Land-Use Threats and Protected Areas: A Scenario-Based, Landscape Level Approach

AbstractLand-use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss. However, understanding how different components of land use drive biodiversity loss requires the investigation of multiple trophic levels across spatial scales. Using data from 150 agricultural grasslands in central Europe, we assess the influence of multiple components of local- and landscape-level land use on more than 4,000 above- and belowground taxa, spanning 20 trophic groups. Plot-level land-use intensity is strongly and negatively associated with aboveground trophic groups, but positively or not associated with belowground trophic groups. Meanwhile, both above- and belowground trophic groups respond to landscape-level land use, but to different drivers: aboveground diversity of grasslands is promoted by diverse surrounding land-cover, while belowground diversity is positively related to a high permanent forest cover in the surrounding landscape. These results highlight a role of landscape-level land use in shaping belowground communities, and suggest that revised agroecosystem management strategies are needed to conserve whole-ecosystem biodiversity.

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Landscape level conservation could promote a special category of protected areas

Banko Janakari ◽

10.3126/banko.v14i2.17048 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 30-34

Author(s):

Top B. Khatri ◽

Ek R. Sigdel

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Landscape Level ◽

Special Category

Abstract on PDF

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Effects of administrative land-use and technical land-form constraints on timber production at the landscape level

Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1080/02827581.2010.536568 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 120-127 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Leena Kärkkäinen ◽

Tuula Nuutinen ◽

Hannu Hirvelä ◽

Helena Mäkelä

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Timber Production ◽

Land Form ◽

Landscape Level

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Integrated Landscape Change Analysis of Protected Areas and their Surrounding Landscapes: Application in the Brazilian Cerrado

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12091413 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (9) ◽

pp. 1413 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Beatriz Bellón ◽

Julien Blanco ◽

Alta De Vos ◽

Fabio de O. Roque ◽

Olivier Pays ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Landscape Change ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Productivity Loss ◽

Landscape Dynamics ◽

Natural Vegetation ◽

Local Analysis ◽

Area Network ◽

Conservation Areas

Remote sensing tools have been long used to monitor landscape dynamics inside and around protected areas. Hereto, scientists have largely relied on land use and land cover (LULC) data to derive indicators for monitoring these dynamics, but these metrics do not capture changes in the state of vegetation surfaces that may compromise the ecological integrity of conservation areas’ landscapes. Here, we introduce a methodology that combines LULC change estimates with three Normalized Difference Vegetation Index-based proxy indicators of vegetation productivity, phenology, and structural change. We illustrate the utility of this methodology through a regional and local analysis of the landscape dynamics in the Cerrado Biome in Brazil in 2001 and 2016. Despite relatively little natural vegetation loss inside core protected areas and their legal buffer zones, the different indicators revealed significant LULC conversions from natural vegetation to farming land, general productivity loss, homogenization of natural forests, significant agricultural expansion, and a general increase in productivity. These results suggest an overall degradation of habitats and intensification of land use in the studied conservation area network, highlighting serious conservation inefficiencies in this region and stressing the importance of integrated landscape change analyses to provide complementary indicators of ecologically-relevant dynamics in these key conservation areas.

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Future climate and land use instability can negate the benefits of protected areas

10.21203/rs.3.rs-270966/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ernest Asamoah ◽

Linda Beaumont ◽

Joesph M Maina

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Multiple Scales ◽

Future Climate ◽

Spatially Adaptive ◽

Climate Stress ◽

Potential Benefits ◽

High Conservation ◽

Climate Velocity

Abstract Expanding protected area networks and enhancing their capacities is currently one avenue at the forefront of efforts to conserve and restore global biodiversity. Climate and habitat loss resulting from land use interact synergistically to undermine the potential benefits of protected areas (PAs). Targeting conservation, adaptation and mitigation efforts requires an understanding of patterns of climate and land-use change within the current arrangement of PAs, and how these might change in the future. In this paper, we provide this understanding using predicted rates of temporal and spatial displacement of future climate and land use globally and within PAs. We show that ~ 47% of the world’s PAs—10.6% of which are under restrictive management—are located in regions that will likely experience both climate stress and land-use instability by 2050. The vast majority of these PAs are also distributed across moist biomes and in high conservation value regions, and fall into less-restrictive management categories. The differential impacts of combined land use and climate velocity across protected biomes indicate that climate and land-use change may have fundamentally different ecological and management consequences at multiple scales. Taken together, our findings can inform spatially adaptive natural resource management and actions to achieve sustainable development and biodiversity goals.

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Spatial Planning as a Tool for Effective Nature Conservation: A Conceptual Framework for Turkey’s Spatial Planning System

Journal of Landscape Ecology ◽

10.2478/jlecol-2018-0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 73-98

Author(s):

Esra Yazici Gökmen ◽

Nuran Zeren Gülersoy

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Nature Conservation ◽

Literature Review ◽

Conceptual Framework ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Spatial Planning ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Planning System ◽

Effective Planning

Abstract Protected areas can be parts of larger ecosystems, and land use changes in the unprotected part of the ecosystems may threaten the biological diversity by affecting the ecological processes. The relationship between protected areas and their surroundings has been influential in understanding the role of spatial planning in nature conservation. This article focuses on the problem that Turkey’s protected areas are vulnerable to pressure and threats caused by land use changes. Spatial planning serving as a bridge between nature conservation and land use is the solution for effective nature conservation in Turkey. Thereby, the aim of this article is to develop a conceptual framework which offers spatial planning as an effective tool to bridge the gap between land use change and nature conservation. In this context, first literature review is conducted, and systematic conservation planning, evidence-based conservation planning, bioregional planning and national system planning are presented as effective planning methods in nature conservation. In addition to literature review, official national statistics and Convention on Biological Diversity’s country reports are utilized to shed light on Turkey’s current state. Finally, a conceptual framework is defined, the main differences with the current situation are revealed. The results indicate that an effective planning system for Turkey’s protected areas incorporates a holistic, target-oriented system defining the spatial planning process for protected areas. The spatial planning system to be developed in this context is also used by decision-makers in evaluating the ecological effectiveness of existing plans.

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Applied science facilitates the large-scale expansion of protected areas in an Amazonian hot spot

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.abe2998 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (31) ◽

pp. eabe2998

Author(s):

Nigel C.A. Pitman ◽

Corine F. Vriesendorp ◽

Diana Alvira Reyes ◽

Debra K. Moskovits ◽

Nicholas Kotlinski ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Large Scale ◽

Amazon Basin ◽

Hot Spot ◽

Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽

Local Communities ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Social Scientists ◽

International Commitments

Meeting international commitments to protect 17% of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide will require >3 million square kilometers of new protected areas and strategies to create those areas in a way that respects local communities and land use. In 2000–2016, biological and social scientists worked to increase the protected proportion of Peru’s largest department via 14 interdisciplinary inventories covering >9 million hectares of this megadiverse corner of the Amazon basin. In each landscape, the strategy was the same: convene diverse partners, identify biological and sociocultural assets, document residents’ use of natural resources, and tailor the findings to the needs of decision-makers. Nine of the 14 landscapes have since been protected (5.7 million hectares of new protected areas), contributing to a quadrupling of conservation coverage in Loreto (from 6 to 23%). We outline the methods and enabling conditions most crucial for successfully applying similar campaigns elsewhere on Earth.

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