Abstract:
<p>As the human population grows, Earth’s natural resources are under increasing threat
from deforestation, biodiversity loss, pollution, and habitat fragmentation. For many years
conservation scientists have set aside protected areas to preserve intact landscapes. Today, the
network of protected areas covers over 12% of the world’s landmass. However, management of
these areas is often constrained by varying financial, physical and scientific resources. Therefore,
effective management is key to the success of protected areas in conserving biodiversity. Over
the last decade, international NGOs and government agencies have developed tools to monitor
management effectiveness (ME).</p>
<p>
This project uses multivariate analysis to assess one of these methods. The Management
Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) was created by the Wildlife Conservation Foundation and
the International Bank to monitor the strengths and weaknesses in protected area ME around the
world. It contains an Assessment Form with 33 questions that measure ME on a scale of 0-100.
In this study, METT responses from 526 parks in 57 countries were analyzed with Principal
Components Analysis and Factor Analysis to find common themes. The goal was to understand
what determines good management.</p>
<p>The results indicated that the following six factors account for the trends within ME:
personnel capacity, tourism, local community involvement, resource inventory, equipment and
budget. Results also suggest that the current design of the METT Assessment Form could be
improved to effectively measure ME. To address this issue, further research is recommended to
develop a structural model to improve the definition of ME.</p>
