Please refer to the Protected areas (2010)

The STEP protected areas map aims to cover all publicly-owned land in the planning domain as well as all privately-owned land that has conservation as one of its land uses. Not all of these areas can be referred to as protected areas because some of them do not have conservation as the primary land use. They were however incorporated into the STEP protected areas layer because they provide opportunities for conservation in the future, owing to fact that they are either state-owned, or they support a framework (e.g. a conservancy agreement among land owners) that offers the potential to negotiate more biodiversity-friendly land use in future. The STEP protected areas layer is actually a conservation potential layer even though the report refers to it as a protected areas layer.

	Type 1: Protected areas owned and managed by the state, province or a local authority. Conservation legislation is strong.
	Type 2: Public or private land managed for conservation and other land uses. Conservation legislation is weak or non-existent.
	Type 3: Areas potentially available for conservation, owning to the existence of a structure for communication between conservation planners and landowners.