How wild will the future be? Today, the World Database on Protected Areas estimates that 15.4% of earth's lands and 8.4% of the waters of the world are in some formal protection system (Juffe-Bignoli, D. et al. 2014. Protected Planet Report 2014. UNEP-WCMC). But do the current systems protect them in the best way possible?
When properly protected, wilderness areas can be large, diverse spaces used by many peoples for recreation, subsistence, and cultural practices. But while climate change worsens, our ideas and models of land protection remain stagnant. Our ability to continue protecting the world's wildest areas is at risk. To keep up with a changing world, wilderness areas must become more expansive, and we must become more ingenious in their implementation.
One creative adaptation to reconnect land plans with land ethics involves the implementation of wilderness mega-corridors. These narrow strips of land form a connecting path between existing protected areas. Mega-corridors allow people and species to move among wild areas, even as climate change alters ecosystems.
To ensure that newly proposed corridors function, those responsible for the connective protected areas must consider not only the physical location of the corridor but also who is included in the management decisions. This is vital with all sizes of protected areas. But bigger projects -- like one in South America that could become an entirely new type of collaboration for people, society, and the environment -- demand closer attention.
Big parks already exist in most corners of the globe. Greenland's icy protected area, the Northeast Greenland National Park, stretches for 375,000 square miles (Hoyt, Erich. 2012. Protected Areas for Whales Dolphins and Porpoises. Routledge). It's home to more musk oxen than human. The Obama administration's recent addition to the Bush Administration-created marine protected area, the National Monument around the Pacific Remote Islands, is even bigger. Occasionally used by wilderness staff and military personnel but usually uninhabited, it tops the charts at 490,000 square miles (Sala, E. et al. 2014. Expansion of the U.S. Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument Executive Summary). But in South America, a new type of collaboration would be home to a variety of peoples, and would help the world in a different way.
The Andes-Amazon-Atlantic Mega Corridor has the potential to be the biggest social and conservation collaboration the world has ever seen. The idea for it was initially conceived by the nonprofit Gaia Amazonas and quickly endorsed by the Colombian government. If implemented, the Andes-Amazon-Atlantic agreement would coordinate sustainable actions for for 521,000 square miles across the northern regions of Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil (Gaworeki, M. 2015. Colombia Proposes Protected Area Across South America. Mongabay). That expanse includes some of the most endangered and biodiverse ecosystems in the world.
Large swaths of land are already protected in these countries. The big task would be to connect those already-protected areas to create a collaborative agreement that supports circular economies as well as connectivity areas, where wildlife and flora can migrate and spread without hindrance. Creating such a space would be an overt investment in wildlife, especially as climate change shifts the prime habitat ranges of many species.
The Director of Gaia Amazonas, Martin von Hildebrand, recognizes the many uses of the Andes-Amazon-Atlantic Ecological and Cultural Corridor. "It's also a laboratory for seeking new ways of responding to climate change," he explained.
An explicit focus on internal management by diverse stakeholders would also be an investment in human rights, as it would help ensure the inherent rights of the peoples who have inhabit the land. Despite having lived there for generations, the groups do not all have legal title to the lands yet.
But how has the Brazilian government, on whose lands 62% of this project would lay, responded to this opportunity? Its stance has yet to be made public. An answer may be revealed at the COP-21 -- the United Nation's global Climate Change Conference -- in December. Regionally, a positive answer from Brazil would increase eco-tourism and could potentially promote peace amid currently hostile Colombian-Venezuelan relations. Globally, the creation of the Andes-Amazon-Atlantic Mega Corridor and an explicit recognition of multiple groups' responsibilities for protecting the area would be major steps forward in how large wilderness areas are managed.
The Andes-Amazon-Atlantic Mega Corridor will likely be successful because groups like Gaia Amazonas work hard to produce governance structures with managers that are diverse, invested and supported.
"This is a social as well as an environmental project," explains von Hildebrand. "It promotes sustainable development, economic initiatives, and support of indigenous people seeking a dignified future for their children."
One of the best strategies for creating protection beyond paper parks -- areas that are legally conserved on paper but lack substantial protection on the ground -- is the inclusion of as many stakeholders as possible into the process of management.
Setting up an agreement that includes multiple stakeholders from start to finish. This system framework supports a partnership between two or more groups in which the wants, needs and rights of both are fairly represented. For too long, certain peoples have been excluded from the formal management of wilderness areas. Indigenous peoples and tribal groups -- often groups with the most intimate knowledge of the lands and the most motivation to sustainably protect them -- have historically been left out of the management decisions or given only token roles to play in international agreements.
Many hope that formalized holistic agreement could help fix this injustice. In the Andes-Amazon-Atlantic project, Indigenous peoples will be key players in management decisions. Its specific governance structure will likely follow the example of similar projects used in Australia and Canada.
These two countries are leading the way on creating protected areas where the power to make decisions, the responsibility to care for the land, and the accountability to ensure high standards of protection are shared between governmental agencies and indigenous peoples (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2004).
In Nahanni National Park Reserve, for instance, the Canadian government works closely with the local indigenous peoples in a formal governance partnership. The Deh Cho First Nations, the Canadian Government and the Northwest Territories Government worked and continue to work extremely hard to ensure the management structure is implemented in a manner that respects and draws upon the cultural heritage of the Deh Cho First Nations.
The process of co-management in Nahanni National Park Reserve will never be completed. Instead, it is a continually negotiated and improved partnership that is constantly under review to ensure conservation best practices and fairness in the distribution of burdens and benefits of the protected area (Parks Canada 2010; Dehcho First Nations 2011).
Co-management, when done fairly, can promote social justice and scientific best practices. We need both for our current wilderness areas and for creating future ones -- big or small. We also need equal representation in large-scale agreements like the Andes-Amazon-Atlantic Ecological and Cultural Project. Achievable methods like these would have globally significant impacts in the realms of both climate change adaptation and human rights.