Abstract
Over the last 4 decades, China has undergone major economic development, resulting in considerable impacts on its wildlife populations and habitats. It is essential to quantify the conflict between development and conservation to assist with policy-making because forestry policies and market trends affected indirectly the distribution of Asian elephants. Here, we mapped the historical distribution of elephants versus human land use. Elephant distributions appear to occur in unbroken natural forests only. However, over the 40-year period, the distribution ranges have become smaller and fragmented, with natural forest area also declining by 16%. The monoculture of cash trees is encroaching on natural forests. Over the past 10 years, rubber plantations have become concentrated in the south, with extensive natural forests and scattered rubber farms being converted to tea plantations, due to changes in governmental policies and product prices. Through mapping the spatial changes in the distribution of rubber and tea plantations, our study is expected to help local managers to incorporate the needs of endangered elephants through creating space when planning plantations, especially in Xishuangbanna and the south part of Pu’er. In conclusion, restoring elephant habitat and establishing ecological corridors are critical for the survival of elephants in this region.
Highlights
Over the last 4 decades, China has undergone major economic development, resulting in considerable impacts on its wildlife populations and habitats
We found that the distribution of Asian elephants has changed significantly over the last 40 years in China (Fig. 1)
The land cover types compared with the distribution of Asian elephants showed that elephants primarily occupied continuous natural forests, and the distribution ranges of Asian elephants was similar as the distribution of unbroken natural forest, becoming shrunk and fragmented over the last 40 years (Fig. 2)
Summary
Over the last 4 decades, China has undergone major economic development, resulting in considerable impacts on its wildlife populations and habitats. Through mapping the spatial changes in the distribution of rubber and tea plantations, our study is expected to help local managers to incorporate the needs of endangered elephants through creating space when planning plantations, especially in Xishuangbanna and the south part of Pu’er. Subsequent studies in the 1960s indicated that Asian elephants were distributed in the Jinghong and Mengla counties of Xishuangbanna, Ximeng County of Pu’er, Cangyuan County of Lincang, and Yingjiang County of Dehong in China[3]. These populations gradually disappeared in the 1980s and 1990s3 because of poaching and economic development. The displacement of natural forest due to the expansion of plantations led to increased crop raiding by elephants, and severe human-elephant conflicts[22, 23]
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