Several authors consider that the knowledge, both of the natural and cultural characteristics, of the natural spaces is essential in order to guarantee their protection and conservation given the importance they have socially, economically and environmentally. But are these three aspects really compatible in protected areas?
Is protecting natural spaces compatible with social, economic and environmental development?
Before answering the question, I will first of all give a tentative definition of what ‘protecting natural spaces’ means to me. Protecting natural spaces means that one cares about the evolution of the nature due, mainly, to human activities and the need to halt the destruction and/or to preserve part of the same nature as testimony of the change along the time. And every community all over the world has the same preoccupation though this might me expressed and implemented differently. In African for instance, there are several sacred forests that are preserved for ritual, religious, medical purposes, etc. The guardianship of the forests is held by a priest or someone knowledgeable in traditions. In these forests, one can see over tri-centenary trees that also reflects the diversity of the local ecosystem. This means that these forests are either part of very old vegetation or that they were reserved long ago before colonization that we tend nowadays to see as the starting point of everything. In the regions where the European colonialists have settled, they have invaded the forest and sometimes ‘’disanctified’’ them by erecting their administrative buildings.
This being said, how are the natural spaces compatible or useful or relevant socially, economically? The natural spaced are compatible with social preoccupation because for example these spaces provide plants that are used for medical purposes for instance either in a traditional way or after pharmaceutical processes. We know that healthy society is the prerequisite for development.
The same natural resources are economically useful in the sense that they are extracted, transformed and sold to generate revenues for the good of the community. A huge number of activities will die out without the so-called natural resources. This is where the current motto of sustainability stands. And once the trees are destroyed and the knowledge-holders are gone, part of the natural heritage is also gone or useless.
The last but the most important, I think, is the compatibility of natural spaces with environmental development. In fact, we all know that natural resources are not (always) renewable. And this is one of the reasons why the West is ‘’cruxifying’’ the Democratic Republic of Congo by pillaging its resources for instance, while some of the western countries have the same, though in low quantity, on their ground. But the natural resource here have at least two sides: the (very) natural resources such as gold, coltran, diamond, etc. that can generate over hundreds of years and the growing natural resources like trees, medicinal plants, etc that are plant-able but still under the dictatorship of time. We know that the sequoias in the Amazonian forests are not easily replaceable. But they can still be cut and replanted with the hope that generations over they can be ‘recovered’. But if we do not guard specimens of the plants, we cannot recover, even in the long run, the flora. That is why it makes sense to protect natural spaces for the equilibrium of the ecosystems.
To conclude, it is clear that protecting natural spaces is compatible and useful socially, economically and also on the ground of environment. If we want to keep the world the way it is now for the longest time, it is an urgent task to moderate the consumption of natural resources to keep the spaces the most natural possible for future generations.
Dear Mr. Emery Patrick Effiboley ,
If I understand your inquiry correctly you might find the following websites useful in guiding your approach to preserving what may be called Traditional Cultural Properties (https://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb38/), and/or Cultural Landscapes (https://www.nps.gov/tps/how-to-preserve/briefs/36-cultural-landscapes.htm)
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