Protected areas and hazard mitigation - Apache 2 Test Page

130 Pages·2008·5.28 MB·English

the
Arguments
for Protection
series
NaturalSecurity
Protected areas and
hazard mitigation
A research report by WWF and Equilibrium
Arguments for Protection

Natural Security
Protected areas and hazard mitigation

A research report by WWF and Equilibrium

Written by Sue Stolton, Nigel Dudley and Jonathan Randall

Published 2008, WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature

ISBN: 978-2-88085-280-1

Cover design: HMD, UK

Cover photographs: Top: Tornado building in Indonesia © WWF / Albrecht G. Schaefer
Bottom: The debris following Hurricane Mitch. Tegucigalpa, Honduras © WWF-Canon / Nigel
Dickinson

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank WWF, and in particular Liza Higgins-Zogib, Alexander Belokurov and Duncan
Pollard for asking us to prepare this report and through them for the funding provided by the DGIS-
TMF Programme (Project No: C8F0014.01): Poverty Reduction through Improved Natural Resource
Management and by the World Bank.

Anita van Breda from the WWF-US Humanitarian Partnerships Program has provided guidance and
comment throughout the development of the report. Surin Suksuwan from WWF-Malaysia worked
with us throughout the final stages of the report providing comment and fantastic support in ensuring
the WWF Network were aware of and able to comment on the draft. We would also like to thank L N
Silva, M Bugalho and A Do Ó for contributing the case study on Portugal.

Kathy MacKinnon from the World Bank provided insightful comments on the final draft for which we
are particularly grateful. Others who commented on the text include Arjan Berkhuysen, WWF-
Netherlands; Richard Beilfuss, Department of Scientific Services (Gorongosa Research Center),
Mozambique; Dr. Christine Bratrich, WWF Danube-Carpathian-Programme, Austria; Anurag Danda,
WWF Sundarbans Coordinator, India; Finn Danielsen, NORDECO, Denmark; Pushpam Kumar,
University of Liverpool, UK; Rizwan Mahmood, Freshwater and Toxics Programme, WWF-Pakistan;
Musonda Mumba, Freshwater Programme, WWF-Eastern Africa Regional Programme Office; Prakash
Rao, WWF-India Climate Change and Energy Programme; Dr Robbie Robinson, IUCN-WCPA; Asae
Sayaka, Wetlands International, Thailand Office; Kirsten Schuyt, WWF-Netherlands, Tony Whitten,
World Bank and Clive Wilkinson, Reef & Rainforest Research Centre, Australia.

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Foreword

The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) welcomes this report as a concrete
response to its call for work to promote understanding that: protection of vital ecosystem
services is fundamental to reducing vulnerability to disasters and strengthening community
resilience.

Although there is a growing recognition that natural habitats can help to mitigate disasters
caused by vulnerability to hazards, we still have a great deal to learn about how to maximise
the potential benefits and about what this means in terms of landscape-scale management
approaches. Clear evidence linking habitat degradation to a series of so-called “natural”
disasters have added urgency to the need for further research and monitoring efforts. These
problems are likely to increase as a result of the disturbance caused by climate change.
Research shows that the poorest members of society consistently fare worst when disaster
strikes.

At the same time, natural ecosystems continue to be degraded at an alarming rate, so that in
many countries we can no longer assume they exist in good enough condition to provide the
environmental services upon which many people depend. In response, governments and
local communities are setting aside and where necessary restoring natural habitats
deliberately for their protective role. Although protected areas such as national parks and
nature reserves are primarily designed to conserve biodiversity, most also supply important
environmental services, including disaster mitigation. Whilst this is understood and acted
upon by many protected area managers, it has never been systematically assessed and the
current report makes a first attempt to provide a global overview.

By focusing the case studies on major disasters in the new millennium, the authors have
deliberately chosen a fairly narrow data set rather than choosing “best case” examples. They
have found cases where protected areas clearly play a major role in disaster mitigation and
cases where the links are not so clear cut or where changes in management approaches
within protected areas are needed.

One clear result of this study is a need for specialists in disaster risk reduction, environmental
management and protected areas to work together far more closely than they have in the
past. There is already much that could be done through better collaboration to increase the
role of natural habitats in disaster mitigation and these opportunities will continue to increase
as we learn more. We call on both communities to develop talks and to take the necessary
steps to ensure that natural safety measures are maintained and enhanced.

Sálvano Briceño
Director, International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
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Contents

Acknowledgements 2

Foreword 3

Contents 5

Summary 6

Preface 9

Chapter 1: Natural Disasters: A Global Phenomenon 11

Chapter 2: Causes of Disaster 17

Chapter 3: Disaster Impacts 25

Chapter 4: Protected Areas and Disaster Mitigation 33

Chapter 5: Could protection have helped? 53
(cid:1) The Mozambique floods of 2000 and 2001
(cid:1) The 2000 floods in Bangladesh
(cid:1) Central and Eastern Europe flooding in the Lower Danube in 2006
(cid:1) Heat waves and forest fires in the summer of 2003 in Portugal
(cid:1) The Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004
(cid:1) Hurricane Katrina in the USA in 2005
(cid:1) The Pakistan Earthquake of 2005

Chapter 6: The future 101

Appendix 1: International agreements linking ecosystem management to 103
disaster reduction

Appendix 2: Review of information and guidance material available to 108
protected area managers relating to disaster mitigation

References 109

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Summary

This is the fifth volume in the WWF series of reports developed as part of the Arguments for Protection
project which is assembling evidence on the social and economic benefits of protected areas to widen
and strengthen support for park creation and management.

In this volume we explore the increasing number and severity of so-called natural disasters, review how
environmental degradation is contributing to this trend, look at how conservation through protection is
currently mitigating the impacts of hazards and disasters and discuss the options for further developing
the role of protected areas in disaster prevention and mitigation strategies.

The 21st century has already seen the impact of some truly horrific and record-breaking disasters such
as the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in the US. Are these really the ‘one hundred year’
events policy makers tell us they are, or is the increasing destruction and fragmentation of biodiversity
and the consequent decline in ecosystem services making the impact of such events more extreme?
After all, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimates that approximately 60 per cent of the
world’s ecosystem services (including 70 per cent of regulating and cultural services) are being
degraded or used unsustainably, and notes that: “Changes to ecosystems have contributed to a
significant rise in the number of floods and major wild fires on all continents since the 1940s” 1.

Economic losses from weather and flood catastrophes have increased ten-fold over the past 50 years,
partially as the result of climate change. And with more than half of the world’s population exposed to
at least one hazard that has the potential to become a disaster this is a subject matter that none of us can
afford to ignore. Disaster reduction strategies have many elements but this report focuses on two of the
most important: prevention and mitigation.

At present, billions of dollars are spent on the aftermath of disasters even though experience shows that
spending on pre-disaster mitigation is a far better value that can lessen the enormous suffering that
disasters usually result in. The World Bank, for example, suggests that every dollar invested in
effective disaster reduction measures saves seven dollars in terms of reduced losses from natural
disasters. So, as in the other reports in the Arguments for Protection series, we argue that investment in
a well-managed, ecologically representative, global system of protected areas can produce benefits far
beyond the conservation of biodiversity. Therefore protected area professionals, need to consider the
role of protected areas in disaster mitigation when planning, managing, and advocating the contribution
protected areas make to society.

We recognise that there have been many international agreements and declarations linking the
preservation of ecosystem services with the mitigation of disasters, but note that in many cases it is
only the permanent and well-managed setting aside of land and sea as protected areas which can
provide the stability and protection so often called for.

We find that protected areas can play three direct roles in preventing or mitigating disasters arising out
of natural hazards:
(cid:1) Maintaining natural ecosystems, such as coastal mangroves, coral reefs, floodplains and forest that
may help buffer against natural hazards
(cid:1) Maintaining traditional cultural ecosystems that have an important role in mitigating extreme
weather events, such as agroforestry systems, terraced crop-growing and fruit tree forests in arid
lands
(cid:1) Providing an opportunity for active or passive restoration of such systems where they have been
degraded or lost
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Specifically we find that:
Natural or semi-natural habitats conserved in protected areas can help to mitigate flooding by:
(cid:1) Providing space for floodwaters to go without causing major damage
(cid:1) Absorbing the impacts of floods with natural vegetation

Protected areas retain natural vegetation, particularly forests, which can in certain circumstances,
prevent and mitigate landslides and avalanches by:
(cid:1) Stabilising soil and packing snow in a way that stops the slippage starting
(cid:1) Slowing the movement and extent of damage once a slip is underway

Protected areas help to retain natural vegetation, reefs and landforms that can help block sudden
incursions by seawater, with particular benefits from the stabilising effects of:
(cid:1) Coral reefs
(cid:1) Offshore barrier islands
(cid:1) Mangrove forests
(cid:1) Sand-dunes
(cid:1) Coastal marshes

Protected areas can provide barriers against the impacts of drought and desertification by:
(cid:1) Reducing pressure (particularly grazing pressure) on land and thus reducing desert formation
(cid:1) Maintaining populations of drought resistant plants to serve as emergency food during drought or
for restoration

Protected areas can protect against fire by:
(cid:1) Limiting encroachment into the most fire-prone areas
(cid:1) Maintaining traditional cultural management systems that have controlled fire
(cid:1) Protecting intact natural systems that are better able to withstand fire

Protected areas can help address problems of hurricanes and typhoons through:
(cid:1) Their role in mitigating floods and landslides
(cid:1) Directly buffering communities and land against the worst impacts of a storm events (e.g. storm
surge)

The main role of protected areas in the case of earthquakes is in:
(cid:1) The prevention or mitigation of associated hazards including particularly landslides and rock falls
(cid:1) Providing zoning controls to prevent settlement in the most earthquake prone areas

Protected areas can also play a role in addressing some of the underlying causes of disasters through,
for example:
(cid:1) Stabilising climate change through carbon sequestration
(cid:1) Halting the loss of forest quality and quantity
(cid:1) Protecting against river fragmentation and wetland loss
(cid:1) Protecting coral reefs

However, discussing the role protected areas can play in disaster mitigation is, at least at present, not a
wholly positive story. The under protection of some biomes, for example, coastal mangrove forests,
and the exploitation rather than the conservation of forests and wetlands has left many areas extremely
vulnerable to disaster; disasters which in reality are not ‘natural’ at all but are the consequence of our
scant regard for the ecosystem services our natural environment provides.

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We thus conclude this report with a 12 point Action Plan for Integrating Disaster Mitigation
Planning into Protected Areas calling for:

Research
1. A great deal is already known about the role of natural ecosystems in mitigating disaster. Further
research should now focus on the scale of disasters for which natural ecosystems can provide
effective mitigation strategies. Appropriate natural resource management strategies should be
identified.
2. Additional tools are needed to help planners identify the most valuable places where natural
ecosystems need to be protected and/or restored to provide disaster mitigation services – through,
for example, overlaying ecosystem data with hazard mapping in an opportunity analysis.

Planning
3. At a national and regional/transboundary scale opportunity analyses should be used to identify
places where natural systems could mitigate disasters and to develop associated protection
strategies, including the establishment of new protected areas.
4. At a protected area scale, some protected area authorities may consider revising their management
objectives and management plans to better reflect and conserve the contribution of their protected
areas in providing ecosystem services, including mitigating disasters.

Policy
5. The links between protected areas and disaster mitigation need to be made explicit when
implementing or revising the various disaster reduction initiatives reviewed in Appendix 1.
6. Similarly, lending agencies and donors supporting protected area establishment and management
should consider the disaster mitigation role of protected areas in project planning and
implementation and facilitate the integration of environment and disaster management
professionals.
7. Protected area managers and agencies need to build a working relationship with those working on
disaster management before disasters happen to maximise synergies and opportunities.
8. Effective examples of where land and sea-use management are contributing to disaster mitigation
need to be identified, application of management options field-tested and results disseminated to
help other protected area mangers and agencies as well as disaster recovery agencies.
9. The underlying causes of the increase in hazard and disaster occurrence, such as climate change,
forest loss and hydrological disturbance, should be addressed as part of a preventative strategy.

Funding
10. Further development is needed on economic evaluation of protected area contribution towards
disaster mitigation and to investigate funding options for maintenance of natural defence systems,
including innovative use of Payment for Environmental Services schemes and use of insurance
premiums to maintain strategically important ecosystem services.
11. The effectiveness of protected areas in disaster mitigation is closely linked to management success,
so that some of the funds available for disaster mitigation should be allocated to improve
management effectiveness of protected areas.

Management
12. Once plans have been developed, protected area managers need to ensure that steps needed to
maximise disaster reduction potential are included in day-to-day work programmes and priorities
including relationship building with local disaster response agencies.

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Preface

Not only must we emphasize the importance of nature’s capital and the fact that it
is being overused, we must also make people understand how nature’s capital contributes to world
stability and find ways to change the situation.
Klaus Toepfer former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme2

This has not been an easy report to write – much of the literature on disasters centres on the terrible
consequences of natural disasters on our fellow humans. Thanks to the world-wide web and global
media network we can access first-hand accounts of the death and injury wrought by natural disasters
and read vivid descriptions of the plight of those left behind in the wake of often overwhelming
destruction. Despite the aim of researching and writing a report on environmental issues the stories of
the people caught up in these terrible events are compellingly real, and provide what is often an
appalling human backdrop to our analysis.

The orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, was
stretched to the limit with children arriving every day
after the disaster following Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
Over 11,000 people died as a result of the Hurricane.

© WWF-Canon / Nigel Dickinson

But this is not a report about the human suffering which results from natural disasters – although the
voices of those affected by disaster can be heard here. Rather it is a discussion about why our
environment is becoming less effective in mitigating the effects of natural hazards, and how lack of
environmental protection is contributing to the social, economic and environmental costs of disasters.

It is still a depressing story to tell. And the message is hardly new. In many parts of the world the link
between environmental management and disaster mitigation has been known and acted upon for
centuries. More recently environmental writers have been advising on the need for sound ecological
management to mitigate the impacts of a range of natural hazards for 30 years or more3.

This report repeats many of these calls, but concentrates on one specific conservation strategy,
protected areas. Of course, conservation through protection is only one piece in the jigsaw puzzle of
responses needed to ensure that when disasters happen the consequences are minimised. There will
always be impacts – but if the harrowing accounts of suffering following disasters are to be reduced
then every piece in the jigsaw puzzle of disaster management needs to be in place.

As the number of lives lost and the economic and social toll rise, the focus on disasters has sharpened.
Report after report, conference after conference and agreement after agreement list the terrifying
impacts of natural disasters on our world and call for better disaster management in the short-term and
disaster reduction in the long-term. This report looks specifically at the latter issue and as such will
contribute to the call from the 2005 World Conference on Disaster Reduction to take a closer look at
“the environmental aspects of disasters, and particularly in the critical roles in disaster reduction of
managing and maintaining environmental systems to reduce the impact of disasters”4; and provides
input to the UN’s Inter-Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR)
note that “Although the inherent links between disaster reduction and environmental management are
recognized, little research and policy work has been undertaken on the subject. The intriguing concept
of using environmental tools for disaster reduction has not yet been widely applied by many
practitioners5.
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