Effects of law enforcement and community outreach on mammal diversity in a biodiversity hotspot

Abstract

Management activities such as law enforcement and community outreach are thought to affect conservation outcomes in protected areas, but their importance relative to intrinsic environmental characteristics of the parks and extrinsic human pressures surrounding the parks have not been explored. Furthermore, it is not clear which is more related to conservation outcomes—the management itself or local people's perceptions of the management. We measured objective (reports by park staff) and subjective (reports by local people) levels of community outreach and law enforcement based on responses to 374 questionnaires. We estimated mammal abundance and diversity of 6 protected areas based on data from 115 camera traps in Xishuangbanna, southwest China, a biodiversity hotspot with high hunting and land‐conversion pressures. We then examined correlations among them and found that local people's perception of law enforcement was positively related to the local abundance of 2 large, hunted species, wild boar (Sus scrofa) (β = 15.22) and muntjac (Muntiacus vaginalis) (β = 14.82), but not related to the abundance of smaller mammals or to objective levels of enforcement. The subjective frequency of outreach by park staff to local communities (β = 3.42) and park size (β = 3.28) were significantly and positively related to mammal species richness, whereas elevation, human population density, and subjective frequency of law enforcement were not. We could not conclude that community outreach and law enforcement were directly causing increased mammal abundance and diversity. Nevertheless, the patterns we detected are some of the first empirical evidence consistent with the idea that biodiversity in protected areas may be more positively and strongly related to local perceptions of the intensity of park management than to either intrinsic (e.g., elevation, park size) or extrinsic (e.g., human population density) environmental factors.

Human disturbance and prey occupancy as predictors of carnivore richness and biomass in a Himalayan hotspot

“…We obtained a high number of independent records of muntjac ( n = 358) with a mean probability of occurrence of 0.46 (Table ), indicating prey for medium‐ to large‐sized carnivores was abundant. However, muntjac is a primary target for human hunting throughout Southeast Asia (Damania et al , 2008; Harrison et al , 2016; Chen et al , 2019). According to our local guides, muntjac hunting (mainly with snares) is already prevalent in our study area, and this may quickly lead to prey depletion for many carnivores, especially for endangered Bengal tiger.…”

Global camera trap synthesis highlights the importance of protected areas in maintaining mammal diversity

“…However, previous studies have shown PAs to be disproportionately placed in economically marginal lands to reduce opportunity costs, rather than in the most biodiverse areas (Venter et al, 2018). A positive association between mammal diversity and PA coverage could be observed even if diversity is declining in PAs (Chen et al, 2019), necessitating an assessment of trends in diversity inside and outside of PAs, and ideally before and after their establishment, to more rigorously evaluate effectiveness. While previous work has demonstrated effective protection by PAs of forest cover (Naughton-Treves et al, 2005) and habitat structure (Geldmann et al, 2013;Joppa et al, 2008), our study indicates that those benefits extend to mammal communities.…”

Combining camera‐trap surveys and hunter interviews to determine the status of mammals in protected rainforests and rubber plantations of Menglun, Xishuangbanna, SW China

“…The Indochinese tiger Panthera tigris corbetti (Linnaeus, 1758), the Indochinese leopard Panthera pardus delacouri (Pocock, 1930) and the dhole Cuon alpinus are of great conservation importance in China and globally. To our knowledge, camera-trapping efforts in Xishuangbanna have not recorded any tigers since c. 2010 (Feng et al, 2008), and leopards and dhole are currently rare (Laguardia et al, 2017;Chen et al, 2019). The interviewees stated that 'tigers and leopards were considered as pests in the past because they used to attack and steal the local cattle, pigs and poultry'.…”

“…Historically, the major local ethnic groups, the Dai, Hani and Akha, hunted in the forest to supplement their rice-based agricultural production (Hu et al, 2008). The current local economy is well developed due to the production of rubber and domestic protein sources are affordable and widely available, but hunting continues (Fan, Fei & Luo, 2014;Sreekar et al, 2015aSreekar et al, , 2015bChang et al, 2017Chang et al, , 2019Chen et al, 2019). Despite the fact that gun ownership has been illegal in China since 1996, local villagers still hunt with guns for sport and because they prefer to consume wild meat ( Fig.…”