Land and Forest Degradation inside Protected Areas in Latin America

Craig Leisher,Jerome Touval,Timothy Boucher,Sebastiaan Hess,Louis Reymondin

doi:10.3390/d5040779

Craig Leisher, Jerome Touval + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/d5040779

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Abstract

Using six years of remote sensing data, we estimated land and forest degradation inside 1788 protected areas across 19 countries in Latin America. From 2004–2009, the rate of land and forest degradation increased by 250% inside the protected areas, and the land and forest degradation totaled 1,097,618 hectares. Of the protected areas in our dataset, 45% had land and forest degradation. There were relatively large variations by major habitat type, with flooded grasslands/savannas and moist broadleaf forest protected areas having the highest rates of degradation. We found no association between a country’s rate of land and forest degradation inside protected areas and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, GDP growth, or rural population density. We found significant, but weak, associations between the rate of land and forest degradation inside protected areas and a country’s protected area system funding, the size of the protected area, and one International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) management category. Our results suggest a high degree of heterogeneity in the variables impacting land and forest degradation inside protected areas in Latin America, but that the targeting of protected area investments on a continental scale is plausible.

Highlights

From 1990 to 2010, the coverage of terrestrial protected areas increased from 8.8% of global land area to 12.7% [1]
Using extensive remote sensing data, our analysis shows aggregate land and forest degradation in protected areas across 19 countries in Latin America increased 250% from 2004 to 2009
Our findings suggest that protected areas in Latin America are not fulfilling their long-term goal of the conservation of nature

Summary

Introduction

From 1990 to 2010, the coverage of terrestrial protected areas increased from 8.8% of global land area to 12.7% [1]. Much of the growth in protected area coverage was in South and Central America (―Latin America‖ ). In 1990, the average country in Latin America had 11.6% of territorial area within formally designated terrestrial protected areas. In Latin America, 15 out of 20 countries have more than 10% of their terrestrial area protected, and 7 countries have more than 25% protected [1]. Latin America has a higher percentage of terrestrial areas formally protected than any other region of the world [2]

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