Demarcation can pay attention! Good ranger service, and the authority actions would be rather useful.

I agree with you Marko but nowadays due to poor management practices and services in the protected areas leading to high poaching and moreover if we restrict the wild animals in a particular area than we are also restricting their movement as well. Isn't it?

In recent days however many wild animals like Blackbuck, Common Leopard etc were found in the nearby unprotected territories as compared to the protected ones because of the unavailability of food sources in the protected areas. So will this means that increasing the area of protected areas will suffice the cause?

A species will exist, in the journey of evolution, only until it becomes extinct. Anthropogenic intervention may assist or hasten this process. Protected areas are designed to assist the survival of species in their natural habitats. Simply demarcation is just one step. More so, if demarcation is just on paper for the purpose of records, survival of species is not guaranteed. If demarcation is proper and if it is augmented by suitable management, local extinction of species may be delayed. Without any human intervention, increasing an area of protection shall increase the probability of longer survival of species.

Rather than species I would say protection of natural system especially in a human dominated environment. Definitely protected area plays a crucial role in it but we should also admit that majority of natural ecosystem are still outside the network of protected areas. In human dominated areas the peoples mind set is important, when they are aware of the benefit the derive from the system they themselves protect it. You may refer my attached paper on a novel concept of biodiversity conservation in our state

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288749189_ECO-GROVE%27_A_CONSERVATION_CONCEPT_BEYOND_%27SACRED_GROVE%27

Conference Paper ECO-GROVE': A CONSERVATION CONCEPT BEYOND 'SACRED GROVE'

Dear Mohammad,

The physical demarcation of a protected area in Brazil is a legal obligation, but also it serves to signal to neighboring residents which is the limit of Conservation Unit, which normalmenteé a natural area with wildlife protection goal, flora, landscapes unique, water courses, etc., supported by specific environmental legislation.

Obviously only mark a particular protected area does not guarantee the life of animals that it exists and that may also may also have a living area larger than the limits of the protected area.

Therefore, in addition to protection work and management of the protected area, there is a need also to develop environmental education to demonstrate the importance of the area also for the environmental equilibrium that allows these people to continue to live as they are accustomed.

I believe that only the creation of protected areas is not sufficient for the effective protection of fauna and flora species, however, are initiatives that are held in conjunction with good management and a good job of protection / surveillance and quite active environmental education, plus of course a great socio-environmental interaction with neighbors so residents are solved not help enough in protecting biodiversity.

In addition we should also make management by the legislators to establish laws in addition to effectively protect biodiversity, punish offenders and discourage the take actions harmful to the environment.

I hope I have helped you.

Claudio

Demarcation of boundaries may help in ensuring the quality of the habitat from human interference if the protection is given and this may result in the indirect better animal protection ie subject to the carrying capacity, nature of animals in questions, the human population pressure and all the other factors that have a bearing on the habitat utilisation. 

The demarcation of protected areas is useful from a legal point of view, since it allows to define exactly where where to apply specific legal framework. From the legal point of view an affection of an animal or plant species in a protected space is more severe than outside it, and the demarcation where this helps define the space frontier for applying sanctions. Consequently, the demarcation itself is useful for the protection of species to allow the practice to apply a more powerful system of penalties depending on where the species is found in a given time. It should be noted however that while useful, is not by itself a sufficient measure

Where are the research articles providing hard evidence that a (state) protected area has shown a better protection (of biodiversity/a particular ecosystem) better than a private unprotected comparable/adjacent area? I have searched a couple of years ago, but could not find anything substantial. 

To Jose: better protection of a species/ecosystem does not apply across the board. The better legal protection applies only against specific uses. For example picking of flowers of protected plants by tourists is forbidden, but a mining claim overrules species/ and area protection. This is the reality for example in Namibia, Botswana and Germany, but I suppose mining rights have priority in many countries over protected area rights.

Generally, protected area status will prevent development/expansion of private residential property and private tourist infrastructure. And the latter is not necessarily positive for protection.  

I can only add to the excellent responses already made that the size and quality of the area will be crucial to the survival of the species.  It will need to be large enough to ensure a functional ecosystem with adequate resources, connectivity and refuges.

I recommend the following peer reviewed articles:

Article Governance, Location and Avoided Deforestation from Protecte...

Article Paper park performance: Mexico's natural protected areas in 1990s

Article Evaluating Interactions of Forest Conservation Policies on A...

Article Protected Areas’ Impacts on Brazilian Amazon Deforestation: ...

If I get your question correctly,  ''Does demarcating an area as Protected Area really protects the species existence?'' ''Yes'' It does because when an area is demarcated as a protected area by any form of law that area is Identified and recognized as such. Any intruction will be illegal which could be punishable by law. In Nigeria for example, areas designated as protected areas have served as home for wild resources though poachers still kill animals in N. parks. Now, bringing this question to the context of locality or area the question of continuous protection of the species can only be achieved by participatory management, by this method  people can have a sense of belonging and ownership to the protected area and will do whatever it takes to continually protect the species therein. Therefore, in conclusion, I will say that demarcating an area alone will not help in the protection of the species but adding other forms of conservation strategies and management practices will do

If the demarcation is based on an optimum initial ecological assessment and the management plan is designated and implemented based on real field data monitoring process, yes.

May I summarise what I have understood from preceding answers:

(1) Legal protection of an area makes illegal damaging activities of humans inside;

(2) Legal protection does not work unless there is public consensus at local level and local enforcement of law.

I would add one more suggestion.

(3) Wildlife and/or whatever one wants to save should become an economically convenient asset to locals, who will become guardians of that resource thus. For example, by attracting tourists and developing touristic activities/cooperation with locals, or even allowing a very limited, sustainable, controlled usage of the resources one wants to save, making the locals get very good profit from it.

To stop poaching, in Baltistan and a few other areas of Pakistan, a trophy hunting system has been developed where the local communities receive 80% of the tax hunters pay to shoot markhor, ibex and bharal - even inside national parks. The remaining 20% goes to the government. Trophy permits cost from 30,000 USD to 60,000 USD, depending on the species. Only several trophy (i.e. fully grown up) males are allowed to be shot every year and official counts are made. If there are old males in a population, also younger males, females and kids have to be present. Of course, a bit of illegal killing still occurs and the system needs improvement - but the locals are the best "wardens" and prevent extensive poaching, cooperating with rangers. This system has been active for quite a while, over ten years!, and it does work pretty well.

If you want to save animal and plants, first you have to learn how to manage people and find the right key to receive local cooperation.

SANDRO

Size matters.

If you want to 'protect' a microbial species existence -- maybe an area less than a hectare may be needed..

If you want to 'protect' a large predator species --an area the size of its hunting range is required //hundreds of thousands of kilometre square for large cats and bears..

I suggest that you read papers on ISLAND ECOLOGY and extinction rates as related to habitat size.

The delimitation of space and legal declaration are important but insufficient steps. The simple statement of a Marine Protected Area is an attractor for traditional fishermen, for poachers and for dive tourism. This causes the pressure will increase exponentially. To ensure the protection is essential to establish effective surveillance and monitoring, a management plan involving all stakeholders and scientific monitoring plan to assess the effectiveness of protective measures. Surveillance is essential.

I fear that cannot be a unique answer to your question, as it may depend on biological and social factors. I must say that establishment of Protected Areas may also be detrimental to particular species conservation if local communities see it as a danger to their life, that it is often the case. I add that too often protected areas are identified on (limited) biological data but with still less attention to social factors and local communities. There is a lot of criticism on this aspect from NGO's like Survival International. 

It largely depends on circumstances such as land ownership and the level of resources available to enforce any protection.  For example: in England we have the case of a bird of prey named the hen harrier Circus cyaneus and like most species of bird in the UK it is supposed to be protected by law (illegal to shoot or snare them etc).  The hen harrier lives mainly in hilly areas and predates in part on the chicks of the red grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus.  

Most of the areas it lives in have single or often multiple designations e.g. National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Areas.  An issue in the UK, however, is that although such land may be designated for conservation, most of the land is in private ownership and it is remote from habitation.  There is, however, unrestricted public access to most unenclosed upland areas in the UK e.g for hiking and bird watching etc.  

Grouse shooting is an important source of income to many large landowners/estates in England.  The heather moorland, dominated by plant species such as Calluna vulgaris, is often managed by employees of these estates called gamekeepers.  Their effectiveness is often quite crudely judged by the number of red grouse which are available for paying clients to shoot.  One task of gamekeepers is to control species which predate on the grouse, but they're obviously not supposed to kill species which are protected by law.  Hen harriers predate on the chicks of red grouse, which allegedly incurs considerable cost for estates, fewer grouse being available for rich paying guests to shoot.  There is, therefore, considerable temptation for gamekeepers to illegally kill the hen harriers, despite the fact that they are a Schedule 1 protected species in the UK.    

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds argues that there is enough habitat for 300 breeding pairs of hen harriers in England, but only four pairs bred in 2014. And in 2015, three nesting males disappeared.  Due to the remote nature of the heather moorland habitat it is very difficult to police illegal killing of the few remaining pairs.  Government cuts to the conservation agency 'Natural England' haven't helped either.  In contrast, the Scottish Raptor Study Group recorded 505 territorial pairs in Scotland in 2010 and 29 were recorded on the rather small Isle of Man located in the Irish Sea.  Scotland has extensive upland areas, but grouse shooting doesn't contribute as much to the economy, arguably £23 million, compared with £68 million in England and Wales.  So one might argue that hen harriers simply don't face the same levels of illegal persecution in Scotland and on the Isle of Man as in England?  

There are similar problems from throughout the world where national parks and nature reserves have been established, but there has been inadequate enforcement to protect them from habitat destruction or killing of iconic species such as tigers and rhinos.  

https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/h/henharrier/

http://www.scottishraptorstudygroup.org

Demarcation is insufficient if it is not well enforced. Here in the Philippines, there are a lot of Marine Protected Areas but are not well managed or well-enforced, so it fails to achieve its purpose.

 It depends on the environmental education of the inhabitants of the region.

Hence the necessity to implement controlling, and awareness teams.

In a nutshell, natural resource management is people management.

This depends upon the size of the species and the sufficiency of the habitat for the long-term survival of the species in question. For example, a frog population requires less appropriate and complete habitat for its survival generally than a larger animal such as a zebra.

Unfortunately not. Even in the EU there are examples where the population number of protected species and the habitat size of proteced habitats decrease (up to -80%) although the areas are protected as Natura 2000 sites. The crucial question is if the persons in the government responsible to it take their job serious or not...

Establishing a protected area can go a long way toward protecting the species, but it really depends on the kinds of threats that the species faces. Sacred groves in Africa and elsewhere have been very effective in protecting individual trees.  But in many ecosystems, survival of the species complex requires maintaining large or enormous areas of habitat.  Many of the threatened species today are at risk because of habitat loss and direct extraction.  Declaring a paper park would do little to reduce those threats.  Reducing habitat fragmentation and loss, and increasing cultural appreciation for the threatened species might be the appropriate vehicles, whether or not a "protected area" is created.  So the real answer is: it depends on the specific threats that are negatively affecting your species of interest.  And climate change means that the area you select today for your park or protected area may transition to become the wrong kind of habitat 100 years from now.  

I heartedly concur that the root of the problem lies in people's values, priorities, and lifestyles. These need to change! People need to learn exactly how to live conscientiously and with true respect and appreciation for the Rest of Life and to let them be themselves by allowing them their natural freedom. See my book The Wild Horse Conspiracy, 4 years in the writing and now recently updated.

If first step to fencing, it makes a difference

What I have experienced is it makes very little difference but even that little difference counts.. I am only talking from the perspective of anthropogenic threats. Inside a protected area people somehow will ahve a feeling that they are inside a protected area and many activities are forbidden there including disturbing and killing animals.. However for a hardcore poacher it doesn't matter if an area is a protected area or not. They will operate anywhere.

It also depends upon which species is it? Whether it is tiger or pangolin, most sought after species in trade or species that have less demand.. Poachers will risk anything (even venturing inside a PA with good security mechanism) to kill a species that have high demand in trade but if the species is of less economic value then people will not visit PAs. 

Others have also discussed about the species range and other stuffs.. so In all I would say it does make a difference but it won't solve all the problems.. rather some new problem might even arise :) 

One first step among minimum 100 needed:)

demarcating is the first step and gives identity to your protected area, but more management actions should be assessed at the level were species occur. For example, when doing semi-arid rangelands gap analysis (see the book: https://www.rufford.org/files/51.07.07%20Book1.pdf) it was discovered that local villagers are conscious on the need of demarcating the corridor but to communicate a danger of elephants crossing some roads at 4 pm and in that regard they should take care. From this example we can give them more warming signs alerting the presence of the species along the corridor boundary (demarcation) and in turn the fear will become a conservation attitude of those villagers.