Protection: Why do we need forest protected areas?

Most of the world's existing protected areas were set up during the twentieth century. This move towards protected area creation represents what is probably the largest and certainly the fastest conscious change of land use in history.

Protected areas are essential tools for biodiversity conservation where they play at least four vital roles:

• Maintaining species and ecosystems that cannot survive outside natural or near natural conditions
• Providing a safe haven for threatened species in those places where changes in land and sea use have been wide ranging, to allow wild species a breathing space until a combination of restoration and sustainable management creates more suitable habitat
• Supporting healthy populations of species to renew and to help maintain populations living in managed landscapes and seascapes
• Creating 'living laboratories' where scientists and conservationists can learn more about how ecosystems work and therefore how to accommodate biodiversity in other areas

But protected areas help us in many other ways, for instance by contributing to food security and environmental services and by providing breathing space on a crowded planet. Some examples where protected areas provide ecological, social and cultural benefits:

• Spirit: protecting fragile human communities and sites of sacred or religious importance
• Water: maintaining purity and quantity of drinking water and providing resources for hydroelectric power and irrigation 
• Food: securing crop genetic diversity by protecting crop wild relatives and helping to conserve landraces
• Culture: protecting vulnerable societies and cultures, preserving historically important sites and landscapes
• Health: protecting medical plants, ranging from the pharmaceuticals industry, to the collection of herbal medicines and the role of protected areas as a recreational resource
• Creating recreational opportunities
• Protecting against climate change

Making sure that these wider benefits are known about is a key step in ensuring long-term support for protection.

WWF aims to identify and where possible quantify the wide range of the benefits derived from protected areas, to increase support for protection, identify innovative partnerships and financing mechanisms and broaden and strengthen protected area management strategies.

Protected areas play a central role in WWF's forest work - from lobbying for their creation, to management and lobbying for improved protection policies.