Editing Protected area (section)

==History==
[[File:Black Opal Spring in Biscuit Basin.JPG|thumb|Black Opal Spring in [[Yellowstone National Park]] in the United States. Yellowstone, the world's second official protected area (after Mongolia's [[Bogd Khan Mountain]]), was declared a protected area in 1872,<ref>[https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/936/ Mongolia Sacred Mountains: Bogd Khan, Burkhan Khaldun, Otgon Tenger]</ref> and it encompasses areas which are classified as both a National Park (Category II) and a Habitat Management Area (Category IV).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.protectedplanet.net/sites/Yellowstone_Unescomab_Biosphere_Reserve/|title=Yellowstone – Protected Planet}}</ref>]]

Protected areas are cultural artifacts, and their story is entwined with that of human civilization. Protecting places and natural resources is by no means a modern concept, whether it be [[ICCAs|indigenous communities]] guarding sacred sites or the convention of European hunting reserves. Over 2000 years ago, royal decrees in India protected certain areas. In Europe, rich and powerful people protected hunting grounds for a thousand years. Moreover, the idea of protection of special places is universal: for example, it occurs among the communities in the Pacific ("tapu" areas) and in parts of Africa (sacred groves).

The oldest legally protected reserve recorded in history is the Main Ridge Forest Reserve, established by an ordinance dated 13 April 1776.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5646/|title=Tobago Main Ridge Forest Reserve|first=UNESCO World Heritage|last=Centre|website=UNESCO World Heritage Centre}}</ref> Other sources mention the 1778 approval of a protected area on then-[[Bogd Khan Mountain|Khan Uul]], a mountain previous protected by local nomads for centuries in Mongolia, by then-ruling [[Qing China]] [[Qianlong Emperor|Tenger Tetgegch Khaan]]. However, the mass protected areas movement did not begin until late nineteenth-century in North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, when other countries were quick to follow suit. While the idea of protected areas spread around the world in the twentieth century, the driving force was different in different regions. Thus, in North America, protected areas were about safeguarding dramatic and sublime scenery; in Africa, the concern was with game parks; in Europe, landscape protection was more common.<ref>Phillips, A. ''A Short History of the International System of Protected Area Management Categories'' (WCPA Task Force on Protected Area Categories, 2007)</ref>

The designation of protected areas often also contained a political statement. In the 17th and 18th centuries, protected areas were mostly hunting grounds of rulers and thus, on the one hand, an expression of the absolute personal authority of a monarch, and on the other hand, they were concentrated in certain places and diminished with increasing spatial distance from the seat of power. In the late 19th century, modern [[territorial state]]s emerged which, thanks to the transport and communication technologies of industrialisation and the closely meshed and well-connected administrative apparatus that came with it, could actually assert claims to power over large contiguous territories. The establishment of nature reserves in mostly peripheral regions thus became possible and at the same time underpinned the new state claim to power.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Uekötter|first=Frank|date=9 March 2020|title=Eine kleine Geschichte des Artenschutzes|journal=Zeitschrift der Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung|language=de|publisher=bpb|volume=11/2020|page=15}}</ref>

Initially, protected areas were recognised on a national scale, differing from country to country until 1933, when an effort to reach an international [[Consensus decision-making|consensus]] on the standards and terminology of protected areas took place at the International Conference for the Protection of Fauna and Flora in London.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/wcpa/wcpa_puball/wcpa_pubsubject/wcpa_categoriespub/?1662/Guidelines-for-applying-protected-area-management-categories/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319003109/http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/wcpa/wcpa_puball/wcpa_pubsubject/wcpa_categoriespub/?1662%2FGuidelines-for-applying-protected-area-management-categories%2F|url-status=dead|archive-date=19 March 2012|title=IUCN – Home|access-date=6 February 2016|date=October 2008}}</ref> At the 1962 First World Conference on National Parks in Seattle the effect the [[Industrial Revolution]] had had on the world's natural environment was acknowledged, and the need to preserve it for future generations was established.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.unep-wcmc.org/the-worlds-protected-areas_93.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120801043734/http://www.unep-wcmc.org/the-worlds-protected-areas_93.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=1 August 2012|title=The Worlds Protected Areas|date=1 August 2012|website=archive.is|access-date=27 March 2020}}</ref>

Since then, it has been an international commitment on behalf of both governments and [[non-government organisations]] to maintain the networks that hold regular revisions for the succinct categorisations that have been developed to regulate and record protected areas. In 1972, the [[Stockholm Declaration]] of the [[United Nations Conference on the Human Environment]] endorsed the protection of representative examples of all major ecosystem types as a fundamental requirement of national conservation programmes. This has become a core principle of conservation biology and has remained so in recent resolutions – including the [[World Charter for Nature]] in 1982, the [[Rio Declaration]] at the [[Earth Summit]] in 1992, and the [[Johannesburg Declaration]] 2002.

Recently, the importance of protected areas has been brought to the fore at the threat of human-induced [[global warming|global heating]] and the understanding of the necessity to consume [[natural resources]] in a sustainable manner. The spectrum of benefits and values of protected areas is recognised not only ecologically, but culturally through further development in the arena of [[ICCAs|Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas]] (ICCAs). ICCAs are "natural and/or modified ecosystems containing significant bio - diversity values and ecological services, voluntarily conserved by (sedentary and mobile) indigenous and local communities, through customary laws or other effective means".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Environment |first=U. N. |date=16 September 2017 |title=A handbook for the indigenous and community conserved areas registry |url=http://www.unep.org/resources/report/handbook-indigenous-and-community-conserved-areas-registry-0 |access-date=11 December 2022 |website=UNEP - UN Environment Programme |language=en}}</ref>

As of December 2022, 17% of land territory and 10% of ocean territory were protected. At the [[2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference]] almost 200 countries, signed onto the agreement which includes protecting 30% of land and oceans by 2030 ([[30 by 30]]).<ref name=Paddison>{{cite news |last=Paddison|first=Laura |date=19 December 2022 |title=More than 190 countries sign landmark agreement to halt the biodiversity crisis|url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/world/cop15-biodiversity-agreement-montreal-climate-scn-intl/index.html|work=CNN |location= |access-date=20 December 2022}}</ref>