Editorial: Responding to disasters - The role of protected areas

Abstract

The costs of storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, ocean surge and desertification are increasing; and with each event natural capital is also lost in terms of healthy ecosystems, species and ecosystem services. Despite increased spending on disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies, well over a million people died as a result of natural hazards in the last decade. We need to rethink how to manage DRR. One strategy poorly recognised and under-exploited to date is the role of natural ecosystems in protecting against and mitigating from disasters and the role of protected areas in maintaining these ecosystem services. This editorial reviews how protected areas can support DDR and draws specifically on responses to the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.