Landscapes of Protection: Forest Change and Fragmentation in Northern West Bengal, India

Abstract

In the tropics and sub-tropics, where high levels of biodiversity co-exist with some of the greatest levels of population density, achieving complete exclusion in protected area contexts has proved close to impossible. There is a clear need to recognize that parks are significantly impacted by human-environment interactions in the larger landscape within which they are embedded, and to move the frontier of research beyond the boundaries of protected areas in order to examine larger landscapes where multiple forms of ownership and access are embedded. This research evaluates forest change and fragmentation between 1990 and 2000, in a landscape surrounding the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary in the Indian state of West Bengal. This protected forest is bounded to the south by a less intensively protected area, the Baikunthapur Reserve Forest, and surrounded by a mosaic of unprotected, largely private land holdings. Results indicate differences in the extent and spatial pattern of forest cover change in these three zones, corresponding to different levels of government protection, access and monitoring. The two protected areas experience a trend toward forest regrowth, relating to the cessation of commercial logging by park management during this period. Yet, there is still substantial clearing toward peripheral areas that are well connected to illegal timber markets by transportation networks. The surrounding landscape, although experiencing some forest regrowth within less intensively cultivated tea plantations, is also becoming increasingly fragmented, with potentially critical impacts on the maintenance of effective wildlife corridors in this ecologically critical region.

Community managed forests and forest protected areas: An assessment of their conservation effectiveness across the tropics

“…The debate partly originates from the fact that most forests have traditionally been, and still are, inhabited and managed by local people (Heckenberger et al, 2007;Noble and Dirzo, 1997), and that even forested areas considered under strict protection regimes are either inhabited or within the limits of expanding human populations (Nagendra et al, 2009). Furthermore, evidence that most areas considered important for biodiversity conservation, particularly in the tropics, coincide with long term human habitation and use is changing conservation paradigms (Lele et al, 2010).…”

“…Furthermore, several international agreements fully recognize that biodiversity conservation must (ideally) encompass economic benefits at multiple scales, alleviate poverty, protect threatened cultures, and promote peace (Naughton-Treves et al, 2005). Also, it is widely argued that efforts to expand forest protected areas should explicitly consider the landscapes in which both protected and co-managed forest areas are embedded (Bray et al, 2008;DeFries et al, 2007;Hayes, 2006;Nagendra et al, 2009;Ostrom and Nagendra, 2006). Finally, recent assessments of change in land use/cover indicate that while protected areas can help to reduce tropical deforestation (Bruner et al, 2001), they are nevertheless becoming increasingly isolated (DeFries et al, 2005;Nagendra, 2008;Naughton-Treves et al, 2005) thus disregarding ecological, cultural, and social processes that are known to influence the permanence of forest ecosystems at landscape scales Hansen and DeFries, 2007;Sayer, 2009).…”

Proximate Causes of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Bannerghatta National Park: A Spatial Statistical Model

“…Similar studies analyzing the relationship between various explanatory variables and deforestation found a negative correlation between protected areas and deforestation [26,54]. Globally, policy makers heavily depend on establishing protected areas to conserve forest resources [63,64], even though effectiveness of protected areas in conserving biodiversity has been questioned [44]. However, in India, it is generally agreed that protected areas are working in reducing deforestation [44,65].…”

“…Globally, policy makers heavily depend on establishing protected areas to conserve forest resources [63,64], even though effectiveness of protected areas in conserving biodiversity has been questioned [44]. However, in India, it is generally agreed that protected areas are working in reducing deforestation [44,65]. This negative correlation between deforestation and BNP, Talli and Bilikal Reserve Forest throws light on the underlying driving factor of policy measures at the national level (establishing protected areas) and its impact on local level land-cover changes, here deforestation.…”

“…Closer proximity to villages is preferred by agriculturists for tree plantation crops. Further, people-park conflicts and various social-economic activities practiced by village communities are described as one of the major driving factors behind deforestation in heavily populated countries like India where many parks are situated in densely populated areas [43,44], which makes distance to villages an important variable for the deforestation model as well.…”