Skip to content
Ecological Intelligence

Ecological evidence.
Independent perspective.
Explore Wild Lands ↗

Ecological Intelligence / Subject

Protected areas

Peer-reviewed

Thailand’s Racha Islands MPA is further along on designation than on demonstrated outcomes

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Racha Islands, Phuket, Thailand
System
Coral-reef and tourism marine protected area

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

An assessment of the Racha Islands MPA, established in 2023, used document review, ecological information, field observations and 69 stakeholder respondents during 2025. The reported overall management-effectiveness score was 54.3%, with stronger scores for context and outputs than for inputs and outcomes; many local users perceived major threats as broadly unchanged.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Protected-area designation creates a governance structure, not an ecological outcome. Early audits are most useful when they expose whether staffing, finance, enforcement, monitoring and baseline data are strong enough to turn legal boundaries into measurable change.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is an early post-designation snapshot of a newly established MPA. The respondent pool was modest, there was no comparable pre-designation socioeconomic baseline, ecological indicators had short follow-up, and the study cannot attribute observed conditions to the MPA itself.

SOURCE

Environmental Management
View original evidence ↗

An early management-effectiveness audit scored legal context and delivered activities higher than staffing, finance and measured outcomes.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

A second leopard-seal hotspot has emerged on Livingston Island

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
South Bay, Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
System
Southern Ocean coastal marine / pinniped aggregation

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

During 34 survey days in the 2025–2026 austral summer, researchers recorded 68 leopard-seal sightings representing 33 unique individuals in South Bay; nine animals were resighted. Most identified animals were adults in good or excellent body condition, and observations included feeding on penguins and seabirds, probable krill feeding, and breeding-associated behavior.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A wide-ranging predator can still concentrate activity in particular coastal places. If repeated use persists, site-level monitoring and disturbance management around aggregation areas may matter alongside population-scale Southern Ocean conservation.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is one field season at one Antarctic bay. Repeated sightings and reproductive behavior do not yet establish long-term site fidelity, a breeding colony, or population trend, and survey effort was constrained by local weather and access.

SOURCE

Polar Biology
View original evidence ↗

One austral-summer survey identified 33 unique animals in South Bay, with repeated use, feeding and breeding-associated behavior—enough to justify monitoring, not yet a permanent-site claim.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

Protected areas can reduce modeled livestock–wild ungulate competition even when overlap hotspots spill beyond their boundaries

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Qinghai–Tibet Plateau
System
High-elevation grasslands and pastoral landscapes

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Using 3,529 occurrence records for six wild ungulates plus modeled livestock distributions for 2000 and 2020, researchers estimated that wildlife and livestock shared 92.66% of habitat range. Modeled resource competition declined overall as grass yield rose and fell more inside protected areas than outside, yet protected areas covered only 41.49% of key wild-ungulate habitat and 12.71% of key habitat simultaneously exposed to overgrazing.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Protected areas may be doing real work while still being spatially incomplete. In working rangelands, conservation design has to address forage supply and movement outside formal boundaries rather than treating the protected polygon as the full ecological system.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Competition is modeled from habitat overlap, forage availability and downscaled population distributions under simplifying access assumptions; it is not a direct behavioral measure of wildlife–livestock interactions.

SOURCE

Earth’s Future · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗

Qinghai–Tibet modeling finds extensive shared range, highlighting both the value and spatial limits of protected-area design in pastoral landscapes.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →

Keep exploring

Follow the systems. Find the connections.

WildlifeLandWaterOceansClimateCitiesOne HealthGovernanceMethods / Monitoring
Browse the archive →