Protected areas can do lots of things. They can protect many different aspects of nature, including stocks that we harvest now or maybe stocks that we may harvest in the future, but the important thing is that we're protecting ecosystems. The suggestion to use ecological integrity as a management end point, and really a planning end point, is so that we get these areas right, so that we actually are protecting areas that are going to have a high chance of persisting through time. It gives us a planning tool and a measurement tool in setting these things up.
On November 23rd, 2017. See this statement in context.