Regarding the "where/what" dimension of the question, according to the Long-Term Development Plan the national park area is divided into four zones: the Absolute Protection Zone, covering Noah's Ark and the Meteor Crater; the Sensitive Protection Zone, covering the summit, the Birch Forest and the surroundings of the Korhan Plateau; the Sustainable Use Zone; and the Controlled Use Zone (Iğdır Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks, 0000). The fact that most of the park lies in the sustainable use zone, while the glaciers fall in the sensitive protection zone and iconic but small-scale sites are placed in a separate absolute protection zone, suggests that conservation is focused on symbolic points rather than on ecological integrity. This pattern does not accord with the fundamental principle of the systematic conservation planning approach, according to which protected areas should represent biodiversity and separate it from the processes that threaten it. Yet existing systems worldwide largely contain a biased sample of remote areas unsuitable for commercial use (Margules and Pressey, 0000). The most concrete field expression of this boundary mismatch is the solid waste facility, which is built on volcanic lava flows yet left outside the national park, and the Plio-Quaternary sandstone formations containing marine and terrestrial fossils around Erhacı village; this area of geoheritage value also lies outside the national park. Practice within the boundary confirms this paradox as well: in the Strictly Protected Sensitive Areas,