Public perception about the conservation of terrestrial protected areas in baluchistan

The conservation of biodiversity, habitat and ecosystems is inevitable approach of Protected Areas globally because they are highly threatened by environmental challenges. Pakistan is a part of this global struggle for achieving the target of 17% of world to be declared protected areas till 2020. The prime objective of this paper is to analyze the awareness level, their management and legislation of the protected areas in Baluchistan. For the purpose a Key Informant survey was conducted through cheek list using purposive sampling techniques. The key informants selected include academicians, foresters, tribal leaders, concerned NGOs workers, staff of international conservation entities and agriculturists. The result revealed that the overall picture about awareness level is not encouraging where only 8% of the informants were aware about the number of protected areas and 37 % were found familiar with the basic concept of protected areas in Baluchistan. On the other hand survey results about the potential and preferences towards the management of protected areas (PAs) revealed that 54.1% of the informants thought that the potential of protected areas in Baluchistan is very high, 41.6% cited the potential is high, only 4% mentioned that the potential is low. Among the key informants only 12.5% were aware about the legislation for protected areas in Pakistan about environmental protection, likewise 33.3% knew about current legislation in Pakistan. Similarly 79.1% were aware about the current legislation in Balochistan and likewise 70.8% were familiar with legislation regarding protect areas in Baluchistan. There is always a room for improvements therefore the awareness level regarding protected areas are not on the mark. Thus this paper has initiated the baseline data for further studies and will serve the provincial stakeholders for raising sensitization among masses about protected areas in the province.