**1. Introduction**

Until recently, values and benefits from protected areas have often been taken for granted and underestimated. This book entitled *National Park: Management and Conservation* demonstrates that there are deep necessities in how the wider scientific, environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural values that these natural ecosystems provide should increasingly be recognized. The book highlights various approaches for managing and conserving protected areas to respond to some pressing global challenges today such as climate change, demand for food and energy, over exploitation, and habitat change. For this purpose, the book is published to address these issues and divided into five main sections: (1) protected area management, (2) fish and wildlife conservation, (3) biodiversity conservation, (4) ecotourism and recreation, and (5) local community participation.

The first section concentrates on challenges, constraints, and the way forward in managing protected areas with special references to Croatia, Austria, and the Czech Republic which include some pertinent issues related to transboundary cooperation. It outlines how mutual cooperation between countries can be achieved to share common responsibility in protected area management. An establishment and implementation of protected area management plan and determination of wildlife population in protected areas are highlighted in the second section of the book based on the case studies conducted in Japan and Ethiopia, respectively. Meanwhile, in Brazil, biomarkers were used to assess the exposure to environmental stress in fish population. The third section of the book outlines a progress and historical perspective over hundred years of national parks' existence in Spain since 1918. The establishment of protected areas has promoted toward more sustainable use of forest resources through biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development. The second chapter of this section highlights the important roles of forest biomass estimated from three forest types in Malaysia

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

(i.e., lowland dipterocarp, hill dipterocarp, and riparian forests) in sequestering carbon as climate change mitigation. The fourth section discusses the important roles of interpretation as part of management tools for recreation in the national parks of South Africa. The next chapter discusses the growing trend of ecotourism in national parks and how it impacts the natural environment. The final section of the chapter presents the opportunities and constraints for local community involvement in protected area management in Turkey. An assessment and measurement methods to evaluate the effectiveness of stakeholder participatory process are also highlighted.

of protected area which includes significant ecological, biological, cultural, and scenic value. Safeguarding integrity of this interaction is crucial to ensure the protection and sustainability of the area. The final category refers to as protected areas with sustainable use of natural resources. This involves an integration of ecosystem conservation, cultural values, and natural resource management which involve large and natural area condition. One of the aims for this category is for the use of natural resources that is compatible with nature conservation.

Introductory Chapter: Conserving Biodiversity in Protected Areas

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Biodiversity can be defined as the variety of plants, animals, and microorganisms that exist, the genes they contain, and the ecosystems they live in. It provides a variety of goods and services and supports our economy and lifestyles. Man has a moral duty to conserve it to ensure long-term sustainability for human survival and future generations. Trees are an example of critical component of biodiversity. The diversity of life that a tree can support is incredible. For example, in the tropical rainforests, a single tree can house up to 2000 different species of insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fungi, mosses, and epiphytic plants. Unfortunately, natural habitats everywhere are declining. Therefore, the establishment of protected area networks is essential for biodiversity conservation and thus helps to reduce its loss. As habitats are lost, we are also losing various types of precious flora and fauna. No one would have thought, even a few years ago, that some species from the families of Dipterocarpaceae, Grammitidaceae, and Begoniaceae could be extinct, but now they are. Protected areas can be used as complementary measures to achieve sustainable use of biodi-

versity and protect many threatened and endemic species from becoming vanished.

mountainous, and marginal lands and protected areas for wildlife sanctuaries.

In many tropical countries throughout the world, much of the forest has lost as a result from rapid changes in land use and land cover since the last few decades. In Malaysia, for example, the changes in land use cover, particularly to agricultural land, rubber, and oil palm cultivation, are the major contributors of this conversion when the country gained independence. For example, in the 1960s, the 70% of land in Peninsular Malaysia was under natural forest cover; however, 10 years later, only 60.9% of forested area remained due to massive land development schemes during that period [2]. By 1980, the natural forest cover further declined to 49.4% (Forest Statistics, Peninsular Malaysia (1979–1985)) and has now stabilized at 44.5% since 1997 [3] as most of the land more suitable to agriculture has been cleared, leaving hilly,

Malaysia is well endowed with a great biodiversity with about 12,500–15,000 species of vascular plants [4]. A national strategy for plant conservation has been developed for the country. Part of the strategies includes a publication of *Tree Flora of Peninsular Malaysia* in four volumes since 2005 which described a total of 991 species. Meanwhile, the *Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak* was published in seven volumes since 1990 covering a total of 2055 species [5].

**4. Plant conservation strategy: Malaysia's perspective**

**3. Biodiversity conservation**

It can be summarized that the book discusses multifaceted issues pertaining the management and conservation of national parks and protected areas. The proceeding section of this introductory chapter is written on the premise that nature conservation remains the primary aim of protected areas. The chapter demonstrates that there is a profound link between the roles of protected areas and biodiversity conservation based on case studies in Malaysia. While many of protected areas are established worldwide for the conservation of particular species of interest, yet their benefits may be extended to conservation of entire biodiversity pools. In addition, biodiversity conservation, i.e., species, genetic diversity within species, and of habitats, underpins the ecosystem function of protected areas which contribute to many practical and utilitarian benefits.
