Identifying hotspots of deforestation and reforestation in Colombia (2001–2010): implications for protected areas

Abstract

Abstract. The conversion of natural areas to human-dominated land uses has been the major cause of global biodiversity decline and ecosystem degradation. Protected areas have been the most common strategy for reducing habitat and species loss. Effective conservation planning requires current information on land change dynamics, and the factors driving these changes. Therefore, our main goal was to assess the implications of land change on present and future protected areas. Specifically, we identified hotspots of reforestation and deforestation in Colombia between 2001 and 2010, and we determined the factors that explained land change within these hotspots. We identified four reforestation hotpots located mainly in the highlands of the Andes, and four deforestation hotpots that were located in the lowlands. Environmental and armed conflict variables explained most of the variation in the woody vegetation and agriculture/ pasture classes, respectively. Although protected areas cover 12% of the country, only 4% of the reforestation and deforestation hotspots included protected areas. In Colombia, as well as the rest of the world, the majority of protected lands occur in remote regions where there are little to no economic activities and threats. Although we recognize the importance of this conservation approach, particularly for long-term conservation of large areas, we believe that complementary approaches that incorporate current land change dynamics are essential for future protected area planning. These approaches would place higher value on establishing new protected areas in regions that are undergoing rapid land change or regions where agricultural activities have been abandoned and ecosystems are beginning to recovery. The first approach would have immediate conservation benefits, while the second approach could bring ecosystem benefits in the short to intermediate-term and biodiversity benefits in the medium to long-term. These complementary approaches can provide helpful information for protected area conservation planning in a world with rapid land change.

Tropical forest cover dynamics for Latin America using Earth observation data: a review covering the continental, regional, and local scale

“…Additional popular features used for classifying forests in Latin America were information on topography, such as elevation, azimuth, slope, or solar duration as derived from digital elevation models (DEMs), first and foremost originating from the Space Shuttle Radar and Topography Mission (SRTM) (Di Maio Mantovani and Setzer 1997; Guild, Cohen, and Kauffman 2004;Sesnie et al 2008;Yoshikawa and Sanga-Ngoie 2011;Egler et al 2013;Sanchez-Cuervo and Aide 2013;Souza et al 2013;Leinenkugel et al 2014).…”

“…Tree species such as Alchornea bogotensis, Burnellia comocladifolia, and Cinchona cuatrecasasii are common in the Colombian Andes, where the upper montane forest starts at 1800 m and extends up to 3400 m (FAO 2001 diversity and the richness of the soil of mountainous systems result in different drivers of deforestation. Besides agro-industrial expansion and the illegal logging of valuable tree species, the forest is under intense pressure by human colonization that goes along with illegal cropping activities (Viña, Echavarria, and Rundquist 2004;Armenteras et al 2006;Etter et al 2006;Sanchez-Cuervo and Aide 2013). For example, high deforestation rates were experienced between 2002 and 2007 in the northern Andes Chaco and Amazon Forest of Colombia, resulting in a loss of 27,952 and 1160 km 2 , respectively.…”

“…Also, Reyes Hernández et al (2006) studied the changes over the forest cover in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, using Landsat data from 1973, 1985, 1990 Real time-series analyses are less frequent over the literature reviewed (5%), covering local and regional assessments. In the studies reviewed, change detection assessments were conducted in daily, monthly, and yearly intervals Clark, Aide, and Riner 2012;Sanchez-Cuervo and Aide 2013;Huang and Friedl 2014). Different from bitemporal analysis, time series can provide a quasi-continuous history of forest 3210 E. Da Ponte et al…”

Improving Identification of Areas for Ecological Restoration for Conservation by Integrating USLE and MCDA in a GIS-Environment: A Pilot Study in a Priority Region Northern Mexico

“…In addition, the anthropogenic causes in their role of explanatory variables [6], give scientific support to the results ( Figure 6, Table 3). These indicators represent crucial elements of decision-making for local managers [81], so additional research efforts to balance the effectiveness of landscape management [82] with socio-economic interests [83] are not ruled out. Ecological restoration is a manipulative activity and explicitly experimental [71], so we would like to specify that our approach can be used as an alternative, to spatially locate the sites that require an urgent work for ecosystem restoration and besides are feasible to restore.…”

Mining as the “Locomotive” of the Colombian Economy: It’s Real Cost

“…Presently, 21 km of the river course look as if they have been bombed from the air (Figures 3a and 3b). [22,23]. One of the four main hotspot areas is centered in the Magdalena Valley River basin in Colombia.…”