Do they measure outcomes?
Researchers have found that conservation management scorecards often prioritize administrative inputs over actual ecological outcomes. This discrepancy suggests that current global frameworks for evaluating protected areas may be failing to measure the health of the land itself.
In 2026, researchers studying 38 state-run protected areas in South Africa’s Cape Floristic Region found something that should trouble anyone who relies on a scorecard to know whether conservation is working. They compared standard management effectiveness indicators before and after a widely used decision-support framework was applied. Overall scores rose, driven by higher scores for inputs and outputs such as staffing and completed plans. The indicators that described the land itself, including its vegetation, soil and ecological condition, told a different story: they declined.
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