A new international study on World Heritage Sites is placing emphasis on the impact of human activity on these natural resources. According to the findings, activities relating to urbanization, such as infrastructure building, have brought on adverse effects on the functioning of ecosystems and biodiversity as a whole. With human activity becoming a major threat to over 100 natural World Heritage Sites all over the globe, the current circumstances for the Yellowstone National Park in the United States only account for a very small percentage of forest loss and destruction since the beginning of the 21st century.
This study, published in the Biological Conservation journal, was led by a team of researchers from the University of Queensland, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), University of Northern British Columbia and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). On an international level, the study is deemed as the first quantitative research on the ways with which humans are bringing on negative effects on the World Heritage Sites.
The researchers made use of two data sources in evaluating the extent of man-made threats to Natural World Heritage Sites and the impact of deforestation. With the application of a cumulative threat map known as the Human Footprint and a number of high-resolution maps to determine forest cover loss, the study found that human threats to nature has significantly increased to 63 percent in all of the Natural World Heritage Sites, except those in Europe, in the past 20 years.
The highest percentage of human threats was found in Asia with two Natural World Heritage Sites being threatened- India’s Manas Wildlife Sansctuary and Nepal’s Chitwan National Park. The Simien National Park in Ethiopia was also found to be highly vulnerable.
Aside from human activity, forest loss was also found to have a significant impact on several Natural World Heritage Sites, specifically those in North America that accounted for almost 60 percent of the total global forest loss. While the Yellowstone Park lost approximately six percent of its forests, the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park reportedly lost almost one-fourth of its forested section since 2000.
"Any place that is listed as a World Heritage Site is a globally important asset to all of humanity,” the study’s senior author Dr. James Watson noted, while adding: The world would never accept the Acropolis being knocked down, or a couple of pyramids being flattened for housing estates or roads, yet right now, across our planet, we are simply letting many of our natural World Heritage sites be severely altered."
