National parks - islands in a desert?

A ranger of the Saxon Switzerland National Park shows a forest area whith an illegal fireplace. Image: Hanspeter Mayr, Nationalpark Sächsische Schweiz, Deutschland - How effective is biodiversity conservation of European and African national parks? This seems to be strongly associated with societal and economic conditions. But even under the most favourable conditions, conservation efforts cannot completely halt emerging threats to biodiversity if conditions outside of the parks do not improve. This is the conclusion of a new study led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA), and the University of Bonn, in collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig University, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and many other institutions. The study published in the journal "Nature Sustainability" highlights the urgent need for a better design of national park networks. Despite commendable conservation efforts and investments by governments, NGOs and international as well as national conservation agencies, biodiversity continues to decline across the globe. One of the key strategies to halt biodiversity decline is the establishment of protected areas like national parks, which are supposed to provide favourable conditions for biodiversity to remain stable.