Geoconservation and protected areas

Abstract

Conservation will fail if nature conservation policies impose artificial boundaries on the natural world. The protected area manager’s main task is biodiversity preservation. Nevertheless, nature conservation requires a broad perspective. Incorporating geology into conservation policies at the same level as biology is urgent. The slow rate of many geological processes leads to the misconception that geological resources are inexhaustible and immutable. Geologists know that this is not true and that many landscapes and outcrops with unique features have already been destroyed forever due to an inappropriate management.