Patterns of forest cover loss in the terrestrial Key Biodiversity Areas in the Philippines: critical habitat conservation priorities

Abstract

The Philippines, home to over 20,000 endemic species of plants and animals, is facing a biodiversity crisis due to the constant decrease of forest cover. The Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) approach was developed to conserve species threatened with extinction using a site-based conservation strategy to select globally important sites using threshold-based criteria for species irreplaceability and vulnerability. This study investigates the applicability of remotely sensed data through geospatial analysis to quantify forest cover loss of the 101 terrestrial KBAs in the country between 2001 and 2019. Results showed that the study sites had 4.5 million hectares (ha) of forest in the year 2000. However, these sites have lost about 270,000 ha of forest in nearly two decades, marking a steady decline with an annual deforestation rate of 14,213 ha per year in these terrestrial KBAs. The majority of the study sites (58) had a high percentage of forest loss (>3.13%), and these should be prioritized for conservation. By the year 2030, it is forecast that a total of 331 thousand ha of forest will be lost unless there is a transformational change in the country’s approach to dealing with deforestation. The results of this study provide relevant data and information in forest habitat in near real-time monitoring to assess the impact and effectiveness of forest governance and approaches within these critical habitats.

Species diversity of Annonaceae in the four selected protected areas in the Bicol Region, Philippines

“…In the lowlands of MINP, temperature ranged from 20.8°C in February to 33.6°C in May (Balcita and Nolasco 2000) and was identified as a key biodiversity area (KBA) (Daipan 2021). However, only 8 species from MINP were collected and identified.…”

Leaping Forward or Crawling Backward? Efforts and Biases in Amphibian and Reptile Research on a Megadiverse Faunal Region in the Philippines

“…Deforestation is a significant threat to terrestrial ecosystems in the Philippines, including key biodiversity sites. To assess the extent of deforestation and land use change and its relationship with species diversity, endemism, and conservation, we used data from Daipan (2021) [32] to obtain measurements of tree cover loss and remaining forests. Kendall's Tauτ B was used to examine the relationship between estimated species richness at the site level, percent endemism and percent threatened species, and the rate of change (e.g., rate of deforestation in protected areas).…”

Avifaunal diversity in urban greenspaces within Cotabato city, Mindanao Island, Philippines

“…Progressive human activities related to urbanization further put endemic and vulnerable bird species at risk in Mindanao (Bett et al 2017;. Habitat loss due to urbanization is one among the drivers of diversity decline (Daipan 2021). Urban green spaces are possible means to find a way around deforestation and related threats especially in already urbanized areas (Wolff et al 2018).…”