natural resources (Gilg, 1981).
Spatial zoning is not a new idea and did not originate in
natural areas; the concept can be traced back to
Germany in the 1800s (Hirt, 2007). German urban
planners created zones to separate incompatible uses.
They also included mixed-use zoning where some uses
could coexist in the same space. American cities later
imported this model, but did not adopt mixed-use
zoning at first, which generated numerous urban
problems well documented in the literature (Logan,
1976; Wickersham, 2000). This model of ‘human use
zoning’ (HUZ), that later migrated to terrestrial
wildlands (Shafer, 1999) and then marine protected
areas, also generated theoretical and practical
challenges (Russell, 1994) such as conflicts among
different users competing for the same spaces (e.g.,
tourists and conservationists).
Though the HUZ model is widely cited in important
protected area texts about management planning
(Young & Young, 1993; Miller, 1978; Clark, 1979;
Thomas & Middleton, 2003; Manning, 2011; McCool et
al., 2007; Leung et al., 2018) and employed by all the
countries’ general management planning guidelines
cited hereafter, managers face difficulty translating
zones from paper to reality for several reasons. Often
zones are defined for large swathes of terrestrial and
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 44
marine areas, and thus lack sufficient detail to address
local realities. Other times political realities change, say
a new claim on land tenancy, in ways that the zoning
system cannot respond. Consequently, managers may
feel obligated to ignore assigned zones or rezone conflict
areas into a less-restrictive category or exclude them
from the zoned area altogether.
This paper presents a zoning approach to overcome
conceptual HUZ problems and be more suited to
implementation, especially for developing country park
systems such as that of Costa Rica. It also demonstrates
that a condition-based zoning (CBZ) approach is
compatible with conservation planning approaches,
such as the Open Standards for the Practice of
Conservation (Conservation Measures Partnership,
2020), a methodological framework for the adaptive
management design and monitoring of conservation
projects and already required in many Latin American
countries’ management planning guidelines. Our
objectives then are that CBZ should a) better focus
resources and attention on priority conservation
threats, b) prove relatively easy to implement, c) require
fewer resources and a light learning curve to apply, and
d) integrate into conservation planning processes often
adopted in developing countries. Thus, CBZ should
contribute to on-the-ground conservation decision-
making, resolve some stakeholder conflicts about
disputed resources, and prove sufficiently adaptable in a
rapidly changing world.
PROBLEMS OF HUMAN USE ZONING
The main concept of HUZ — one principal land or
economic use per zone — was initially developed in
German cities to separate incompatible uses such as
slaughterhouses and glue factories from residences, but
also included mixed-use zoning to accommodate
compatible uses (Hirt, 2007). American cities adopted
HUZ during the industrial revolution (Logan, 1976), but
did not adopt mixed-use zoning at first. Rather planners
segregated all principal uses (residential, commercial,
industrial and green space), compatible or not
(Gerckens, 1994). This separation provoked numerous
management problems (Logan, 1976; Walther, 1986;
Wickersham, 2000):
Separation greatly expanded infrastructure
requirements such as transportation, sewer, water
and electricity networks wasting resources across
zones;
Separation segregated economic classes and broke
down communities unleashing suburban growth;
Separation provoked competition among users for
some spaces and left others unoccupied; and
Zoning is subject to many exceptions, variances,
amendments, favouritism and rezoning, motivated
often by political rather than community benefits
(Kramer, 1982; Russell, 1994).
Consequently, urban planners proposed alternative
zoning to overcome these weaknesses, such as
performance-based (Russell, 1994) and form-based code
(Talen, 2009; Madden & Russell, 2010). The former
model focuses on regulating impacts rather than uses,
similar to managing for impacts on biological resource
conditions. The second regulates building form and
location, and is also condition-based. Both allow a mix
of different uses as long as they uphold the established
conditions (Thede et al., 2014). Planners use both
approaches today.
Transition OF HUZ to Wildlands
Discussion of urban zoning is relevant because it was
eventually applied to rural land use planning in the
1920s (Rowlands, 1933), protected area buffer zones in
the 1930s (Shafer, 1999) and then to protected areas
globally. UNESCO, for example, adopted such zoning for
biosphere reserves (McNeely, 1990), while seminal texts
in park literature (cited in the introduction) advocate
HUZ largely based on the benefit of resolving use
conflicts and breaking down larger protected areas into
more manageable zones with specific management
objectives. As with cities, HUZ caused problems in
wildlands too:
Protected areas are zoned according to human uses
rather than the conservation objectives for which
protected areas are created (Lindberg et al., 1997);
Knowing the use does not indicate the resource
condition desired in zoned areas;
HUZ assumes the incompatibility of different uses
pitting one use against another, often unnecessarily,
reducing overall the kinds of users in a protected
area. Some uses are compatible such as research and
ecotourism. In some cases, a minor compromise of
one conflicting goal could satisfy both goals (Cole &
McCool, 1997);
HUZ reduces different manifestations of use
categories to just one scale of impact (industrial and
small-scale agriculture to ‘agriculture’ or strip-
clearcutting experiments and bird banding to
‘research’);
HUZ, such as absolute conservation or core zones,
gives the illusion of exclusion when in fact multiple
uses take place together. For example, the most
protected zones are often the most desirable for
tourism;
Kohl and Herrera‐Fernández
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As with carrying capacity, managers often regard
prohibition as the central enforcement tool
associated with zoning. This can cause controversy
due to equity issues about who can enter and how,
and who cannot (Kohl & McCool, 2016); and
HUZ in urban and wild settings is insensitive to
different uses which in urban contexts motivates
planners to create variances, amendments and other
exceptions, while in protected areas, it can either
promote lax enforcement or rezoning to
accommodate different stakeholder needs.
In addition to these conceptual challenges, there is
often little evaluation of zone effectiveness. Lourival et
al. (2011) argue that for biosphere reserves land uses are
often assigned ad hoc to zones not designed to be
quantitatively measured for success. This lack of a
quantitative monitoring plan for zones may be more
widespread than just biosphere reserves. Similarly,
Simons-Legaard et al. (2018) indicate that since habitat
monitoring is rare, zones designed to protect species
and habitat likewise cannot be evaluated. Thede et al.
(2014) in their evaluation of Canadian national park
zoning refer to zone evaluation in general,
…it remains questionable if such a monitoring framework
for standards and indicators on the scale of a national
park, given the sometimes simplistic nature of some
zoning systems, could actually achieve its goals. It is
probably for that reason that not many evaluations of a
zoning system in protected areas have ever been
undertaken (p. 639).
While a few cases of zone monitoring exist in the
literature, for example, New South Wales Marine Parks
Authority (2009), Emslie et al. (2015) and Strand et al.
(2019), it would appear that the lack of zone evaluation
may be due to the larger lack of quantitative monitoring
plans for protected areas, a deficiency that the condition
-based zoning model precisely aims to improve.
Zoning Proposals to Overcome HUZ
Weaknesses
Proposals for alternative protected area zoning have
proliferated, such as risk-control zones (Zeng et al.,
2012), zoning designed to reduce conflicts (Davos et al.,
2007; Lin & Li, 2016; Pristupa et al., 2018), the habitat
suitability approach for pandas (Liu & Li, 2008), highly
technical condition-based zoning for cumulative impacts
vs. activity impacts in isolation (Halpern et al., 2008),
and others. Despite these, few have been assessed for
effectiveness or even whether park systems have
adopted them. Only one paper among the nearly 120
reviewed here indicated explicitly that their model was
not adopted (Ruiz-Labourdette et al., 2010). This is
especially problematic when many developing countries
still do not even use zoning (del Carmen Sabatini et al.,
2007). Important reasons for not adopting or using
zones include:
Inappropriate technology For example, many
decision-support tools need significant investment
so that under-resourced park systems can
incorporate them into management structures such
as Marxan with Zones management software (Watts
et al., 2009; Jumin et al., 2018). There is significant
literature on the barriers to transferring decision
support tools to real-life contexts (Mora et al., 2012;
Street et al., 2018). Many proposals are also highly
technical, mathematical and data intensive especially
for developing country systems. Boon et al. (2014)
admit that their own proposal may in fact be too data
intensive for Cambodia where they applied their
model.
Too little real participation Naughton (2007) notes
that many zoning proposals claim to be participatory
but are really top-down. Consequently, without
authentic public support many policies never reach
implementation.
Inability to incorporate subjective and conflicting
values Academics often promote zoning as objective,
technical exercises, much like carrying capacity,
which leave little room for subjective decision-
making and conflict resolution. As mentioned,
proposals have emerged to manage conflicts, and few
have explicitly tried to incorporate visitor perception
and other subjective values. Only two proposals, for
example, include part of the Limits of Acceptable
Two motmots hang out on a clear day in a cloud forest © Jon Kohl
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 46
Change (LAC) approach (Roman et al., 2007; Bentz
et al., 2016). Thus, when conflicts emerge that
zoning cannot resolve, managers either rezone,
implement exceptions or override their zoning
system altogether.
Lack of information In many new protected areas,
initial management plans are undertaken, at times
because of donor insistence, when there is still
inadequate baseline resource information.
Sometimes, in the case of Monteverde, adequate
baselines do not exist for priority conservation
targets either.
OVERVIEW OF CONDITION‐BASED ZONING
Resource conditions are a different criterion by which to
define zones. This application shifts focus from human
uses or activities to resource conservation. A CBZ
system assumes that in general human uses are
acceptable as long as they do not violate desired zone
conditions. This releases a great burden on managers
and policymakers who expend significant energy
legislating uses when a focus on biodiversity and
cultural resource conditions is more mission consistent.
Resource conditions are already the basis for
conservation planning such as the Open Standards as
well as for protected area categories (IUCN, 2008).
CBZ-based approaches began with the Recreation
Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) developed in the late
1970s (Clark and Stankey, 1979; Haas et al., 1987). This
system divides a protected area into different zones
along a spectrum of naturalness from highly developed
service areas (such as a gateway community) to
primitive areas. Each zone represents a different visitor
recreation experience opportunity, and management
configurations vary accordingly.
ROS inspired the model developed by Kohl, Sierra and
Sevilla (2006) and a zoning manual written for the
Costa Rican protected area agency, Sistema Nacional de
Áreas de Conservación (SINAC) (2018) which emerged
from a perceived need to develop a new approach in
Costa Rica. The current CBZ proposal is based on these
sources. Though SINAC has mandated an HUZ
approach (SINAC, 2014), relying heavily on human
activity regulation, at the same time its management
planning guidelines call for zones to manage desired
conditions with conservation targets and objectives, but
does not indicate how to combine human activity zoning
and conservation planning based on the Open
Standards. Thus, this CBZ model aims to bridge the gap
between SINAC’s official mandate to use HUZ and to
use resource conditions and conservation targets. See
Table 1 for a comparison of CBZ and HUZ.
This CBZ model focuses on biophysical conditions (e.g.,
populations, canopy coverage, biodiversity, erosion,
etc.) that correspond to conservation targets defined
during conservation planning, using schemes such as
the Open Standards adopted in the formal management
planning guidelines by Brazil (de Faria Bacellar et al.,
2018), Chile (CONAF, 2017), Colombia (Ospina Moreno
et al., 2020), Costa Rica (SINAC, 2014), Ecuador
(Columba Zárate, 2013), Guatemala (CONAP, 2012),
Honduras (Corrales, 2014), Uruguay (Mejia, 2012) and
HUZ Limitation CBZ Alternative
Focuses on human uses rather than resource
conditions; primary tool is use restriction. Zones defined by desired conservation target conditions; restriction is one of
many management options.
Standardised zones applied to complex and variable
situations in situ. Each zone is unique to its conservation target situation; no standardised zones
necessary.
Non-overlapping exclusionary use zones can
provoke conflicts between users in same spaces. Uses and zones can overlap. Integration of LAC applies in spaces with use
conflicts when certain requirements are met.
Must cover entire area. Zones not required to cover entire area. Primary zones cover only conservation
targets, while secondary zones may optionally be applied to other spaces as
needed.
Monitoring resources divided between human uses
and conditions. Monitoring focused on resource conditions.
Often requires complex technical determinations or
expensive decision support tools to define zones. No need for additional decision support tools. Zone definitions are updated as
new information emerges.
HUZ definition considered an objective, technical
process that largely excludes significant community
participation and does not build their support.
CBZ integrates both objective (quantitative indicators) and subjective (negotiated
among stakeholders) criteria.
HUZ often becomes official regulation, hard to
update. Often CBZ does not use a legal framework, and its approach is based on LAC-
adaptive management which requires continued experimentation and
improvement, thus preventing zones from becoming legalised and immutable.
Once zones are legalised, staff focus on their
administration without further learning. By focusing on monitoring conditions and negotiating conflicting uses in an
adaptive management process, learning and improvement are built into the
system.
Table 1. Comparison of CBZ and HUZ, adapted from Sierra and Arguedas (2007)
Kohl and Herrera‐Fernández
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others. These targets represent formal conservation
objectives in management plans (Parrish et al., 2003),
including for this pilot application in Monteverde Cloud
Forest Biological Reserve.
The proposal also uses a methodology with appropriate
technology that is easily learned and applied by local
staff. It depends on local participatory decision-making,
rather than on technical experts who merely consult
stakeholders and then make decisions themselves. Last,
it integrates LAC to give voice and process to conflicting
values that require negotiation to define zones
acceptable to various interests.
The CBZ Model
This model defines zones based on conservation targets,
and thus is appropriate for any protected area or
category that uses such targets. Each target receives one
unique zone. The model does not use standardised zone
categories commonly applied in protected areas, such as
in biosphere reserves (core, buffer, transition).
Managers tailor each zone’s objectives, standards,
indicators, etc. to the specific conservation target
defined previously in the planning process. Without
explicitly defined conservation targets, this approach
may not work. Participants then map zones based on
habitat/landscape features that bound the target. Zones
may overlap and extend beyond area boundaries across
the landscape as buffer zones (see protected landscape
approach in Brown et al., 2005 ). Significant gaps may
result between zone distributions. Managers may define
these gaps as secondary zones, or whatever zone name
they desire, based on other desired conditions, political,
regulatory or managerial criteria (service area, villages,
private inholding, etc.) or may leave them unzoned for
future definition, though of course management still
exists there.
As described below, where conflicts might exist between
stakeholder values, managers can apply LAC to
negotiate a consensus limit of acceptable change rather
than an ideal conservation objective based on best
available science. Where no conflict exists, managers
formulate objectives based on best available science.
LAC works on the premise that when two management
objectives conflict (e.g., conservation and human
settlement), if stakeholders can agree to prioritise one,
then they can modify the second so that both become
compatible. This process integrates subjective
stakeholder values and requires a willingness to
negotiate and the possibility of modifying management
objectives. It is not always possible to negotiate, for
example, with a critically endangered species
conservation objective.
In addition to its negotiation function, LAC also involves
seven to ten (depending on the version) overarching
process steps that make it an adaptive management
process or cycle (McCool, 2013). The CBZ model uses
these steps to define the process to develop condition-
based zones, since zone development and management
should also be adaptive, as seen in Table 2.
Given that CBZ is not a prescriptive or regulatory tool,
rather one that focuses attention on conservation
targets, a protected area still needs to control and
enforce human activities. The methodology assumes
that protected areas will still have regulations in
addition to the management actions defined for primary
or condition-based zones. They would still apply across
zones as necessary, focused on human activities that do
not relate to target conditions. See Kohl and Herrera-
Fernández (2021) for how human uses can be modified
to be more consistent with conservation target
conditions.
Step LAC CBZ Process Based on LAC
1 Define goals and desired conditions Assemble and train planning team
2 Identify issues, concerns and threats Determine conservation targets, objectives, threats and conditions
3 Define and describe prescriptive
management zones Draw and name zones around conservation targets
4 Select indicators Identify conflicts and decide whether to use ideal objectives or limits of
acceptable change
5 Specify standards Define objectives or limits of acceptable change and indicators
6 Identify management actions Define standards
7 Implement actions Determine preventive and corrective management actions
8 Monitor Implement actions and monitor
Table 2. Comparison of Standard LAC and CBZ Model Process Steps. Source: Stankey (1985) modified by Cole and
McCool (1997)
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 48
APPLICATION OF CBZ IN MONTEVERDE
Site Description
The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is managed by
the Tropical Science Centre (TSC), a Costa Rican non-
profit whose mission is “to be the scientific organization
of excellence in innovative solutions for conservation
and sustainable development”. Consistent with that
mission, TSC’s four protected areas stopped using
SINAC’s formal management planning guide some
years ago (personal communication, Carlos Hernandez,
2019) in favour of what it considers more innovative
management approaches. Monteverde, therefore, along
with the PUP Global Heritage Consortium, a US-based
natural and cultural heritage management non-profit,
sponsored the CBZ model testing as part of its
management planning process.
The reserve covers 4,125 ha and hosts conservation
priority bird species such as the Resplendent Quetzal
(Pharomachrus mocinno) and Three-Wattled Bellbird
(Procnias tricarunculatus) and amphibians such as the
Ring-tailed Salamander (Bolitoglossa robusta) and the
Highland Dink Frog (Diasporus hylaeformis). Cloud
forest covers much of its surface.
Figure 1 shows that Monteverde’s 2005 zoning map
consisted of four use-based zones: Absolute protection
(core), public use, special use and social interaction
(buffer zone inside the adjacent biological corridor).
Reserve staff indicated that their area was unique in that
it did not have significant threats to its conservation
targets or inappropriate uses within its boundaries. It
did indicate that climate change would almost certainly
produce serious challenges through drought, changing
food sources, cloud cover reduction and invasive
species, all of which have already begun.
Given that in 2019–2020, Monteverde updated its 2005
management plan, it agreed to implement the CBZ
model as part of that process both to teach staff new
conservation approaches and innovate a more useful
zoning model.
Pilot Application
The authors crafted these steps into a methodological
manual (Kohl & Herrera-Fernández, 2021) based on
various references (SINAC, 2014, 2018; PUP Global
Heritage Consortium, 2015; Conservation Measures
Kohl and Herrera‐Fernández
Figure 1. In 2005 Monteverde had four use zones: absolute protecon, public use, special use and social interacon
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 49
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Partnership, 2020). While managers can apply the
theoretical steps across a wide range of methodologies,
Monteverde elected to apply them during a two-day
workshop. See Table 3 for a workshop overview.
The staff were shown a training video prepared by the
authors and attended a Q&A session with them as
well. The reserve director assumed the responsibility
for studying the manual, preparing the team and
facilitating the workshop. The first author (Kohl)
participated in the workshop to offer a morning
reinforcement training, answer questions about the
methodology and its application, and document its
execution, not facilitate it. He noted how well the team
used the methodology and identified challenges and
improvements. After the application, the
authors evaluated the process against the above-
mentioned objectives.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Given that this paper proposes a methodology whose
effectiveness will not be known for some time, this
section provides evidence of the methodology’s
implementation in Monteverde, overcoming difficulties
identified in the literature on zoning implementation
noted above in “Zoning Proposals to Overcome HUZ
Weaknesses”.
Evaluating the approach’s fulfilment of its
objectives
The authors proposed four objectives.
a) CBZ should better focus resources and attention on
priority conservation threats.
For Monteverde, this focus shift from uses to conditions
resulted in a clearer understanding of its conservation
targets, the research necessary to manage those targets,
and the resource reallocation to carry out that research.
For example, during the workshop, staff realised that
they had to increase the number of transects to measure
target amphibian and reptile occurrence and run those
transects during dry as well as wet seasons. They
discussed how to reallocate volunteers and rangers to
meet the increased needs and what the trade-offs would
be. Though they began with a HUZ focus, they
discovered that directly focusing on conservation not
only revealed research and resource gaps, but allowed
them more flexibility (rather than focusing on how to
restrict human activities which requires significant
energy) in conserving high-priority targets.
b) CBZ should prove relatively easy to implement.
The approach did require a new zoning model and a
refresher of indicators, standards, objectives and
conditions. From the outset, the director was asked to
apply the training materials to lead his team through the
consensus-based steps with only moderate support from
authors. He did that, and the team produced a hand-
drawn zoning map later digitalised (Figure 2) with
precise coordinates and zone management table
Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is already registering lower
cloud levels likely due to climate change © Jon Kohl
Focus Question How do we create a zoning methodology that, with brief training, can be implemented by
staff of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve during a two-day workshop?
Agenda Day 1: Training (morning); defining zones (morning–afternoon)
Day 2: Indicators and standards (morning); management actions (afternoon); process evaluation
(afternoon–evening)
Deliverables
Pre-workshop baseline document describing conservation targets, threats, objectives,
existing conditions and current zoning
CBZ map, hand-drawn and later digitalised
Zone narratives including conservation targets, conditions, threats, indicators, standards,
management actions (preventative and corrective), cost and feasibility strategies, strategy
prioritisation
Workshop proceedings including process evaluation
Draft methodological manual (updated based on the workshop, Kohl & Herrera-Fernández,
2021)
Table 3. Workshop Overview
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 50
Kohl and Herrera‐Fernández
Figure 2. The condion‐based zone map uses six zones within the reserve and one outside, the biological corridor for
the Three‐Waled Bellbird. Staff digitalised this map from the hand‐drawn version
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 51
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(Supplementary Material) which will have undergone
modification during the following planning steps. The
director (who coordinates all TSC’s protected areas)
indicated that his organisation intended to adopt and
include this zoning in its management plan. He even
budgeted (just prior to the onset of the Coronavirus
pandemic) for training workshops for nearby national
parks to further develop this approach and integrate
their zoning systems with that of Monteverde. In short,
with moderate assistance from us, the team applied the
methodology without investing in new technical
methods or tools and generated favourable results.
The CBZ model uses LAC’s overall process steps as well
as its framework for negotiating conflicting subjective
values among management objectives. Given
Monteverde’s low stakeholder conflict, we did not apply
this tool in this specific test case.
c) Applying CBZ should require fewer resources and a
light learning curve.
In terms of appropriate technology, the CBZ model does
not require new software or technical skills. Indeed,
TSC invested no additional resources except the time
required to develop training materials and Kohl’s
workshop accompaniment. All materials were
immediately on hand. Though the team did require a
refresher on indicators and standards, the director
largely guided the team through the process.
d) CBZ should integrate into the conservation planning
often adopted in developing countries.
Given that Monteverde’s planning process had already
defined six conservation targets, the CBZ model built on
what they had done and produced zones more focused
on research and condition management than human use
restriction and enforcement. Since SINAC’s official
management planning manual requires the Open
Standards, the team demonstrated a practical way to
apply them to zoning. We note that because Monteverde
is a private reserve, its staff enjoy more latitude to
experiment than staff of national protected areas.
Despite this, its technical team was not necessarily
better trained or larger than that of other similarly sized
parks in Costa Rica.
Lessons Learned
The team debriefed and generated four principal lessons
learned from this experience.
Conservation targets had not been sufficiently
detailed to create a monitoring and management
framework, and thus the team had to break targets
down into more specific components to specify
conditions, indicators, standards and management
actions. Nevertheless, this breakdown was an
important contribution to the management planning
process and one they might have skipped if not
obligated by this methodology to generate those
components.
By focusing on conservation targets rather than
visitors, it became apparent that despite many years
of research there were still big research gaps to
establishing specific and measurable conservation
objectives for their targets. The process further
helped to elucidate where the reserve had to
redistribute resources to carry out effective
conservation activity.
During application, the team discovered that
Monteverde did not register significant threats or
stakeholder conflicts. They considered that this may
have been due in part to its history dating back to
Quaker community roots and its quick ascent to
fame as an isolated yet renowned ecotourism
destination. At the same time, this trait made it
impossible to test the LAC negotiation component
even though the team applied the rest of the
methodology.
CBZ fitted into their management planning process
and the only disruption might have been to revisit
Manual cover
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 52
conservation targets previously identified to make
them more operational. The lesson then is that
zoning should always integrate into a larger
planning process as it cannot alone achieve
conservation.
CONCLUSIONS
Generalisability
The HUZ model is so dominant internationally that, one
might infer, it did not even merit a single section in
IUCN’s (Worboys et al., 2015) one-thousand-page tome
about protected area management and governance.
Similarly, UNESCO’s principal resource manual for
protected area management, Managing Natural World
Heritage, dedicates a single paragraph to human use
zoning (UNESCO, ICCROM, ICOMOS, IUCN, 2012).
Likewise, the HUZ approach dominates Latin America
and most less developed countries. Certainly, this CBZ
model could work anywhere, but would work best in
systems that already use conservation planning
approaches with conservation targets; in such cases, the
CBZ builds on what already exists. In Latin America, at
least Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador,
Guatemala, Honduras and Uruguay formally require
conservation planning such as the Open Standards in
their management planning guidelines. If the
abundance of condition-based zoning approaches in the
literature is any measure, the protected area
management field has perceived HUZ weaknesses and
thus the CBZ model contributes to a trend toward
condition-based zoning.
While TSC does have a qualified team and a venerable
science-based innovative non-profit to support it, their
reality is not that different from technical teams
throughout Latin America. With little extra training and
no new technical tools needed, that the Monteverde
team implemented the methodology in large measure on
its first try bodes well for other technical teams across
Latin America and developing countries generally with
small budgets, let alone better resourced protected area
systems.
Certainly, Monteverde’s lesson that the CBZ model
allowed its staff to focus more clearly on the nature of
their conservation targets, research gaps and specific
strategies may very well benefit any site that uses HUZ
and which may not be investing in their conservation
targets as efficiently as they might otherwise do with a
condition-based focus.
Further Research
Despite the director’s intent to integrate CBZ into
management planning, until it can be shown that
Monteverde has reallocated research resources to
conservation targets, improved indicators, standards
and actions, it is unclear if this approach has more
likelihood of moving from park paper to park
implementation than any other zoning proposal in the
literature. Since this project focused exclusively on
methodology, it never set out to test longer-term
outcomes. For this reason, further research would be
necessary to indicate how such integration proceeds and
what are its associated costs and impacts.
Furthermore, the methodology needs to be applied in
protected areas without the same level of resourcing and
international acclaim, and with a more typical
assortment of conservation threats and conflicts. It is
unclear to what degree Monteverde’s conditions diverge
from those of surrounding national parks.
Finally, as Kohl and McCool (2016) argue, tools and
approaches that require adaptive approaches, and that
include subjective criteria, are ones that require a
learning culture to implement (as noted in the final step
of the Open Standards). It is not enough simply to train
a team in the steps and tools if their organisation is not
set up to encourage organisational learning,
experimentation, embracing errors as learning
opportunities, lower risk aversion and a stable work
environment (Argyris & Schön, 1996). It may be that
TSC’s culture, given its emphasis on learning and
innovation, makes it a more likely candidate to adopt
such an approach than a more bureaucratic public
institution. Such institutions are characterised by people
being frequently reassigned among protected areas, with
limited job security and merit-based promotions, and
few resources for training and learning together, which
usually results in lower implementation (Thede et al.,
2014).
Zoning workshop, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve © Jon Kohl
Kohl and Herrera‐Fernández
PARKS VOL 27.1 MAY 2021 | 53
PARKSJOURNAL.COM
SUPPLEMENTARY ONLINE MATERIAL
Description of the major LAC-based steps in the CBZ
Model
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank Carlos Hernández, protected
areas coordinator for the Tropical Science Centre,
director of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, and
enthusiastic supporter of innovative park management
approaches as well as the Tropical Science Centre for
funding this project. We thank the PUP Global Heritage
Consortium which co-sponsored the development of the
methodology based on its own holistic focus to heritage
management. Last, we thank Dr Stephen McCool for his
valuable insights for the paper’s improvement.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jonathan Kohl is executive director of the PUP Global
Heritage Consortium and lives in Costa Rica. His work
and writing focus on holistic protected area
management especially visitor management and
heritage interpretation. He co-wrote with Dr Stephen
McCool The Future Has Other Plans: Planning
Holistically to Conserve Natural and Cultural Heritage
(Fulcrum 2016) as well as a book on interpretive theme
writing and a textbook in Spanish on heritage
interpretation and its relationship to tourism and
conservation co-written with Marisol Mayorga. He
holds a Master’s degree from the Yale University School
of the Environment and a bachelor’s from Dartmouth
College.
Bernal Herrera-Fernández is director of the Post
2020 Biodiversity Support Project for the EU in Costa
Rica. He holds a PhD from the University of Freiburg,
Germany. Dr Herrera is the founder and former director
of the Kenton Miller Latin American Chair of Protected
Areas & Biological Corridors at CATIE, Costa Rica. He is
professor at the National University and the
Polytechnical Institute of Mexico. His expertise focuses
on the design and implementation of innovation
processes for biodiversity conservation and sustainable
use and ecosystem services. He also has advised
governments on developing and strengthening national
policies for the conservation of biodiversity.
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RESUMEN
La zonificación de áreas protegidas para uso humano asigna diferentes usos de los recursos terrestres y marinos a
distintas zonas de gestión, en teoría, para evitar o restringir actividades incompatibles con los objetivos de gestión.
Sin embargo, a pesar de su popularidad mundial, la zonificación basada en el uso humano suscita problemas como
la separación de usos compatibles y el consiguiente conflicto entre usuarios (por ejemplo, investigadores y
ecoturistas). Asigna más recursos a la gestión de los usos humanos que a las condiciones biofísicas que las áreas
protegidas deben conservar. Reduce las manifestaciones de un mismo uso (por ejemplo, la agricultura intensiva y la
de pequeña escala) a una sola escala de impacto. Utiliza criterios objetivos para definir las zonas en situaciones en
las que los valores subjetivos pueden entrar en conflicto. En respuesta, han surgido sistemas de zonificación
alternativos, entre ellos, los enfoques basados en las condiciones de los recursos. Sin embargo, estos tienden a ser
muy técnicos, a ser mal evaluados y a mostrar pocos indicios de adopción por parte de los sistemas de áreas
protegidas, especialmente en los países en desarrollo. De ahí que el presente artículo propone un enfoque basado en
las condiciones que aborda estos puntos débiles mediante la utilización de objetivos de conservación predefinidos
como criterio principal para definir las zonas, vinculando así claramente la planificación de la conservación (como
los Estándares Abiertos para la Práctica de la Conservación) y la zonificación de la gestión. La zonificación basada en
las condiciones se centra en acciones estratégicas de conservación con el uso de condiciones, indicadores, estándares
y las correspondientes acciones de gestión preventiva y correctiva, en lugar de ser prescriptiva y punitiva como
ocurre con el modelo de zonificación basada en el uso humano. El artículo propone, además, una tecnología y una
metodología más adecuadas a la capacidad técnica de los países en desarrollo. También establece el desarrollo de la
zonificación basada en las condiciones desde el principio de la zonificación urbana y presenta una aplicación piloto
en la Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde, en Costa Rica.
RÉSUMÉ
Le zonage des aires protégées à usage humain attribue différentes utilisations des ressources terrestres et marines à
différentes zones de gestion pour, en théorie, éviter ou réduire les activités incompatibles avec les objectifs de
gestion. Cependant, malgré sa popularité mondiale, le zonage à usage humain génère des problèmes, tels que la
séparation des utilisations compatibles et ainsi les conflits d'utilisateurs qui en découlent (par exemple, entre
chercheurs et écotouristes). Il alloue plus de ressources à la gestion des usages humains qu'aux conditions
biophysiques que les aires protégées sont chargées de conserver. Il réduit les manifestations d’une même utilisation
(par exemple, l'agriculture intensive et à petite échelle) à une seule échelle d'impact. Il utilise des critères objectifs
pour définir des zones dans des situations où les valeurs subjectives peuvent entrer en conflit. En réponse, des
schémas de zonage alternatifs ont émergé, parmi lesquels des approches fondées sur les ressources. Celles-ci,
cependant, ont tendance à être très techniques, mal évaluées et montrent peu de preuves d’adoption par les aires
protégées, en particulier dans les pays en développement. Le présent document propose donc une approche fondée
sur les conditions qui répondent à ces faiblesses en utilisant des cibles de conservation prédéfinies comme
principaux critères pour définir les zones, établissant ainsi un lien clair entre la planification de la conservation (tels
les Standards ouverts pour la pratique de la conservation) et le zonage de gestion. Le zonage conditionné met
l’accent sur les mesures stratégiques de conservation ayant recours aux conditions, aux indicateurs, aux normes et
aux mesures de gestion préventives et correctives correspondantes, plutôt que d’être prescriptif et punitif comme
c’est le cas pour le modèle de zonage à usage humain. En outre, l'article propose une technologie et une
méthodologie plus adaptées aux capacités techniques des pays en développement. Nous retraçons également le
développement du zonage conditionnel à partir des premiers zonages urbains et présentons une application pilote
dans la réserve de forêt nuageuse de Monteverde au Costa Rica.
Kohl and Herrera‐Fernández
