Management effectiveness and conservation prioritizing the protected areas using RAPPAM methodology (case study: Khuzestan province) Fakhrieh Mohseni & Gholamreza Sabzghabaei & Soolmaz Dashti Received: 17 May 2018 /Accepted: 29 January 2019 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 Abstract In the world today, where the industrializa- tion of countries is still on the increase, protecting hab- itats and wildlife will be possible only in protected areas. That is why maintaining species ’ diversity and preventing the destruction of habitats in protected areas has been of great interest. Rapid Assessment and Prior- itization of Protected Area Management methodology is one of the most common methods of management ef- fectiveness assessment and is used as a tool for man- agers and decision-makers of protected areas. Recently, the biodiversity and sustainability of wildlife popula- tions, as well as preserving the integrity of protected areas in the Khuzestan province, have been at risk due to several factors; therefore, the evaluation of management effectiveness in these areas is necessary. The studied areas in this research are protected areas in Khuzestan province, with a history of more than 5 years of man- agement. The results of this study show that Dez, a protected area with the highest points in the planning (38.5), has the highest score in management effective- ness (128.78). Also, Shimbar, a protected area with the lowest score (11), has the lowest score of management effectiveness (64.66) among the other areas. The overall management level of the protected areas in the Khuzestan province is at the low-intermediate manage- rial level compared to the global average. Therefore, it is necessary to change the policies and management of these areas. Keywords PA management . Effectiveness . Iran . RAPPAM . Conservation . Monitoring Introduction Protected areas are the most important tools of biodiver- sity conservation and ecosystem services (Scharlemann et al. 2010). Principles of conservation planning take place to identify species in need of immediate protection and to minimize loss of biodiversity (Tali et al. 2015). Despite inadequate funding and management processes, there are indications that protected areas are helping to biodiversity conservation and community health (Leverington et al. 2010). They are not immune to loss of habitat and biodiversity (Craigie et al. 2010; Laurance et al. 2012; Geldmann et al. 2013), or increasing anthro- pogenic pressures (Geldmann et al. 2014), all of which result in the development of a global network with a coverage of 15.4% of the Earth’ s protected areas (Juffe- Bignoli et al. 2014). Despite extensive coverage, biodi- versity is still declining (Butchart et al. 2010; Tittensor Environ Monit Assess (2019) 191:138 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7284-8 F. Mohseni : G. Sabzghabaei (*) Department of Environment, College of Natural Resources and Environment, Behbahan Khatam Alanbia University Of Technology, Behbahan, Iran e-mail: grsabz1@gmail.com F. Mohseni e-mail: fakhri.mohseni@yahoo.com S. Dashti Department of Environment, Ahvaz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran e-mail: soolmazdashti@iauahvaz.ac.ir