List of largest protected areas in the world

Largest Protected Areas of the World

Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) and International Peace Parks

As the need for larger expanses of protected land grows, governments of various countries have recently made efforts to inscribe protected areas that are multiple times larger than ever before. These parks have been established under a couple different definitions: Transfrontier Conservation Areas (southern Africa) and International Peace Parks (North America and Europe). The focus of these parks is to remove international borders within protected areas that would impede the migration of large mammal herds. Another primary reason for the creation of these parks is to help boost eco-tourism by allowing tourists to cross international borders to experience larger, more primeval wilderness without political borders and legal concerns. The inception of these parks has increased the land areas of many of Africa's most prolific parks (such as Kruger and Chobe), and will allow greater herds of large land mammals to migrate in more natural settings. In southern Africa these parks have been jump-started by the Peace Parks Foundation. These Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs, also known as Transfrontier Parks) are either in the finishing stages of political evaluation or beginning their delineation processes. TFCAs with preliminary geographic itineraries have been included here under the new name and area size of the designated TFCA. TFCAs still in early planning stages have not been listed here as a conglomerate. The Peace Parks Foundation include a list of all initiated and planned TFCAs as orchestrated by them, with goals for similar parks to be started in other regions of Africa in the future.

The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area is still undergoing a delineation process between the governments of the five countries, hopefully coming to completion by the end of 2010. The parks listed are provisional geographic boundaries initially set forth by representatives from the countries. For more information visit Peace Parks Foundation.

International Peace Park is a designation used in similar fashion for a couple parks in North America and Europe that have turned their geographic focus in the same direction. The two most prominent of these parks are the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park on the border of the United States and Canada and the Balkans Peace Park connecting pristine tracts of wilderness in Albania, Kosovo, and Serbia and Montenegro.^[13]

Park Definitions to be Included

This list is not restricted to National Parks, and includes all protected areas inscribed at the national level. This includes Game Reserves, Game Preserves, Wilderness Areas, National Monuments, National Preserves, Special Reserves, Safari Areas, Strict Forest Reserves, and also cultural lands under the protection of the national government that do not possess a protected area name (example: the Senge Communial Land Area in Kenya that will join the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park). Protected areas not inscribed at the national level (such as State Parks and Provincial Parks) are not included except for those being inscribed into a larger protected area. Parks are not listed individually if they make up a portion of a confirmed mega-park's inception.

References

1. ^ Statistics Greenland, Greenland in Figures, 2009
2. ^ BBC, UK sets up Chagos Islands marine reserve
3. ^ UNESCO's World Heritage listing for PIPA
4. ^ UNESCO's World Heritage listing for Papahānaumokuākea
5. ^ Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
6. ^ South African Peace Parks, Kavango – Zambezi
7. ^ South African Peace Parks, Great Limpopo
8. ^ South African Peace Parks, Kgalagadi
9. ^ South African Peace Parks, Maloti-Drakensberg
10. ^ UNESCO's World Heritage listing for the Laponian Area
11. ^ South African Peace Parks, |Ai-|Ais-Richtersveld
12. ^ Vindelfjällen Nature Reserve
13. ^ Balkans Peace Park Project, PProgress So Far