Protected Areas - Science topic

The effectiveness of protected area management can be hindered by a variety of key challenges and obstacles. These challenges can vary depending on the location and specific circumstances, but some common ones include:

1. Resource Constraints: Limited funding, staffing, and resources can make it difficult to adequately manage and protect protected areas. This can result in insufficient patrols, maintenance, and research.

2. Encroachment and Land Use Change: Human activities such as agriculture, logging, mining, and infrastructure development often encroach upon protected areas. This can lead to habitat destruction and fragmentation.

3. Poaching and Illegal Wildlife Trade: The illegal hunting and trafficking of wildlife and their products can have devastating impacts on protected species. It is often driven by high demand in black markets.

4. Inadequate Law Enforcement: Insufficient law enforcement and monitoring capacity can make it difficult to deter illegal activities within protected areas, including poaching and illegal logging.

5. Climate Change: Climate change poses a significant threat to protected areas, affecting ecosystems and species through temperature shifts, altered precipitation patterns, and more frequent extreme weather events.

6. Invasive Species: The introduction and spread of invasive species can disrupt native ecosystems, outcompeting or preying upon native species and altering habitat dynamics.

7. Lack of Community Engagement: In many cases, local communities living near protected areas may not be adequately engaged or informed about conservation efforts. This can lead to conflicts and lack of support for conservation initiatives.

8. Political and Governance Issues: Weak governance, corruption, and political instability can hinder effective protected area management. Clear policies and consistent enforcement are crucial for success.

9. Human-Wildlife Conflict: As protected areas often border human settlements, conflicts between wildlife and local communities can arise. Damage to crops or livestock by wildlife can lead to negative perceptions of protected areas.

10. Data and Information Gaps: Lack of up-to-date data and scientific information about ecosystems and species within protected areas can impede effective decision-making and management.

11. Tourism Pressure: While ecotourism can provide funding for protected areas, it can also lead to negative impacts if not managed sustainably, such as habitat disturbance and disruption of wildlife behavior.

12. Limited Connectivity: Isolated protected areas may struggle with genetic diversity issues, as populations become genetically isolated and vulnerable to diseases or environmental changes.

13. Climate Change Adaptation: Developing strategies to help protected areas adapt to the effects of climate change, such as altered habitat ranges, can be a significant challenge.

14. Conflicting Interests: Balancing conservation objectives with economic development and other interests can be challenging, especially when there is pressure to exploit resources within protected areas.

Addressing these challenges often requires a multi-faceted approach that involves collaboration among governments, conservation organizations, local communities, and the private sector. Effective management strategies need to be adaptive, sustainable, and take into account the unique characteristics and needs of each protected area.

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No, the poor living around protected areas should not disproportionately bear the burden of wildlife conservation. In many cases, these communities have lived in close proximity to wildlife for generations and have developed traditional practices for coexisting with wildlife. However, conservation efforts can often result in restrictions on land use and access to natural resources, which can negatively impact the livelihoods and well-being of these communities.

It is important to ensure that conservation efforts are implemented in a way that takes into account the needs and rights of local communities, and that they benefit from conservation activities. This can be done through a variety of approaches, including:

By ensuring that conservation efforts are equitable and benefit local communities, it is possible to build support for conservation and reduce conflicts between wildlife and people. This will not only help protect wildlife and ecosystems, but also promote sustainable development and improve the well-being of local communities.

OK, then I would personally use a paired-samples t-test, because you have rating scales with many response options (not like usual Likert scales). If you have a reason to expect something like a linear or quadratic trend across these dimensions, you could use repeated measures ANOVA (the dimension should then be numbered in some logical order). This test would have more power than pairwise comparisons of each dimension with each (and the latter would suffer from the problem of multiple significance testing, whereby you get 1 random significant result per 20 tests conducted).

The World Database of Protected Areas might offer something useful. See https://www.protectedplanet.net/country/IND where you can download a shapefile.

I think the software used should not create problems. Whether using ArcGIS or QGIS, the concept is the same.

I think so. The weighted kappa allows the use of weighting schemes to take into account the closeness of agreement between categories. This is only suitable in the situation where you have ordinal or ranked variables :)

I think that is going to be an impossible task because the ability of each category to protect a threatened species is going to be entirely dependent on the laws (and the enforcement of those laws) that apply to each category in each country as well as the species in question and the threats that it faces.

For example, if you have a rare bat in a national park in the United States it is going to be protected from being killed outright, but if the biggest threat to that bat is human disturbance in caves during sensitive seasons then the National Park designation is irrelevant unless there are specific regulations for that park that keep people out of specific caves at specific times of the year. Even then, unless active management is taking place for that species (posting signs at caves or constructing bat gates), then the regulation won't do much.

Or how about a fire-dependent threatened species in a U.S. wilderness area that just isn't burning as much as it was in the past and in which prescribed fire is not really possible since you can't easily develop firelines? In that case the species may be better off in a more managed protected area.

CAMPOS, JULIANA LOUREIRO ALMEIDA ; ALBUQUERQUE, ULYSSES PAULINO . Indicators of conservation priorities for medicinal plants from seasonal dry forests of northeastern Brazil. ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS, v. 121, p. 106993, 2021.

SILVA, JÉSSIKA PRISCILA COSTA DA ; GONÇALVES, PAULO HENRIQUE ; ALBUQUERQUE, ULYSSES PAULINO ; SILVA, Rafael Ricardo Vasconcelos da ; MEDEIROS, Patrícia Muniz de . Can medicinal use protect plant species from wood uses? Evidence from Northeastern Brazil. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, v. 279, p. 111800, 2021.

LIMA DA SILVA, TEMÓTEO LUIZ ; FERREIRA JUNIOR, WASHINGTON SOARES ; Paulino Albuquerque, Ulysses . Is there a biological basis in the selection of medicinal plants in the human species? An initial approach based on chemosensory perception of taste. Ethnobiology and Conservation, v. 9, p. 1-16, 2020.

Hello Oana Brinzan,

I believe that a tool that could be useful to you is the participatory rural appraisal; Through which you can obtain first-hand information on the main problems faced by the community, since it is not only a matter of demanding something, you must also know what it is that they urgently need to solve. I share with you a publication that I developed in this regard, in indigenous communities, in support of the Forests, Governance and Markets project promoted by IUCN.

The interactive map of the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the most comprehensive data source on the world's terrestrial and marine protected areas. It displays a map of the world's protected areas, including their size, location, name, status, and other essential information.

Here are the few links to the WDPA shapefiles you asked for

Hi Myo Min Latt,

the articles below can help (I recommend based on their title and keywords)

Clegg, BW; O'Connor, TG; Manson, AD. (2021) Vegetation classification for the management of large mammalian herbivores: a case study at Mushingashi Conservancy, Central Province, Zambia. AFRICAN JOURNAL OF RANGE & FORAGE SCIENCE DOI: 10.2989/10220119.2020.1827455

Hempson, GP; Archibald, S; Bond, WJ (2015) A continent-wide assessment of the form and intensity of large mammal herbivory in Africa. SCIENCE Vol.: 350, Issue: 6264, pp: 1056-1061. DOI: 10.1126/science.aac7978

Alves, TR; Fonseca, RCB; Engel, VL. (2012) Medium and large sized mammalians and their relation to habitat patches at the Botucatu cuesta, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. IHERINGIA SERIE ZOOLOGIA 102(2): 150-158.

DOI: 10.1590/S0073-47212012000200006

Reed, KE. (1998) Using large mammal communities to examine ecological and taxonomic structure and predict vegetation in extant and extinct assemblages. PALEOBIOLOGY 24(3): 384-408.

Minimizing the road networks and vehicular movements within and around protected areas could be of help.

What are you want?

Julius Riese Grégoire Moutardier Dear Colleagues, Thank you for your contributions.

I am trying to make the best work plan.

Waiting for other contributions.

Thanks

Very good question.

No idea

Dear R. T. Corlett, please have a look at the following link:

Climate change, water and social justice are critical issues. However, I am uneasy about suggesting a focus. Instead, I encourage you to explore these questions to determine your research question:

This is the toughest question to answer, because we often don’t know what we want until we see it. On the other hand, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will do. How could your research help prepare you for what you want to do with your life after graduation?

Do you want to work for a private, public, or NGO organization? Do you already have a wish list of two or three? Might one of them be prepared to sponsor your research on a particular topic that they need to explore? That conversation would help you to get to know them, and help them to get to know you, so you can test your mutual comfort with a longer term relationship. Plus, they might help cover the cost of your studies.

A masters is a lot of work. You need to be energized to learn the findings of your research because you want to know — not me, or your supervisor, or a prospective employer. You. Why do you want to know the answer to your research badly enough to invest the time and money to find out? Don’t do the masters for the credential; do it for the increased knowledge about something that you care about.

Sustainability issues are huge. What needs to be added to the body of knowledge about them that people don’t already know about? For example, what would it take to have governments use sustainable public procurement to only allow suppliers who disclose their contributions to the SDGs to bid on tenders? Is it lack of knowledge or lack of action, or both? Think of your thesis as a draft of a guidebook. Ideally, who would you like to read it so that they can be more effective? One of my books was my master’s thesis, another was my doctoral thesis. I wasn’t doing the research to get another certificate on my wall; I was doing it so that the book would be a more effective instrument for change.

These questions reinforce that a masters should be a means to an end, not the end itself. You want to do the research so that ….(what)? Have fun with the questions, take your time, and I know you will enjoy exploring ways to leverage your research.

I hope this helps a bit. All the best.

I will shameless recommend my own book, Basic and Advanced Focus Groups, from Sage. Each chapter begins with a more basic (introductory) discussion of a key topic, which is followed by an optional presentation of more advanced issues.

Akanksha Sharma Link Districts/ Blocks with census of India data.

Well,

Hello! I refer to DINAMICA EGO, which is developed here at the research center where I work. Any help with DINAMICA, I am available!

Generally, the dominance of the ecological component also affect and the vegetation cover decide the dependable factors.that device the protects area.

In India its a common phenomenon -man-animal conflict

Hi Nirjhar Dasgupta, thank you for the contribution. I will use these two files also in my research. Thanks for the contact.

Hi Choki Gyeltshen , many parks, perhaps all, have their management plans, but few make available for consultation these documents. This is my difficulty ... to have access to this data. Thanks for the contact.

The taxonomy is the identification and description of taxa with the objective of locating them in a system. Biological diversity is by definition the analysis of variability at any scale, be it ecological or biogeographic (to point out the two extremes). The taxonomy is born from the need to identify living beings and find an order that allows to develop in a coherent way the studies in any branch of biology.

In biological diversity, the objective is to establish the state of relations between living beings in a given territory, determine the degree of balance of these relationships and their causes. This with the objective of determining the changes of the biota in each territory. Therefore, the taxonomy is in some way to the biological sciences, all of them, like metrology to physics.

The biological diversity is based on three fundamental pillars: alpha, beta and gamma. Interestingly, the best-known indices of biological diversity are those corresponding to alpha diversity. These study the equilibrium relations between the living components of a given territory (community, landscape, biome, etc.). But most of the time, beta diversity is ignored, that is, the degree of relationship between a set of territories (the amount and form in which taxa share), and most ignore that the patterns that determine that diversity Beta depending on the individual combinations is the gamma diversity.

When we study the genesis of taxonomy, we discover that this science arises from the need to order the supposed chaos in the associative identification of living beings. But the need arose from very ancient in all civilizations and biological diversity was born from ecology. Linne uses the conceptions of Greek philosophy, but the Mayans, the Chinese, the Hindus had theirs. Whittaker, father of biological diversity, part of his studies in the plant communities of a mountain and deepening, found that the relationships there were much more complex and difficult to interpret than he had thought

It is easy to understand that biological diversity is a science with its own paradigms, where taxonomy provides the system that allows it to develop. Therefore, they have absolutely nothing to do with each other

In my country (Iran) the most of protected areas are managing by government but recently the government are supporting private section or institutes to invest for managing these areas. however the main question are what are the economic of protected areas and who we can attract the attention of private institutes? what are the main criteria for monitoring the management plan? I think we are in the first steps toward PPA management. So if we want to progress in this field we need to research on economic benefits and environmental impact assessment of management plans.

Please find the attached files

Dear Ram, please join our session "International Comparison of Landscape Appreciation" at JpGU2019 held in Makuhari International Conference Hall near Tokyo on 30. of May. The deadline of subscription was 19. of February.

The detail of the conference was below.

Go through the files

Hello Vassiliki. there are ex-ante studies that have been performed in the Netherlands, Denmark and UK that took into consideration possible perceptions of residents towards the construction of wind farms. It depends on the study what method has been used to assess residents' perceptions.

Kind regards,

Ben

@Judy A Stryker would be a good person to contact.

Hi,

It may also be worth mentioning that in addition to the already stated responses, environmental subsidiarity should be considered in any reconciliation intervention between biodiversity conservation and sustainable utilization of natural resources in Africa.

Best wishes

Dear Olawale Festus Olaniyan, Olawale Festus Olaniyan, Shah Nawaz Jelil

Thank you very much for your sincerely and veryvaluable suggestions.

I will prepare an application and send to any of funds you suggested me.

Marash

It depends on how you want to roll this up. Presuming that you checked traps on multiple occasions through time, you could do an occupancy analysis at the scale of individual traps. However, depending on the movement ability of your small mammals relative to the distance between traps within a plot, it might make more sense to do an occupancy analysis at the scale of the plots. Here, the plot is occupied if one or more traps have a captured animal at a given time step. But now you have richer data than 0/1 because you could actually have anywhere between 0 and 40 "hits". There are extensions of the classic occupancy analysis that can accommodate this extra information that are called "multi-state occupancy models."

Since you have habitat data, you can either include that directly as a (continuous) covariate or you could use the land use categories as a discrete covariate.

Since you are asking what the number of occasions is, I suspect that you did not actually check your traps multiple times through time...

In addition to all of the above, you should probably conduct a population viability analysis to see if indeed the population of the target species is indeed viable or not, and then what measures are needed to strengthen such. and its continuous viability, for example if the entire population comprises isolated groups that might not enjoy habitat connectivity or may not be able to interact because of restriction to movements in the landscape.

I use traps to monitor Capybaras. From the experience I have a good place to position would be at the edge of the mangrove, where the crocodiles are exposed for thermoregulation, so that it grazes along the margin (I drew an attached example). From the experiences I have, it is not possible to monitor capybara within the water using a camera, because their temperature is close to that of the water and this prevents the camera from being activated, the same can happen with the crocodiles. So the best option would be at the bank, at a time when the crocodiles are at rest. I do not understand crocodilian physiology, but I believe the sensor will have to be left with high detection because the temperature of the crocodiles may look like the surrounding environment. I have a lot of references about monitoring mammals using a camera trap, but they will not be useful for reptiles since their physiology is different.

Co-management is not just one standard arrangement of management-sharing. It is a spectrum of different levels of responsibility on the part of the parties to the co-management. At one end you have the government agency/agencies with the legal responsibility for the management holding nearly all the management control, and the non-government partner(s) being merely consulted on management. At the other it would be the non-government partner(s) holding nearly all the control (e.g. through "native title" legislation), with the government partner perhaps just "ticking the boxes" to indicate that all necessary things have been done. They type of co-management arrangement plays a big role in determining whether or not co-management will work in a particular situation.

Further, there are a whole lot of other factors that play a role in determining whether co-management will work, including: the number of stakeholders involved; the relationships among the stakeholders (cooperative, antagonistic, collegiate, etc.); the capacity of the stakeholders to manage (knowledge, experience, practical expertise, available necessary technology and other resources, etc.); and so on.

There is no simple yes/no answer to such an open question. In reality, "it all depends".

Hello everyone.

It's a great idea because - I think- one of the main problems of the natural heritage is that the majority of the population doesn't even know the common name of a plant or tree. One issue with the maximum number of photos is the selection of those. Nevertheless, maybe a very interesting way to solve this is to complement each plant with a QR code that links the book to a website with more extensive information, maybe a University or a Research Institute, in that way, the book could be more revised in order to see how tha tree or plant looks like, even to know it's own garden or local park.

Greetings!

I am going to provide an answer which is rather indirect. There is a resident community, upstream the Port-Reitz Creek in Mombasa, Kenya. The resident population was, initially made up of local people. They understood the importance of mangroves as a habitat for fish, crabs, lobsters etc. Consequently, they conserved the mangrove habitat as it was bringing benefits in terms of income from fishing activities. They were not keeping any data in terms of fish catch income, but, all they knew was that life was good. Then came another community, initially, not resident to the area.

The new community saw the mangrove forest as a source of charcoal and building poles. They started harvesting these from the mangrove forest. The consequence was a decline in fish catch and income for the indigenous local population. This resulted in disharmony between the two communities occasioned by the resource use conflict. While I have some knowledge about this issue, I did not venture to find out if data was generated, However, my colleagues in Research Gate, particularly those involved in marine science studies, may have better insight on the subject. Does my answer tickle the mind of such one colleague to provide a more comprehensive answer to the questioner, I wonder?

Sure, the land were classified as stool land or skin land, family land and private land. Stool land were dominant since rule of the day were by chiefs, followed by the family land

Hi again.

Only some lines to say that, fortunately, local authorities are dedicating time and effort to control the populations of Pluchea ovalis growing in the south of Tenerife Island. It's a hard work, and (probably) the species is impossible to eradicate from the island, but in any case we need such measures to avoid the invasion of good-preserve natural areas, especially the protected ones.

Best regards.

From a legal standpoint, biodiversity is the core element of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB), one of the most significant international law instruments and without a doubt the most important one related to protected areas. This document is so important for PAs because it has being ratified by all Member States of the United Nations, except the USA, and because it has established progressive targets for the creation of PAs in each country (creation of PAs for protecting biodiversity, of course). Also, the CDB has led to important modifications in national legislations, especially the creation and adaptation of their protected areas legal statutes in order to protect biodiversity. As a consequence, most countries create protected areas especially for protecting biodiversity.

The CDB was so successful because it treats biodiversity as an economic asset, and it provides governments with a great argument for the creation of PAs.

Of course, the protection of geodiversity (especially in the form of beautiful/picturesque landscapes) is a well established objective of many types of PAs in many countries' legislations, and in international law UNESCO recognises some of those PAs as part of the World Heritage. But the World Heritage Convention does not set goals for the creation of those PAs, as the CDB does.

I would argue that culturally, geodiversity is not so attached to the idea of nature or wilderness, the elements PAs traditionally seek to protect. What I mean is, for many people geodiversity is something beautiful and culturally relevant, but not necessarily something important to be protected for scientific or economic reasons. This has changed a lot in the last 30 years, but this perception still is present among policy makers.

Somehow you need to make adjustments for inconsistencies in methodology or at least discuss this. But spreading sites across ecosystems is good imo because it avoids pseudo-replication :)

Unfortunately, this does not make a change. I've tried it just to be sure and it doesn't. Processing extent is a square, with coordinates that fit exactly the core area you give as input. Thank you for your suggestion though!

If the proportion of male to female in the population is the same as in your sample (i.e. 309:58), then no. Otherwise, you will have to correct the bias by weighting your data to reflect the actual ratio, which should ideally be 50:50 :)

Bio-cultural diversity can be defined as " the diversity of life in all of its manifestations- biological, cultural and linguistic, which are interrelated and interdependent within a complex socio-ecological adaptive system".

Following publications are related to your question:

Economic value of desert plants: Acacia trees in Wadi Allaqi Biosphere Reserve. Springuel, I. and Mekki, A.M. Environmental Conservation Vol.21, No1:41-48. 1994. (available on RG)

Economic Value of Plant Diversity in Arid Environments. A.E.Belal and Springuel, Nature & Resources Vol.32 No 1:33-39.  1996.

I have a different experience from PAs of Western Ghat, Kerala, India. I believe the constitution of PAs in this vulnerable part of Western Ghat is very positive as it happened to be supported the ecosystems to improve further and elevated to climatic climax. For instance the Periyar Tiger Reserve at Thekkady, Kerala has been managed by Periyar Foundation which is a democratic body in which the stakeholders are involved for the management of the PA.. The tribes and other community members are taking part in the protection work. When we ensure livelihood security of the forest dwellers, Their sincere involvement will be there to manage and conserve the ecosystems. PTR is a typical example for how ecosystems can be improved by the sincere involvement of the community living around the forest.  Without ensuring the participation of the local community for management. PAs may lead to further degradation as we are not addressing the rights of the people on the utilization of the forest.

Please, check this useful paper:

Best regards

Hi Benoit,  I'm not sure if your question refers to the benefits of national parks to humans living near them or to communities of organisms.   For humans, I think the literature is quite large and if you dig into you'll find what you're looking for.  IUCN worked issues similar to this in the past 

We developed a framework for considering the benefits of protected areas to locations outside of them, but in the context of migratory species.

Good point, Harshil, so I will narrow the question down to: Does any protected area in Asia still have all the species KNOWN to have occurred in it over the last 500 years?

Hi Jessica,  Many, many options here.   Colleagues and I recently published a paper on the issue of selecting metrics like those you're talking about. 

Most large statistical packages allow for multivariate logistic modeling (0,1,2 as above) if it is the dependent variable.

If they are independent just have two dummies and one omitted category.

Simon,

You asked a very understandable question - but unfortunately one to which there is no simple  answer - in fact there may not be any answer to it. The idea of "carrying capacity" is almost impossible to define as it has to be related to a set of desired goals. If your management goal is hands-off and aims to "let nature take its course" then there is no such thing as a human determined carrying capacity - populations should be allowed to rise and fall as they do. If you have very specific conservation goals to maintain certain species at certain densities or certain habitats in certain states then you will firstly need to define those goals (based on whatever subjective criteria the management authorities chose). From here you will probably either need a lot of site specific studies to understand processes so you can predict desired population levels (I guess of elephants in your case) or else adopt an adaptive management approach where you monitor the state of the environment (i.e. through some indicators) and the size of your elephant population and if a certain elephant population begins to have an undesired impact then you need to react using whatever management tools you have (if you have any in the case of elephants).

Hope this helps.

John

See link 5 for human effects

I'd read through both already, some great info though, many thanks nonetheless!

Thanks, Norbert

I don't know if there is a quantitative index of the sort you are looking for, but IUCN (see their webpage) has stuff in habitats as well as species. If you have a high proportion of rare and endemic species, I would go for "biodiversity hot spot".

Unfortunately not. Even in the EU there are examples where the population number of protected species and the habitat size of proteced habitats decrease (up to -80%) although the areas are protected as Natura 2000 sites. The crucial question is if the persons in the government responsible to it take their job serious or not...

QGIS is the best option.. lots of tutorials available in web..

I'm not sure if this is feasible but supplemental feeding (hay or other) of domestic ungulates is an option that is sometimes used in the US where there are wolves (similarly, water is sometimes provided to allow livestock to temporarily persist in an area where they otherwise could not in order to get them farther away from, for example, a denning wolf pack).  These can both very labor intensive and very costly but can help to solve immediate problems.   Long term solutions sometimes require changing land use patterns and that is very difficult if there is not social / community support. 

Please find attached herewith a research paper on the vascular flora of Banaras Hindu University main campus, India.

Hi Jean-Fiston,

What is the question you are asking that requires you to estimate the carbon stock in this big of an area? Chances are that you will make a bigger error, by taking shallow samples (because you need many to do a geostatistical analysis) than you would by taking a few deep samples and calculating their average...  Take care, Philippe 

It varies from country to country.

hi

yes why not

Hossam

Methodologies for measuring the carrying capacity of (semi-)arid rangelands has been developed by research teams from Wageningen and from the Malian IER. The carrying capacity for livestock (cattle, goat & sheep is derived from the primary production and its limiting factors. For the Sahelian region, nitrogen appears to be the key limiting factor. An estimate of the annual N input makes it possible to estimate the sustainable livestock load. Publications can be found in the good accessible library of the WAgeningen University and Research Centre (WUR). It may be easier to go first through the publications on my web-site www.agrobioafrica.com.

Dear Diana,

Many geomorphological and landscape features are incorporated into conservation planning protocols as they serve as surrogates for evolutionary and ecological processes that are difficult or even impossible to delimit otherwise. This ties in with what Danilo Russo has mentioned with regards to corridors and connectivity. I am most familiar with the South African literature, so I provide some examples below. I realise this might not answer your questions exactly, but hopefully it will help you identify which geomorphological features are of importance.

The following may also be useful for you:

“Wildlife Watching and Tourism” (2006) a report on the potential for wildlife watching tourism to contribute to community development and conservation; and on practical ways to use planning and visitor management to ensure the long-term sustainability of this activity, published by the UN Convention on Migratory Species

Forging links between protected areas and the tourism sector: How tourism can benefit conservation (2005) published by UNEP

Can you please check the following links? Those three books can be helpful:

We have conducted an ESPON project on liveable landscape as an asset in regional development, this might not exactly be what you are looking for, but might be worth to take a glance. 

Dear Fabiane,

This is a very necesary instrument that should be implemented in Natural Protected Areas and that does are not  protected but provide Environmental services to users of water down the basin. In México there are two examples and our organization is begining a best practices program to stablish a model to pay the environmental services by users in the intermediate land and the coastal zone, principaly by hotels, and tourism services. This Best Management Practices for the environmental services are in the south tip of the Baja California Peninsula in a very dry area where the rain average is 50 mm per year. So the Natural Protected Area Biosphere Reserve Sierra La Laguna is the only system that capture the water and recharge the  underground freatic water. 

Yes, a very tricky and disturbance resistant species.

You may find useful information here too: "Long-term control of the invasive tree Ailanthus altissima: Insights from Mediterranean protected forests" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112710003622

Good luck!

VEHICLES: The issue is not when you get seeds ON YOU  while WITHIN the protected area, but people coming INTO protected areas with weed seeds on their VEHICLES, especially off-road vehicles.   Seeds on vehicles is what is spreading a new weed Saharan mustard across millions of acres of our desert iwthin only a decade., that you can see at http://www.ecoseeds.com/mustards.html

ROAD SIDES. How you manage the road sides at the edges of protected areas, and roads going through protected areas, and trails, railroads edges, and domesticated animal manures?  These alll help spread weeds into protected areas very much faster than any seeds carried in by humans on their clothing or shoes.   Even areas that have been protected 150 years ago like Yellowstone National Park or Yosemite National Park, weeds can travel along roadsides or by cattle in their manures, into those areas very easily. 

INTENTIONALLY SOWN SEEDS. Also intentionally sown exotic seeds, like along roadsides or in nearby agricultural areas, also can be a huge source of weeds.  If you look at my mile-by-mile survey of the western USA that I did in 1997, it was not weeds that were the big problem in most States, but intentionally sown exotic seeds along the roadsides or escapes from nearby exotic-sown pastures, at http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.html. 

UNDERSTORY SPATIALLY EXTINCT OR DAMAGED, SO NOW VULNERABLE.  In 2015 most semi-arid to arid lands across the planet, the native plant understory is spatially extinct or severely damaged, to the degree that bare open spaces create vacancies for any new exotic plant to get established.  

That is how California became the most weedy spot on the planet 150 years ago, the cattle ate every bit of native under story during the 1864-65 drought, causing spatial extinction of the native under story, and the resulting bare land got colonized with close to 100% exotic cover within a few decades.

DO A VEGETATION TRANSECT.  If you have less than 100% local native cover (including native plant thatch) in your vegetation understory, then those areas will be eventually invaded by one or more weeds in the future, as open spaces have been created to let in the new invaders.  

If you do a simplified Evens & Love (1957) Toe-point transect, where you walk 100 paces and each time you step, you note what plant your toe is touching, or you note when you hit bare earth--what percentage is native plants, exotic plants and what percentage is bare earth?  

PERCENTAGE OF VULNERABILITY. The percentage EXOTIC plants s your CURRENT vulnerability percentage and the BARE EARTH is the FUTURE vulnerability percentage of the area, for exotic plant invasion.  

Hope this information is helpful, and hope your land does not end up like California, a 99.999% weed-covered under-story.