Tropical dry woodland loss occurs disproportionately in areas of highest conservation value

Abstract

Tropical and subtropical dry woodlands are rich in biodiversity and carbon. Yet, many of these woodlands are under high deforestation pressure and remain weakly protected. Here, we assessed how deforestation dynamics relate to areas of woodland protection and to conservation priorities across the world's tropical dry woodlands. Specifically, we characterized different types of deforestation frontier from 2000 to 2020 and compared them to protected areas (PAs), Indigenous Peoples' lands and conservation areas for biodiversity, carbon and water. We found that global conservation priorities were always overrepresented in tropical dry woodlands compared to the rest of the globe (between 4% and 96% more than expected, depending on the type of conservation priority). Moreover, about 41% of all dry woodlands were characterized as deforestation frontiers, and these frontiers have been falling disproportionately in areas with important regional (i.e. tropical dry woodland) conservation assets.While deforestation frontiers were identified within all tropical dry woodland classes of woodland protection, they were lower than the average within protected areas coinciding with Indigenous Peoples' lands (23%), and within other PAs (28%). However, within PAs, deforestation frontiers have also been disproportionately affecting | 4881 BUCHADAS et al.

Rates of tree cover loss in key biodiversity areas on Indigenous Peoples’ lands

“…Many studies show the myriad of contextual factors that influence the ability of IPL to mitigate forest loss, such as land tenure security (Baragwanath & Bayi, 2020), Indigenous knowledge maintenance and revitalization (Fernández-Llamazares, Leposky, et al, 2021), and strong Indigenous-led governance (Artelle et al, 2019). The wide variation in rates of tree cover loss in IPL across countries is at least to some extent a reflection of the diversity of Indigenous Peoples' sociocultural realities vis à vis rapidly expanding deforestation frontiers (Buchadas et al, 2023;Carneiro da Cunha & de Almeida, 2000). Although Indigenous communities are proactively combatting forest loss in many IPL through their millennia-old stewardship systems and cultural practices (e.g., Mistry et al, 2016), in other contexts IPL are increasingly vulnerable to illegal deforestation (e.g., Silva-Junior et al, 2023).…”

A global clustering of terrestrial food production systems

“…land with expanding cropland or grassland), which could indicate that intensifying production in these areas might not be sustainable in terms of food production. However, there are many theories behind what drives land-cover and land-use change at the agricultural frontier [ 85 , 86 ], and depending on the assumptions behind the expansion of a frontier it could be seen not as pressure on food production, but a driver and key factor in the creation of novel foodscape classes [ 87 ].…”