Covering 13.2 million square kilometres, or more than 8.8% of the earth's land area, protected areas are at the core of global efforts to conserve biological diversity (Green and Paine, 1997). The effective management of these areas, however, depends greatly upon the adequacy of resources available to government agencies and other bodies charged with their management and protection. These agencies require resources for annual operating budgets, capital investment, staff training, community development, and public awareness among a wide range of other activities. Moreover, the control of unsustainable practices, such as wildlife poaching and the encroachment of agriculture and mining into protected areas places an additional burden on many management agencies. The global level of protected area expenditure is not well documented, though often argued to be inadequate (McNeeley et al, 1990; IUCN, UNEP, WWF, 1991).

While the geographical areas under protection are well defined (e.g. IUCN, 1994a, 1998), management intensity has not received regular assessment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that in many countries protected areas are often left unmanaged, a direct result of inadequate budgets and staffing by government agencies (e.g. WCMC, 1992a; IUCN, 1994b). However, a lack of information on agency budgets has hindered a systematic assessment of the adequacy of funding for the world's protected area system and setting of priorities for foreign assistance. Government expenditure on protected areas, or biodiversity conservation more generally, is not reported in international financial statistics (IMF, 1988; 1998). Nor does such information appear in other major compendia of environmental data, such as OECD (1991), World Bank (1992), WRI (1994), WCMC (1992a, 1992b,1994a). Governments rarely have convenient access to budgetary data for most aspects of environmental protection expenditure, including biodiversity conservation. This reflects the relatively recent emergence of biological diversity on the political agenda, with statistical reporting systems lagging well behind the rising interest in the subject. This study aims to address the gap in information on protected area resources by:

• Presenting data on protected area budget and staffing levels for a global cross-section of countries, drawing on WCMC surveys and other information.
• Estimating the shortfalls in protected area budgets and the cost of adequately conserving protected areas in different regions.
• Examining the factors that influence protected area budgets and staffing levels, such as country income, population density, protected area size, and biodiversity richness.
• Identifying countries for priority assistance.

The study comprises seven sections. The next section reviews previous studies of protected area expenditures. The data collection and presentation methods of this study are outlined in Section 3. In Section 4, the budget, staffing, and shortfall data are presented, which provide the basis for estimates of the cost of adequate protected area conservation in the developing countries. Priority countries for foreign assistance are identified in Section 5. Section 6 examines the impact of income, population pressure and other variables on protected area budgets and staffing. The final section summarises the principle findings and highlights the vital need for further research and establishing standard reporting procedures within the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity.