Question

Why, or under what circumstances, might it be hard to establish a large area of protected land?

Answer 1

Even though it is very difficult to preserve large areas of intact rainforest is absolutely essential. Huge areas need to be kept roadless, unmanaged, and untrammeled insofar as possible, although there is constant pressure to use forest land and even protected land for every purpose – agriculture, aquaculture, logging, resource extraction, hunting. Unfortunately, protected areas are often so in name only, and are rarely well-monitored. Furthermore, they are ordinarily not large enough to maintain viable populations of large animals and trees.

Worldwide, only US$6.5 billion is spent annually on established reserves, and half of this is dispensed in the United States. Only a bit more than US$3 billion being spent by the rest of the world for this purpose, a trivial sum. So, it is also quite expensive to preserve larger areas of land, and not many are willing to spend that much doing so.