Enforcement Authority and Vegetation Change at Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan, India Paul F. Robbins Æ Anil K. Chhangani Æ Jennifer Rice Æ Erika Trigosa Æ S. M. Mohnot Received: 1 June 2006 / Accepted: 6 April 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007 Abstract Land cover change in protected areas is often associated with human use, especially illicit extraction, but the direction and spatial distribution of such effects and their drivers are poorly understood. We analyze and explain the spatial distribution of vegetation change at the Kumb- halgarh Wildlife Sanctuary in the Aravalli range of Rajas- than, India using remotely sensed data and observation of conservation institutions. Two satellite images are exam- ined in time series over the 13 years following the founding of the sanctuary through a cross-tabulation technique of dominant classes of vegetation density. The resulting change trajectories are compared for their relative distance to high-traffic forest entrance points for local users. The results show 28% of the study area undergoing change, though in multiple trajectories, with both increasing and decreasing density of vegetation in discrete patches. Areas of change are shown to be closer to entrance points than areas experiencing no change. The patchiness of change results from complex issues in local enforcement authority for middle and lower-level officials in Forest Department bureaucracy, leading to further questions about the efficacy and impact of use restrictions in Protected Areas. Introduction In the face of global environmental change (Ceballos and Ehrlich 2002, Sax and Gaines 2003, Singh 2002), the conservation boom of the last 20 years has expanded the worldwide number and coverage of protected areas at a staggering rate. Between 1982 and 2003, the number of protected areas around the world increased from 27,794 to 102,102. The total area under protected area status over the period, moreover, expanded from 8.8 million km 2 to 18.8 million km 2 (United Nations Environment Programme 2003). However, these data suggest less obvious trends as well. The average area per reserve decreased over the same period from 310 km 2 per reserve to 180 km 2 per reserve (United Nations Environment Programme 2003). So while the number of protected areas has more than tripled, the size of the average reserve has almost halved. This phe- nomenon is a result of the opening of new frontiers in conservation. Where large, open, and sparsely occupied areas formed the first wave of enclosures for conservation through the 20th century, the more recent period of man- agement has carved out areas that are smaller, more frag- mented, and closer to human habitation (Zimmerer 2000, Zimmerer and Young 1998, Parks and Harcourt 2002). Although some ‘‘wildernesses’’ (areas with little recent human activity) have been claimed in the recent expansion, conservation occurs more commonly in and around re- source-dependent communities that have long exercised use rights over land, leading to potential conflicts (Cardillo and others 2006, Luck and others 2004). In a country such as India, with 23 protected areas above 1000 km 2 ha (World Resources Institute 2005), the expansion of the conservation mandate invariably means establishing and imposing new rules and institutions for P. F. Robbins (&) Á J. Rice Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0076, USA e-mail: robbins@email.arizona.edu A. K. Chhangani Á S. M. Mohnot School of Desert Sciences, Rajasthan, India E. Trigosa School of Geography, Oxford University, Centre for the Environment, Oxford, UK 123 Environ Manage (2007) 40:365–378 DOI 10.1007/s00267-006-0187-9