This essay addresses the conservation issues facing mangroves in the Anthropocene, defined as the era of human domination over the world. We review the laws, policies, international agreements, and local actions that address the conservation of mangrove forests in the Neotropics and relate them to the Anthropocene. Collaboration between governments, non-governmental organizations, and communities that depend on mangroves for their livelihood will be critical in the Anthropocene. The essay also reviews recent developments in mangrove ecology and ecophysiology that enlighten how mangroves might respond to changes in temperature and rainfall, sea level rise, and other anthropogenic and natural disturbances. Mangroves in the Anthropocene will also face changes in their species composition given the current movement of mangroves species across continental barriers as a result of human activity. These trends will lead to novel mangrove forests and in some cases expand the range of mangroves worldwide. The solution to mangrove persistence in the Anthropocene is not to isolate mangroves from people, but to regulate interactions between mangroves and humans through effective management. We will also have to expand the scope of the ecological analysis of mangrove ecosystems to include the social forces converging on the mangroves through an analytical approach that has been termed Social Ecology.Key words: carbon fluxes, climate change, community participation, ecophysiology, mangrove cover and cover change, novel ecosystems, oligo and eutrophy, protected areas, salinity stress. resumenEste ensayo aborda los problemas de conservación que enfrentan los manglares en el Antropoceno, definido como la época de la dominación humana sobre el mundo. En él repasamos las leyes, políticas, acuerdos internacionales y las acciones locales que se ocupan de la conservación de los bosques de mangle en el Neotrópico y se relacionan con el Antropoceno. La colaboración entre gobiernos, organizaciones no gubernamentales y las comunidades que dependen de los manglares para su sustento será decisiva en el Antropoceno. El ensayo también incluye comentarios sobre los avances recientes en ecología de manglares y en ecofisiología que explican cómo los manglares podrían responder a los cambios de temperatura y precipitación, el aumento del nivel del mar y otras perturbaciones naturales y antropogénicas. Los manglares en el Antropoceno también enfrentarán a cambios en su composición de especies, dado el actual movimiento de especies de manglares a través de barreras continentales como resultado de la actividad humana. Estas tendencias conducirán a nuevas formaciones de manglares y en algunos casos ampliarán la presencia de los manglares en todo el mundo. La solución a la persistencia de manglares en el Antropoceno es no aislar a los manglares de la gente, sino regular las interacciones entre los manglares y los seres humanos a través de una gestión eficaz. También tendremos que ampliar el alcance del análisis ecológico de los ecosistemas de ...

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Vegetation 32 Vertebrate animals 36 Species of conservation concern 37 CHAPTER 4 -PEOPLE 39 Municipalities and other protected areas 40 Population 41 Socioeconomic statistics 43 CHAPTER 5 -RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT 45 Research 46

We reviewed the principles and key literature related to forest tenure and sustainable forest management, and then examined the status of sustainable forestry and land ownership at the aggregate national level for major forested countries. The institutional design principles suggested by Ostrom are well accepted for applications to public, communal, and private lands. The analyses of countries as a whole suggest that problems of forest land loss and sustainable forest management are related to the amount of public lands owned, as well as the difference between developed and developing countries. Developed countries have largely achieved a stable level of land use and resource extraction after centuries of exploitation of forests and natural resources. Many developed countries do have greater amounts of private forest land than developing countries, which have occurred as the countries transfer lands to private owners in the course of development. Public lands and management approaches require diligence, but can be developed to meet the design criteria suggested by tenure rights theorists. Private or communal ownership is often considered superior, but also must meet the criteria suggested above in order to foster sustainable forest management in poor countries.

Forests across the U.S. and U.S. affiliated islands of the Caribbean and Pacific constitute rich and dynamic social-ecological systems that, while heterogeneous in many ways, share certain characteristics and trends that underscore the utility of sustainability assessments that go beyond single jurisdictional efforts. This paper summarizes a recent effort to assess the sustainability of tropical island forests of and politically affiliated with the U.S. using the Montréal Process criteria and indicator framework (MP C&I), which address ecological, social, economic, and institutional dimensions of forests. Forests cover 45 percent of the total area and more than 50 percent of each island jurisdiction, except Hawaii (36 percent). Forest cover is generally stable over much of the area in terms of recent reference conditions. The history of human occupation and land alteration is a prominent determinant of current conditions throughout the islands, which exhibit relatively high rates of threatened species in comparison to mainland counterparts and particularly where endemism is high. The islands also harbor significant areas of new or novel assemblages of native and non-native forest species, predominately on abandoned agricultural lands cleared of native forests long ago, which have been shown to contribute to the restoration of these degraded lands and provide many other ecosystem services at levels as high as and in some cases higher than native forests. Although industrial-level commercial timber harvest is small to nonexistent on most islands, socioeconomic and cultural linkages to forests are extensive but difficult to quantify. Amassing a foundation of data sufficient to address the MP C&I was challenging, in part due to the heterogeneity of the islands, island geography, and limited reporting capacities. We document significant improvements in the availability of data important for sustainability assessments in the last decade or so, especially with the extension of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis program to the islands. Likewise, we find the MP C&I to be a useful tool for organizing and presenting information important for assessing forest sustainability. Nevertheless, considerable data gaps remain in the areas of biodiversity, forest functions and processes, and socioeconomic conditions of forests, which are critical elements to track across the islands, particularly in the context of climate change and ongoing anthropogenic pressures.