El papel social y económico de las áreas protegidas. La protección de naturaleza frente a las comunidades locales. Revisión de los métodos de investigación y características de las áreas en América Latina

The paper presents the evolution of views on the impact of national parks and reserves on socio-economic development of the areas, which are adjacent to protected lands. It presents also the types of benefits from the protected areas: direct and indirect resource use as well as the compensatory mechanisms for local communities. The paper focuses on an overview on the methods commonly used by various disciplines in this type of research. In the second part of the article the statistical analysis of the number of protected areas according to different types of IUCN categories was presented. There are also examples of national parks and reserves in the Latin America, their specificity and their impact on the development of local communities.