PLoS
<http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0008273>

High and Far: Biases in the Location of Protected Areas
Lucas N. Joppa 1, Alexander Pfaff 2

1 Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America,
2 Public Policy, Economics, and Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

Excerpts:

"About an eighth of the earth's land surface is in protected areas (hereafter “PAs”), most created during the 20th century. Natural landscapes are critical for species persistence and PAs can play a major role in conservation and in climate policy. Such contributions may be harder than expected to implement if new PAs are constrained to the same kinds of locations that PAs currently occupy."

"Across 147 countries' national networks, protected areas are indeed non-randomly located on the landscape. .... All of these results corroborate prior descriptions of specific PA network biases towards, for instance, “rock and ice” [12], [26]."

"... our results highlight the increasing realization that future PA allocation must differ from historic protection strategies."

<http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0008273>