It's true that not all "National Parks" are IUCN level 2, though most IUCN level 2 features appear to be National Parks, and of the 1700 boundary=national_park features which are also tagged with protect_class, 3/4 are protect_class=2, only 1 out of 4 has a different number. See http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/SsZ and http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/St0.
The wiki page mentions that some other features, like Natural Monuments and Wilderness areas, are currently tagged as boundary=national_park, since that was the only original tag for such areas. So some features would need to be re-tagged as boundary=protected_area if we are going to use boundary=national_park for just National Parks, but this will be much less retagging than attempting to change all boundary=national_park features to =protected_area + the right IUCN category. If someone wants to directly tag the IUCN category for different areas, they could use a more specific tag like "iucn_cateogry=" with only the actual IUCN levels (1a, 1b, 2 - 6), though it seems like Wikidata might be a better place to record such details which have to be imported from outside datasets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_protected_area_categories -- Joseph Eisenberg On 4/6/20, Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.ke...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 6:37 AM Andrew Davidson <thesw...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On 6/4/20 9:23 am, Joseph Eisenberg wrote: >> > The only thing that the proposal page still needs is a couple more >> > detailed definitions for some of the tags. >> >> Maybe not. A quick read finds this statement: >> >> protect_class=2 will be tagged as boundary=national_park (de facto) >> >> This is a problem because boundary=national_park already exists as a >> generic tag for a conservation area. A quick survey of all of the >> existing boundary=national_park with a wikidata link finds the following >> range of IUCN Protected Area Categories: >> >> Class Count >> IA 95 >> IB 70 >> II 848 >> III 74 >> IV 277 >> V 234 >> VI 159 >> Total 1757 >> >> So less than 50% of "National Parks" are Cat II. >> >> I would suggest adding protection_class=national_park and dropping the >> suggestion of using boundary=national_park. > > [A side point:] > While I regard IUCN as a fine authority for the definition of the > protection categories, I have found it to be considerably less useful > for the application of the definition. For instance, in my home state > of New York, all Wilderness Areas are tagged as category VI on IUCN's > site. This is surely incorrect; the language that establishes them is > nearly identical to the parallel language in the (US Federal) > Wilderness Act. Motorized travel, harvesting of trees, bicycles, the > erection of permanent structures (there is an exemption for certain > improvements to trails and campsites to protect the rest of the area > from hikers), all are strictly forbidden. Areas protected by NGO's > (e.g., Nature Conservancy, Open Space Institute, Ducks Unlimited) and > land trusts are not listed at all. > > [A stronger point:] > I agree with you that boundary=national_park presents us with an > awkward problem: what does it mean? It's a tag that's been around for > a long time, and there are over a thousand objects that bear it. If it > simply means that an area has the phrase, "National Park" (in the > local language) somewhere in its name, it's pretty redundant, and > fails to cover features that are national parks in structure and > function but named differently. If it simply means 'category II > protected area,' then it's surely redundant, but furthermore, half of > the ones we have are mistagged. Perhaps most awkwardly, once we've > chosen to use the tag, 'boundary=national_park', then > 'boundary=protected_area' is no longer available to us. > > Can we work around the problem simply by allowing 'protection_class' > to apply to 'boundary=national_park' as well as > 'boundary=protected_area' and asserting that the default value of > 'protection_class' for 'national_park' shall be assumed to be 2 > (surely the plurality, if not the majority, of the areas listed > above)? That could also allow us to choose, for example, 1b for a > national park that is all wilderness, or 6 for one of the porous > national parks in the UK, where most of the land is in private hands > and people continue to live and work inside a park's borders (albeit > under severe constraints as to the uses to which the land may be put). > We could also then state that 'boundary=national_park' should be used > in preference to 'boundary=protected_area' where it applies. > > That would also allow us to address Joseph Eisenberg's objection (in > the talk page on the WIki) that the proposal violates the 'one object, > one tag' principle. We could retain established tagging for such > things as 'leisure=nature_reserve' or 'landuse=recreation_ground' > while still indicating that the features enjoy a particular legal > protection, by augmenting the tagging with a 'protection_class'. > 'Boundary=protected_area' could then be reserved for the features for > which no existing tagging applies. The inapplicability can come about > for numerous reasons. For instance, 'protected_area' may become the > unifying tag because the protection status is the only salient > feature, or because there is no existing tagging that applies well, or > because the area admits of mixed land uses that share a common > boundary and name. > > > -- > 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging > _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
