Bird surveys for REDD+: avian communities indicate forest degradation in a Peruvian coffee landscape

Raf Aerts,Luc Lens,Cagan Sekercioglu,Sarah Spranghers,Bruno Verbist

doi:10.1038/npre.2011.6589.1

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https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2011.6589.1

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Abstract

AbstractShade coffee cultivation in the Peruvian Andes assists in reducing emissions from deforestation because it avoids conversion to non-forest land uses such as coca and sun grown coffee farming. REDD+ is a potential finance mechanism which may provide incentives for local coffee cooperatives to maintain high shade tree cover. REDD+ has potential multiple benefits other than carbon sequestration, including the conservation of biodiversity. When monitoring for REDD+, surveys of bird biodiversity may prove to be particularly valuable: apart from their high intrinsic value and their value as essential ecosystem service providers, birds inhabiting forest habitats are extremely sensitive to forest loss and forest degradation and are therefore potential useful indicators for the impact of habitat and climate disturbances on biodiversity and environmental health.We analyzed the impact of coffee cultivation on the conservation of birds and assessed what can be learned from bird surveys when monitoring the Peruvian mountain forests for REDD+. Using twelve day-long transect walks, bird species were recorded in two sites in the buffer zone of the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park in SE Peru. The two sites had contrasting human pressure: one site an intimate mixture of shade coffee plantations, orchards, secondary forest patches and coca plantations and the other site secondary forest with patchily distributed shade coffee, fruit and coca plantations. An indirect gradient approach (non-metric multidimensional scaling and multi-response permutation procedure tests) was used to detect differences in forest degradation between sites.In a two-dimensional ordination space, individual counts of the less disturbed site were separated from the other counts, but sites did not differ significantly at the community-level. Observed birds were indicative for one habitat type. The bird assemblage was dominated by species of forest edges and second growth habitat (78%). The majority of species (68%) had a wide range covering Amazonia and the east slopes of the Andes; only 25 species (29%) were more or less restricted to Andes and the outlying ridges.The current state of the forest, in both sites with contrasting human influence, can be described as disturbed secondary montane evergreen forest of the transition zone between the Andes and the Amazon. Despite severe human impact, several forest specialists (22%) of both Andean montane and Amazonian forest persisted –including the enigmatic Andean cock-of-the-rock and Military macaw. For such species, REDD+ projects should not only focus on the sustainable management of the shade coffee stands but also aim to conserve the remaining old-growth secondary forest patches.

Highlights

Shade coffee cultivation in the Peruvian Andes assists in reducing emissions from deforestation because it avoids conversion to non-forest land uses such as coca and sun grown coffee farming (Fig. 1)
What is the impact of coffee cultivation on the conservation of forest birds, and what can be learned from bird surveys when monitoring the Peruvian mountain forests for REDD+?
Bird species were recorded using day-long transect walks in two sites with contrasting human pressure: intensive shade coffee, orchards and secondary forest (6 transects) and secondary forest with shade coffee patches (6 transects)

Summary

Introduction

Shade coffee cultivation in the Peruvian Andes assists in reducing emissions from deforestation because it avoids conversion to non-forest land uses such as coca and sun grown coffee farming (Fig. 1).REDD+ is a potential finance mechanism which may provide incentives for local coffee cooperatives to maintain high shade tree cover, facilitating carbon sequestration and the conservation of biodiversity, including birds. Sekerciogluc a Division Forest, Nature and Landscape, K.U.Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E-2411, BE-3001 Leuven b Terrestrial Ecology Unit, Ghent University, K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35, BE-9000 Gent c Department of Biology, University of Utah, 257 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA * Correspondence to raf.aerts@biw.kuleuven.be Shade coffee cultivation in the Peruvian Andes assists in reducing emissions from deforestation because it avoids conversion to non-forest land uses such as coca and sun grown coffee farming (Fig. 1).

Results

Conclusion