Losing a jewel—Rapid declines in Myanmar’s intact forests from 2002-2014

Abstract

New and rapid political and economic changes in Myanmar are increasing the pressures on the country’s forests. Yet, little is known about the past and current condition of these forests and how fast they are declining. We mapped forest cover in Myanmar through a consortium of international organizations and environmental non-governmental groups, using freely-available public domain data and open source software tools. We used Landsat satellite imagery to assess the condition and spatial distribution of Myanmar’s intact and degraded forests with special focus on changes in intact forest between 2002 and 2014. We found that forests cover 42,365,729 ha or 63% of Myanmar, making it one of the most forested countries in the region. However, severe logging, expanding plantations, and degradation pose increasing threats. Only 38% of the country’s forests can be considered intact with canopy cover >80%. Between 2002 and 2014, intact forests declined at a rate of 0.94% annually, totaling more than 2 million ha forest loss. Losses can be extremely high locally and we identified 9 townships as forest conversion hotspots. We also delineated 13 large (>100,000 ha) and contiguous intact forest landscapes, which are dispersed across Myanmar. The Northern Forest Complex supports four of these landscapes, totaling over 6.1 million ha of intact forest, followed by the Southern Forest Complex with three landscapes, comprising 1.5 million ha. These remaining contiguous forest landscape should have high priority for protection. Our project demonstrates how open source data and software can be used to develop and share critical information on forests when such data are not readily available elsewhere. We provide all data, code, and outputs freely via the internet at (for scripts: https://bitbucket.org/rsbiodiv/; for the data: http://geonode.themimu.info/layers/geonode%3Amyan_lvl2_smoothed_dec2015_resamp)

Rapid forest clearing in a Myanmar proposed national park threatens two newly discovered species of geckos (Gekkonidae: Cyrtodactylus)

“…The region also retains one of the largest primarily-contiguous intact forest areas in the country [25], making it critically important for the long-term conservation of wide-ranging “landscape species” such as tiger and Asian elephant [28]. Decades of armed conflict in the region previously restricted the rate of forest loss while limiting access for biological inventory and monitoring efforts.…”

Mapping Distinct Forest Types Improves Overall Forest Identification Based on Multi-Spectral Landsat Imagery for Myanmar’s Tanintharyi Region

“…Visual interpretation of fine-resolution imagery was based on patch size and geometric shape, texture, color, or vegetation phenology in cases where time series of reference imagery were available. Although forest degradation can occur without a reduction of canopy cover, intact forest canopies in Tanintharyi are mostly closed [12]. As a result, we created training data for degraded forest classes in areas where early dry season canopy cover was less than 80%.…”

“…These include studies at global [53], national [6,12,24,54,55], and sub-national scales [14,23,[55][56][57]. Countrywide studies have frequently focused on estimating overall rates of forest loss, without quantifying the unique threats faced by particular forest types (e.g., [6,12,24,58]). However, Wang and Myint [54] estimated nationwide deforestation rates (2001-2010) for each of five unique forest types and found that mangrove and deciduous forest had experienced deforestation rates that were 2-5 times the national average.…”

“…However, Wang and Myint [54] estimated nationwide deforestation rates (2001-2010) for each of five unique forest types and found that mangrove and deciduous forest had experienced deforestation rates that were 2-5 times the national average. Bhagwat et al [12] did not distinguish specific forest types, but provided rates of deforestation, forest degradation, and conversion to agroforestry plantations. Forest loss data from Hansen et al [53] have also been previously used to highlight the loss of lowland evergreen forest in Tanintharyi, Myanmar [27].…”

Landscapes, at your service: applications of the Restoration Opportunities Optimization Tool (ROOT)

“…Several large reservoirs were not included in the HydroSHEDS global lakes layer nor in the land use/land cover data. These reservoirs were derived based on data from Bhagwat et al (2017). Roads data were obtained from MIMU.…”