We were primarily interested in investigating the national conditions
correlated with protected-area success as measured by this
health index. Other socio-economic conditions being equal, we
hypothesize that the national emphasis on gazetting
high-protection reserves might partially predict the degree to
which tropical protected areas are governed and supported. To that
end, we compiled the country-level breakdown of protected areas
by IUCN protection category from the World Database on Protected
Areas (IUCN and UNEP-WCMC, 2013), as an index of such reserve
support and governance.