Lessons learned from Bhutan

What are the key messages regarding sustainable land use and nature protection?

A key message regarding sustainable land use and nature protection from Bhutan example is in this country tourism started comparably late to other countries and local people did not loss their traditional lifestyle habits as well as religion and attitude towards nature and conservation. The government decided to have certain limitations factors, which help to manage the region in a sustainable way including tourism. Since 1995 the entrance fee for one person to the country is 200 US dollars, this aspect makes is possible not to have a mass-tourism. Also most of the money earned from tourism goes to local people who provide local food, accommodation and tourist guides. All of tourism needed elements such as accommodations; road and etc. are limited as well.

Can be Bhutan model transferred to the rest of the world? Why? Why not? To which degree?

I think it is possible to transfer a model of Bhutan sustainable tourism to some counties but certainly not to the rest of the world because is it nearly impossible nowadays to stop mass tourism to the 3 s type of tourism destinations and not all of the tourist will have that much money however nearly every person wants to have a vocation in a good location country and spend as little as possible of their money. Also big companies in transport, food, location, entertainment areas unfortunately stay appealing and attractive to the most tourists which is not a model of Bhutan example.

For some countries with a rich history, traditions and culture with not so many accommodations and government with legislation in a tourism it is possible to manage the fixed entrance prices and managed the money flow between tourist and local people.

Select one high mountain area as an example and explain why biodiversity is especially high in such landscape?

Mountains are storehouses of global biodiversity. They support approximately one-quarter of terrestrial biological diversity; half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in mountains. Mountains are rich in endemic species, plants and animals that occur nowhere else.

Several reasons for high plant species diversity in mountains:

- The compression of climate zones over short distances..

- The great diversity of habitats resulting from topographic diversity driven by the forces of gravity.

- Habitat isolation and fragmentation, leading to local or regional diversification.

- Mountains often offer migratory corridors.

- Moderate disturbance such as landslides, avalanches, grazing by large herbivores and/or wildfires tend to further increase habitat differentiation and diversity.

- Finally, at the community level, high altitude vegetation above tree line is diverse on small scales simply because of the small size of the species. Quite often one can find half of the plant species of a large area on a few square meters of dense ground cover.

IRANIAN MOUNTAINS

More than 100 mountain peaks can be found in Iran. The Iranian mountains are situated between Anatolia/Caucasus and the Hindu Kush; their flora contains elements from both regions. However, more then 50 % of those species are endemic to Iran and some are remarkable relic species, primarily local endemic with a narrow ecological range. These plants need strong conservation and protection management, not only because they are rare but because the ecosystems where they live are fragile, often very restricted, small and isolated in high elevation areas. These plants adapted to the cold are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate warming and intensive grazing over large parts of Iran’s mountain is expected to exert additional pressure on them. Many of those plants are potentially endangered and vulnerable species, and their threatened status should be assessed according to the IUCN criteria.

Muller

List 6 Categories of PA’s IUCN and give a short assessment on their value for conservation of biodiversity.

Ia - Strict Nature Reserve - managed for science

Ib - Wilderness Area - wilderness protection

II - National Park - protected area managed for ecosystem protection and recreation

III - Natural Monument - protected area managed for conservation of specific natural features

IV - Habitat/Species Management Area - protected area managed mainly for conservation

Дата добавления: 2015-08-13