Management effectiveness positively influences forest conservation outcomes in protected areas in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Powlen ◽  
Michael C. Gavin ◽  
Kelly W. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Management Effectiveness ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Management Quality ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Equal Sharing ◽  
Careful Design

Understanding the factors that drive protected area outcomes is critical to increase the success of global conservation efforts. Until recently, our understanding of the influence of management effectiveness has been restricted by the limited availability of standardized management data and study design limitations of prior evaluations. Here we use a quasi-experimental matching approach to test the influence of management effectiveness on forest cover change inside 46 protected areas in Mexico. We test the influence of five management categories, including context and planning, administration and finance, use and benefits, governance and social participation, and management quality, as well as an overall effectiveness score, using a subgroup analysis and an interaction term in post-matching multiple linear regression. Our results show that protected areas with higher management effectiveness have a greater effect on reducing deforestation compared to those with low management effectiveness, but that both types of protected areas experience less forest loss compared to similar unprotected areas. We find this trend in all five of the management categories and the overall score, with administration and finance scores having the greatest effect on forest loss outcomes. Our findings suggest careful design and planning, effective participation from multiple stakeholders and equal sharing of benefits, and sufficient human and financial capital can improve the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing forest loss.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of Protected Areas in the Pan-Tropics and International Aid for Conservation

Geomatics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-346
Author(s):  
Do-Hyung Kim ◽  
Anupam Anand
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Forest Conservation ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Average Effect ◽  
Tropical Countries ◽  
Conservation Policies ◽  
The Tropics

Evaluation of the effectiveness of protected areas is critical for forest conservation policies and priorities. We used 30 m resolution forest cover change data from 1990 to 2010 for ~4000 protected areas to evaluate their effectiveness. Our results show that protected areas in the tropics avoided 83,500 ± 21,200 km2 of deforestation during the 2000s. Brazil’s protected areas have the largest amount of avoided deforestation at 50,000 km2. We also show the amount of international aid received by tropical countries compared to the effectiveness of protected areas. Thirty-four tropical countries received USD 42 billion during the 1990s and USD 62 billion during the 2000s in international aid for biodiversity conservation. The effectiveness of international aid was highest in Latin America, with 4.3 m2/USD, led by Brazil, while tropical Asian countries showed the lowest average effect of international aid, reaching only 0.17 m2/USD.

scholarly journals Mapping Mangrove Forest Change in Nijhum Dwip Island

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 217-225
Author(s):  
MM Rahman ◽  
MAT Pramanik ◽  
MI Islam ◽  
S Razia
Keyword(s):  
Mangrove Forest ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Forest Conversion ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Forest Change ◽  
Change Analysis ◽  
Coastal Belt ◽  
Land Covers

Mangroves have been planting in the coastal belt of Bangladesh to protect the inhabitants of the coastal areas from cyclones and storm surges. Nijhum Dwip is located at the southern part of Hatiya Island. Most part of the island has been planted with the mangroves in the 1970s and 1980s; while parts of the mangroves have been deforested during the past few decades. The objectives of this research were to delineate and quantify the changes in the extent of mangroves in the island. The Landsat data of 1989, 2001, 2010 and 2018 have been utilized in the study. Three major land covers, namely forest, water and other land have been interpreted and delineated by using on-screen digitizing. The quantity of mangrove forest loss in the island is estimated as 1,024 ha, while 395 ha were afforested during 1989-2018. In the decadal change analysis, it was revealed that net forest cover change was higher in 2000s compared to other two decades and it was -425 ha. The result of the study is helpful to understand the extent and pattern of forest conversion in the island and to halt further forest loss and conserve the remaining forest. J. Environ. Sci. & Natural Resources, 11(1-2): 217-225 2018

scholarly journals Effects of Protected Areas on Forest Cover Change and Local Communities: Evidence from the Peruvian Amazon

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Jose Miranda ◽  
Leonardo Corral ◽  
Allen Blackman ◽  
Gregory Asner ◽  
Eirivelthon Lima
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Peruvian Amazon ◽  
Forest Cover Change

scholarly journals Securing tropical forest carbon: the contribution of protected areas to REDD

Oryx ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörn P. W. Scharlemann ◽  
Valerie Kapos ◽  
Alison Campbell ◽  
Igor Lysenko ◽  
Neil D. Burgess ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Protected Area Management ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
The Tropics

AbstractForest loss and degradation in the tropics contribute 6–17% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Protected areas cover 217.2 million ha (19.6%) of the world’s humid tropical forests and contain c. 70.3 petagrams of carbon (Pg C) in biomass and soil to 1 m depth. Between 2000 and 2005, we estimate that 1.75 million ha of forest were lost from protected areas in humid tropical forests, causing the emission of 0.25–0.33 Pg C. Protected areas lost about half as much carbon as the same area of unprotected forest. We estimate that the reduction of these carbon emissions from ongoing deforestation in protected sites in humid tropical forests could be valued at USD 6,200–7,400 million depending on the land use after clearance. This is > 1.5 times the estimated spending on protected area management in these regions. Improving management of protected areas to retain forest cover better may be an important, although certainly not sufficient, component of an overall strategy for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

scholarly journals Understanding 34 Years of Forest Cover Dynamics across the Paraguayan Chaco: Characterizing Annual Changes and Forest Fragmentation Levels between 1987 and 2020

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Da Da Ponte ◽  
Monserrat García-Calabrese ◽  
Jennifer Kriese ◽  
Nestor Cabral ◽  
Lidia Perez de Perez de Molas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Landsat Images ◽  
Forest Clearing ◽  
Deforestation Rates ◽  
Degree Of Fragmentation

Over the past 40 years, Paraguay has lost the majority of its natural forest cover, thus becoming one of the countries with the highest deforestation rates in the world. The rapid expansion of the agricultural frontier, cattle ranching, and illegal logging between 1987 and 2012 resulted in the loss of 27% of original forest cover, equivalent to almost 44,000 km2. Within this context, the present research provides the first yearly analysis of forest cover change in the Paraguayan Chaco between the years 1987 and 2020. Remote sensing data obtained from Landsat images were applied to derive annual forest cover masks and deforestation rates over 34 years. Part of this study is a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of protected areas, as well as an analysis of the degree of fragmentation of the forest. All classification results obtained accuracies above 80% and revealed a total forest cover loss of approximately 64,700 km2. Forest clearing within protected areas was not frequent; however, some natural reserves presented losses of up to 25% of their forest cover. Through the consideration of several landscape metrics, this study reveals an onward fragmentation of forest cover, which endangers the natural habitat of numerous species.

scholarly journals Migration, Remittances, and Forest Cover Change in Rural Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arild Angelsen ◽  
Mariel Aguilar-Støen ◽  
John Ainembabazi ◽  
Edwin Castellanos ◽  
Matthew Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Household Surveys ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Household Members ◽  
Migration Flows

This article investigates how migration and remittances affect forest cover in eight rural communities in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico. Based on household surveys and remote sensing data, we found little evidence to support the widespread claim that migration takes pressure off forests. In the Chiapas sites, we observed no significant changes in forest cover since 1990, while in the Guatemalan sites, migration may have increased demand for agricultural land, leading to an average annual forest loss of 0.73% during the first decade of the millennium. We suggest that when attractive opportunities exist to invest in agriculture and land expansion, remittances and returnee savings provide fresh capital that is likely to increase pressure on forests. Our study also has implications for the understanding of migration flows; in particular, migration has not implied an exodus out of agriculture for the remaining household members nor for the returning migrants. On the contrary, returning migrants are more likely to be involved in farming activities after their return than they were before leaving.

scholarly journals Assessing the tropical forest cover change in northern parts of Sonitpur and Udalguri District of Assam, India

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranjit Mahato ◽  
Gibji Nimasow ◽  
Oyi Dai Nimasow ◽  
Dhoni Bushi
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
National Park ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Wildlife Sanctuary ◽  
Remotely Sensed Data ◽  
Ground Truth Data ◽  
Increasing Trends

AbstractSonitpur and Udalguri district of Assam possess rich tropical forests with equally important faunal species. The Nameri National Park, Sonai-Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary, and other Reserved Forests are areas of attraction for tourists and wildlife lovers. However, these protected areas are reportedly facing the problem of encroachment and large-scale deforestation. Therefore, this study attempts to estimate the forest cover change in the area through integrating the remotely sensed data of 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 with the Geographic Information System. The Maximum Likelihood algorithm-based supervised classification shows acceptable agreement between the classified image and the ground truth data with an overall accuracy of about 96% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.95. The results reveal a forest cover loss of 7.47% from 1990 to 2000 and 7.11% from 2000 to 2010. However, there was a slight gain of 2.34% in forest cover from 2010 to 2020. The net change of forest to non-forest was 195.17 km2 in the last forty years. The forest transition map shows a declining trend of forest remained forest till 2010 and a slight increase after that. There was a considerable decline in the forest to non-forest (11.94% to 3.50%) from 2000–2010 to 2010–2020. Further, a perceptible gain was also observed in the non-forest to the forest during the last four decades. The overlay analysis of forest cover maps show an area of 460.76 km2 (28.89%) as forest (unchanged), 764.21 km2 (47.91%) as non-forest (unchanged), 282.67 km2 (17.72%) as deforestation and 87.50 km2 (5.48%) as afforestation. The study found hotspots of deforestation in the closest areas of National Park, Wildlife Sanctuary, and Reserved Forests due to encroachments for human habitation, agriculture, and timber/fuelwood extractions. Therefore, the study suggests an early declaration of these protected areas as Eco-Sensitive Zone to control the increasing trends of deforestation.

scholarly journals Forest Cover Change and the Effectiveness of Protected Areas in the Himalaya since 1998

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6123
Author(s):  
Changjun Gu ◽  
Pei Zhao ◽  
Qiong Chen ◽  
Shicheng Li ◽  
Lanhui Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Forest Cover Changes ◽  
Matched Samples ◽  
The Himalaya

Himalaya, a global biodiversity hotspot, has undergone considerable forest cover fluctuation in recent decades, and numerous protected areas (PAs) have been established to prohibit forest degradation there. However, the spatiotemporal characteristics of this forest cover change across the whole region are still unknown, as are the effectiveness of its PAs. Therefore, here, we first mapped the forest cover of Himalaya in 1998, 2008, and 2018 with high accuracy (>90%) using a random forest (RF) algorithm based on Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The propensity score matching (PSM) method was applied with eight control variables to balance the heterogeneity of land characteristics inside and outside PAs. The effectiveness of PAs in Himalaya was quantified based on matched samples. The results showed that the forest cover in Himalaya increased by 4983.65 km2 from 1998 to 2008, but decreased by 4732.71 km2 from 2008 to 2018. Further analysis revealed that deforestation and reforestation mainly occurred at the edge of forest tracts, with over 55% of forest fluctuation occurring below a 2000 m elevation. Forest cover changes in PAs of Himalaya were analyzed; these results indicated that about 56% of PAs had a decreasing trend from 1998 to 2018, including the Torsa (Ia PA), an area representative of the most natural conditions, which is strictly protected. Even so, as a whole, PAs in Himalaya played a positive role in halting deforestation.

scholarly journals Object-Based Classification of Forest Disturbance Types in the Conterminous United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lian-Zhi Huo ◽  
Luigi Boschetti ◽  
Aaron Sparks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Forest Disturbance ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Forest Change ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer

Forest ecosystems provide critical ecosystem goods and services, and any disturbance-induced changes can have cascading impacts on natural processes and human socioeconomic systems. Forest disturbance frequency, intensity, and spatial and temporal scale can be altered by changes in climate and human activity, but without baseline forest disturbance data, it is impossible to quantify the magnitude and extent of these changes. Methodologies for quantifying forest cover change have been developed at the regional-to-global scale via several approaches that utilize data from high (e.g., IKONOS, Quickbird), moderate (e.g., Landsat) and coarse (e.g., Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)) spatial resolution satellite imagery. While detection and quantification of forest cover change is an important first step, attribution of disturbance type is critical missing information for establishing baseline data and effective land management policy. The objective here was to prototype and test a semi-automated methodology for characterizing high-magnitude (>50% forest cover loss) forest disturbance agents (stress, fire, stem removal) across the conterminous United States (CONUS) from 2003–2011 using the existing University of Maryland Landsat-based Global Forest Change Product and Web-Enabled Landsat Data (WELD). The Forest Cover Change maps were segmented into objects based on temporal and spatial adjacency, and object-level spectral metrics were calculated based on WELD reflectance time series. A training set of objects with known disturbance type was developed via high-resolution imagery and expert interpretation, ingested into a Random Forest classifier, which was then used to attribute disturbance type to all 15,179,430 forest loss objects across CONUS. Accuracy assessments of the resulting classification was conducted with an independent dataset consisting of 4156 forest loss objects. Overall accuracy was 88.1%, with the highest omission and commission errors observed for fire (32.8%) and stress (31.9%) disturbances, respectively. Of the total 172,686 km2 of forest loss, 83.75% was attributed to stem removal, 10.92% to fire and 5.33% to stress. The semi-automated approach described in this paper provides a promising framework for the systematic characterization and monitoring of forest disturbance regimes.

scholarly journals Degradation of visible autumn icons and conservation opportunities: trends in deciduous forest loss in the contiguous US

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay M Dreiss ◽  
Jacob W Malcom
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Deciduous Forest ◽  
Forest Disturbance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Stability ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Conservation Action ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Temperate Deciduous Forests

Temperate deciduous forests are one of the most visible biomes on Earth because of their autumn aesthetics and because they harbor some of the most heavily populated regions, including in the United States. Their location and their ability to attract leaf-peeping outsiders may provide greater opportunities for people to experience nature, which has been linked to greater conservation action. However, accelerating human modification of landscapes means continued forest loss and fragmentation. We use spatial overlay analyses to quantify recent (1984-2016) and predicted (2016-2050) forest disturbance in each U.S. ecoregion and the extent to which each ecoregion falls into protected areas. Almost all ecoregions saw a steady decline in deciduous forest cover between 1985 and 2016 with some of the top ecoregions for autumn aesthetics being underrepresented in the protected areas network and vulnerable to additional losses. Generally, ecoregions undergoing greater proportional losses have greater forest area and are less represented in the protected areas network. Under worst-case forecasting scenarios, losses are predicted to continue. However, environmentally focused scenarios suggest there is still opportunity to reverse deciduous forest loss in some ecoregions. The large difference in forest loss estimates in the predictions scenarios emphasizes the importance of human approaches to economic growth and sustainability in securing environmental stability. Increasing public exposure to temperate forests may help ensure conservation of more natural areas and preserve the quantity and quality of autumn forest viewing.

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