1.2 Protected areas status and trends in the region
1.2.1 Increasing number and coverage of protected areas
Increasing PA coverage: There has been a dramatic increase in the use of protected areas as a mechanism for natural resource management. Protected areas have increased in number and coverage.
As a proportion of national territory they have become some of the largest protected area systems in the world (Figure 1.1). The most significant expansions have occurred over the past decade, especially in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Thailand, which are moving rapidly towards a 25 per cent protected area coverage of their collective territory. The entire PA systems in Cambodia and Lao PDR have been established in the 1990s starting from scratch after war and political upheavals swept aside any institutional expression of the forest reserves defined under the French administration earlier in the century.
Figure 1.1: Growth in protected areas in the lower Mekong region (as a percentage of national land area)
Increasing number of PAs: In Vietnam in 1986, only ten years after the American War, 87 protected areas had been officially established covering three per cent of the country. That number has increased to 127.
A notable feature of the region’s protected areas is that Vietnam has the greatest number distributed throughout the country but the least overall coverage (Map 1.2). Many areas are of historic and recreational value but too small for effective biodiversity conservation (Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1995; ICEM 2003c). In Thailand, by the early 1980’s, 67 protected areas had been
established covering 6.9 per cent of the country. That number has increased to 102, not distributed evenly but many concentrated in clusters often with contiguous boundaries and in regions of remaining forest (ICEM 2003d).
Increasing local government management: In Lao PDR, a system of 18 large National Protected Areas (or National Biodiversity Conservation Areas) was created in 1993, with two areas added later. That system of 20 nationally designated NPAs covers close to 13 per cent of land area. In 2000, the government devolved NPA management responsibility to the District Agriculture and Forestry Offices reflecting another important PA trend in the region - a rapid increase in the number and coverage of locally managed (and in many cases locally established) protected areas. Since the mid 90’s, provincial, district and communal PAs of various kinds have flowered in Lao PDR taking the national system to 21 per cent of the country, managed entirely at local level (Table 1.1).
Table 1.1: Locally managed protected areas (2003)
Cambodia Lao PDR Thailand Vietnam
PAs as a % of land area 21% 21% 19% 8%
% of the national PA system 1% 100% 2% 94%
managed at local levels
In Vietnam, the national system also evolved through both centrally and locally established protected areas. Now, all but seven national parks have been devolved for management by the provinces.
Significantly though, between 2000 and 2003 the number of "national parks" grew from 12 to 25, as provincial governments reclassified nature conservation areas to raise their status and potential funding.
The growth of locally established and managed protected areas is just beginning in Cambodia, with many provinces expressing interest but awaiting the definition of a regulatory framework for the process. Local capacity remains a constraining factor, as it does in all the Mekong countries. In Thailand, where there is a long history of central control of PAs (until 2003, by the Royal Forest Department and now the Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation) decentralisation of responsibilities to regional offices, rather than devolution to local government is the current approach, although there is mounting pressure for the local Tambon Administrative Organisations to take a role.
Increasing natural forest coverage and emphasis on rehabilitation: The region’s protected areas are located mainly in forested uplands (Map 1.2). Currently, 66 per cent of remaining natural forest in Thailand falls within the national protected area system. By 2005, if governments meet their targets, 53 per cent of the combined remaining natural forests of the four countries will fall within this form of land tenure (Table 1.2). In Vietnam and Thailand, the past decade has seen an increasing policy and budgetary emphasis on rehabilitation of forest ecosystems – a trend gaining momentum throughout the region.
Table 1.2: Forests and protected areas (2003)
Cambodia Lao PDR Thailand Vietnam
PAs as a % of land area 21% 21% 19% 8%
Estimate of forests in existing and 40% 39% 65% 26%
proposed PAs as a % of total forest in each country
Few protected areas in wetlands, floodplains and deltas: Only 30 per cent of 68 wetlands identified of national importance in Vietnam are within some form of protected area. Similarly, as one moves north
Map 1.2: Land use and protected areas in the lower Mekong region
into Cambodia from the Mekong Delta along the mainstream Mekong River and its tributaries and
floodplain, there are few protected areas covering wetlands of international and national importance. Over 30 per cent of Cambodia is classified as wetland, a proportion second in Asia only to Bangladesh. Twenty per cent of that area meets RAMSAR criteria of international importance. The story is the same
throughout Thailand and Lao PDR – apart from montane rivers and streams within upland PAs, wetlands are the most underrepresented habitat in the regional PA system (Box 1.3). Thailand, for example, has 61 internationally important wetlands, 208 of national importance and more than 40,000 of local significance.
A recent survey found that most were not actively protected and require rehabilitation (OEPP 2002).
Box 1.3: Reasons for poor coverage of wetlands in protected areas
Reasons for the lack of attention to wetlands include:
• wetlands are among the most intensively settled, used and converted ecosystems;
• tenure and ownership arrangements for wetlands are not well defined;
• institutional responsibilities and therefore policies for wetlands are not well defined;
• there has been an historical bias towards protected areas covering forested systems;
• there is little appreciation of the economic values of wetlands.
Relative few protected areas in the marine environment: Marine wetlands are a special case in which performance is mixed. No Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been established in Cambodia.
Ream National Park includes a marine zone now managed cooperatively with a fishing community. One other MPA is proposed by the Department of Fisheries. Vietnam is piloting the MPA approach in one site through the Hon Mun project and 15 other priority locations for MPAs have been identified. In both countries, the main impediment to more concerted action in this field is uncertain and competing
institutional jurisdiction (ICEM 2003a and c). In Thailand, on the other hand, where one agency was given responsibility for managing all forms of PAs, there is an expanding MPA system currently with 22 parks making up around 1 per cent of the total national PA system area. Mangroves too are a special wetlands case. Some of the MPAs in Thailand include mangrove systems but they are poorly covered in Vietnam and only in one location in Cambodia. On the other hand, as for other forms of forest, in Vietnam and Thailand there is increasing emphasis on mangrove protection and rehabilitation happening outside formal protected areas. One of the most impressive examples of mangrove rehabilitation and protection is Can Gio Biosphere Reserve near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.