Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km2 of forest (40.5%) has high landscape-level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa, and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally designated protected areas. Of the forest inside protected areas, only 56% has high landscape-level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally.
High levels of species richness and endemism make Myanmar a regional priority for conservation. However, decades of economic and political sanctions have resulted in low conservation investment to effectively tackle threats to biodiversity. Recent sweeping political reforms have placed Myanmar on the fast track to economic development-the expectation is increased economic investments focused on the exploitation of the country's rich, and relatively intact, natural resources. Within a context of weak regulatory capacity and inadequate environmental safeguards, rapid economic development is likely to have far-reaching negative implications for already threatened biodiversity and natural-resource-dependent human communities. Climate change will further exacerbate prevailing threats given Myanmar's high exposure and vulnerability. The aim of this review is to examine the implications of increased economic growth and a changing climate within the larger context of biodiversity conservation in Myanmar. We summarize conservation challenges, assess direct climatological impacts on biodiversity and conclude with recommendations for long-term adaptation approaches for biodiversity conservation.
Myanmar is highly biodiverse, with more than 16,000 plant, 314 mammal, 1131 bird, 293 reptile, and amphibian species. Supporting this biodiversity is a variety of natural ecosystems-mostly undescribed-including tropical and subtropical forests, savannas, seasonally inundated wetlands, extensive shoreline and tidal systems, and alpine ecosystems.Although Myanmar contains some of the largest intact natural ecosystems in Southeast Asia, remaining ecosystems are under threat from accelerating land use intensification and overexploitation. In this period of rapid change, a systematic risk assessment is urgently needed to estimate the extent and magnitude of human impacts and identify ecosystems most at risk to help guide strategic conservation action. Here we provide the first comprehensive conservation assessment of Myanmar's natural terrestrial ecosystems using the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems categories and criteria. We identified 64 ecosystem types for the assessment, and used models of ecosystem distributions and syntheses of existing data to estimate declines in distribution, range size, and functioning of each ecosystem. We found that more than a third (36.9%) of Myanmar's area has been converted to anthropogenic ecosystems over the last 2-3 centuries, leaving nearly half of Myanmar's ecosystems threatened (29 of 64 ecosystems). A quarter of Myanmar's ecosystems were identified as Data Deficient, reflecting a paucity of studies and an urgency for future research. Our results show that, with nearly two-thirds of Myanmar still covered in natural ecosystems, there is a crucial opportunity to develop a comprehensive protected area network that sufficiently represents Myanmar's terrestrial ecosystem diversity.
Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land 45 degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological 46 integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remains poorly quantified and mapped. 47 Page 3 of 54By integrating data on direct and indirect forest pressures and lost forest connectivity, we generate 48 the first globally-consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by degree of 49 anthropogenic modification, which we term 'forest health'. Globally, only 17.4 million km 2 of 50 forest (40.5%) can be considered in high health (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, 51Central Africa and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally-designated 52 protected areas. Of all the world's forests found within protected areas, only 56% can be 53 considered in high health. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest health are now 54 urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at restoring the health of forests globally. 55 56 MAIN TEXT 57 58 65bodies (e.g. 5), and it is now essential that the scientific community develop improved tools and 66 data to facilitate the consideration of the degree of forest modification in decision-making. 67Mapping and monitoring this globally will provide essential information for coordinated global, 68 national and local policy-making, planning and action, to help nations and other stakeholders 69 achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and implement other shared commitments 70 such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Convention to Combat Ecosystem integrity is foundational to all three of the Rio Conventions (UNFCCC, UNCCD, 74 CBD ). As defined by Parrish et al. ( 6), it is essentially the degree to which a system is free from 75 anthropogenic modification of its structure, composition and function. Such modification causes 76 the degradation of many ecosystem benefits, and is often also a precursor to outright deforestation 77 (7, 8). Forests largely free of significant forest modification (i.e. forests having high ecosystem 78 integrity), typically provide higher levels of many forest benefits than modified forests of the 79 same type (9), including; carbon sequestration and storage (10), healthy watersheds (11), 80 traditional homelands for imperiled cultures (12), contribution to local and regional climate 81 processes (13), and forest-dependent biodiversity (14-17). Industrial-scale logging, fragmentation 82 by infrastructure, farming (including cropping and ranching) and urbanization, as well as less 83 visible forms of modification such as over-hunting, wood fuel extraction and changed fire or 84 hydrological regimes (18, 19), all degrade the degree to which forests still support these benefits, 85 as well as their long-term resilience to climate change (9). There can be trade-offs however, 86 between the benefits provided by less-modified forests (e.g., carbon sequestration) and those 8...
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