Loss Of Forest Area Research Articles

Guardians of the Green: Exploring the Forest Management Wisdom of Dayak Benawan Women in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

This research delves into the ramifications of oil palm expansion on the forest stewardship methods of the Dayak Benawan community in Cowet Village, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. It particularly sheds light on the adaptive strategies of indigenous women in response to diminishing forestlands. By intersecting traditional wisdom with evolving environmental realities and economic challenges, this study offers a comprehensive perspective. Employing ethnographic methodology, the research involved conducting interviews with Dayak Benawan women, providing rich, qualitative insights.Our findings unveil a profound shift in both livelihoods and cultural practices as a direct consequence of oil palm plantation encroachment. Notably, the study quantifies the impact, revealing an 18% loss of forest area in the Sanggau Regency attributable to oil palm plantation expansion. This expansion exerts a discernible negative influence, compelling the Dayak Benawan community to undergo significant livelihood transformations. This study not only highlights the environmental and socio-cultural costs of agricultural industrialization but also stresses the resilience and adaptability of indigenous communities in the face of ecological disruption.

The Urgency of Forest Governance: Learning from Brazil's Sustainable Tourism Development

This study aims to describe the development of sustainable tourism as a method for the enduring management of forests, ensuring the effectiveness of applicable laws, the direction of forest governance policies, and their impact on the environment. Furthermore, it compares these aspects with the conditions in another country, Brazil. This research is a legal study that employs legislative, conceptual, and comparative approaches. The findings indicate that despite relevant regulations, their effectiveness remains low, necessitating focused and directed forest governance guidelines. An integrated landscape approach based on ecotourism development is considered an appropriate solution. However, tourism development also poses risks to forest sustainability, with the potential for significant forest area loss. The study also discovers that the direction of Indonesian government forest governance policies tends to have a negative impact on the environment. Therefore, Indonesia requires an integrated landscape approach as a solution to the failures of sectoral approaches, aiming to prevent damage caused by development. Furthermore, Brazil offers legal comparisons as solutions for the Indonesian government in creating regulations and policies related to forests for tourism.

Carbon Loss from Earthquake Induced Landslides in Fiordland

Landslides triggered by two earthquakes in Fiordland, New Zealand, were mapped using Google Earth Pro retro satellite imagery (eye altitude of 1.5-2.5 km, enabling ± 50 m precision), then catalogued and classified in a GIS inventory. Ground acceleration during the 2003 Mw 7.2 Secretary Island Earthquake resulted in at least 1852 landslides, but the larger Mw 7.8 2009 Dusky Sound Earthquake had lower accelerations and produced only 313. Both events dislodged large swaths of native forest, grassland vegetation and soil from Fiordland’s steep slopes in similar proportions, some landing in rivers and fiords. The landslide maps and magnitude-frequency distributions show close similarity to a published Global Forest Loss dataset derived from 2001-2022 satellite imagery. Assuming forest loss in this wilderness is predominantly landslide-related, it enables the more-precise earthquake-induced landslide mapping to be placed in a longer-term context of other vegetation loss, mostly rainfall-induced landslides, during the past two decades. The total area of forest loss during the 2003 earthquake was anomalous, whereas during 2009 the earthquake losses were similar to areas of forest loss assumed to be rainfall-induced landslides throughout Fiordland each year. Carbon concentrations of landslide vegetation and soil were calculated by defining vegetation types from a published Land Cover Database, and soil organic carbon concentration from a 1 km resolution raster dataset. Total carbon loss from earthquake-induced landslides amounts to 2.05E+06 tonnes for the 2003 Mw7.2 and 2.17E+05 tonnes for the 2009 Mw 7.8. By way of comparison, New Zealand’s total annual carbon sequestration was 6.3E+06 tonnes in 2020. Earthquake-induced and rainfall-induced landslides are shown to account for significant changes in stored carbon and available carbon sequestration, especially in areas of densely vegetated land, such as Fiordland. Processes of landscape disturbance should be included in carbon accounting and estimates of national greenhouse gas emissions.
 
 Supervised by: Caroline Orchiston
 Scholarship Project Funded by: Centre for Sustainability

Forest and Natural Vegetation Cover Loss Over 2000 to 2020 in Sri Lanka; A Canopy Density Base Analysis

As one of the most important biodiversity hotspot, forest and natural vegetation areas play an essential role in the global ecosystem. It provides an uncountable number of ecosystem services while controlling the adverse impacts of climatic changes. With the expansion of civilization and fulfilling the infinite needs of man, forests and natural vegetation areas were destroyed, especially for agricultural purposes, development projects and timber. Due to this, the accelerated growth of deforestation and loss of natural vegetation can be observed in Sri Lanka in the past few decades. This study aimed to identify the forest and natural vegetation area loss from 2000 to 2020 with a particular focus on the Canopy Density (CD) of tree cover (>25%, >50% and >75%) in Sri Lanka. The satellite estimated data (30 mx30 m resolution) was downloaded from the 2000 to 2020 time period from the Global Forest Watch (GFW) online platform conducted by the World Resource Institute were used. Spatial and temporal changing patterns of the forest and natural vegetation areas have been identified using descriptive analysis methods (percentage) using MS Excel 2019 software. Results of the study found that in 2000, 61.38 percent of the country was covered with above 25% tree cover CD, while 53.86 percent and 39.76 percent of areas have covered with the tree cover CD above 50% and 75%, respectively. However, when it has come to 2020, these areas have decreased by 52.78 percent (>25% CD), 44.27 percent (>50% CD) and 28.65 percent (>75% CD). During this period, 8.6 percent (>25% CD), 9.59 percent (>50% CD) and 11.11 percent (>75% CD) of the forest and natural vegetation areas of Sri Lanka have lost the country. Throughout this period, 2016 can be identified as a year at risk for deforestation due to its annual deforestation rate (>8.8 percent). The total area of forest cover lost in 2016 is 17799 ha (>25% CD), 15583 ha (>50% CD) and 9865 ha (>75% CD). This is nearly 13 percent of forest cover loss for all three types of CD tree cover areas. According to the calculations of the forest areas that have >75% of CD, Anuradhapura (12.06%), Kurunegala (9.82%), and Monaragala (8.49%) districts are the areas that contributed to forest cover loss in the country during 2000 to 2020. According to the study, the annual deforestation rate is still very high. Hence should be needed to monitor and take action to stop deforestation and achieve sustainability in natural resource management in Sri Lanka. 
 Keywords: Deforestation, Canopy density, Tree cover, Natural resource management, Sri Lanka

Examination of the Effects of Climate Change on Türkiye through the Google Earth Engine Platform

The objective of this research is to assess the effects of climate change on Türkiye by utilizing data catalogues provided by the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-computing platform. The utilized data catalogues encompassed precipitation, Land Surface Temperature (LST), EvapoTranspiration (ET), Potential EvapoTranspiration (PET), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), and Forest Area Loss (FAL). Data spanning the years 2001-2022 were collected, and analyses were conducted separately for seven geographical regions of Türkiye on both an annual and seasonal basis. Initially, trend analysis techniques were applied to the individual data sets, followed by an examination of correlations among them. Notably, significant decreasing and increasing trends were observed in annual precipitation and LST data in the Eastern Anatolia region, respectively. Furthermore, a significant increasing trend was identified in annual ET data across all regions except Eastern Anatolia. Conversely, significant increasing trends were noted in annual PET data in Eastern Anatolia and the Aegean regions. Additionally, significant increasing trends were discerned in annual NDVI, EVI, and VCI data across all regions. Experiments revealed that the ET exhibited robust correlations with the NDVI (0.77), EVI (0.79) and VCI (0.81). Furthermore, the NDVI demonstrated strong correlations with EVI (0.99) and VCI (0.96).

Changes in land use and land cover in forest areas in Bener Meriah and Aceh Tengah Districts, Indonesia

This research aims to obtain information regarding land use and land cover (LULC) changes in forest areas in Bener Meriah and Aceh Tengah Districts in 2000-2021, especially on the loss and gain of forest areas, and conversion between land cover classes. We used Landsat 5 (TM) satellite imagery data recorded in 2000 and 2006, and Landsat 8 (OLI) satellite imagery recorded in 2014 and 2020/2021 on path/row data, namely 130/57. The classification processes of LULC included the determination of training areas, supervised classification, and accuracy assessment. The LULC in Bener Meriah and Aceh Tengah districts are dominated by primary dryland forest and secondary dryland forest 250348.45 ha (53.65%) and 103153.16 ha (22.11%), respectively; other land covers, plantation forest 45601.12 ha (9.77%) and shrubs 314722.96 ha (6.74%). However, there is a very significant increase in mixed dryland agriculture areas, from 3186.33 ha (0.68%) in 2000 to 19283.26 ha (4.13%) in 2021. Forest area management has shown a positive trend by significantly increasing in primary dryland forest areas, but there has also been a significant increase in mixed dryland agriculture areas. It is important to find solutions to prevent the spread of deforestation and maintain the sustainability and services of forest ecosystems.

30 m Resolution Global Maps of Forest Soil Respiration and Its Changes From 2000 to 2020

AbstractThe soil respiration (Rs) of forests is a major component of global Rs, yet few studies have focused on it. This study aimed to estimate global forest Rs and its changes at a resolution of 30 m via an artificial neural network (ANN) model. Five input candidates representing forest type, climatic, soil, and geographical information, as well as 1472 satisfactory forest Rs records, were used to build the ANN model and evaluate the model performance via a 10‐fold cross‐validation scheme. Global forest change data sets were used to accurately define the extent of forests and their changes, which was achievable because of the dynamic information and high resolution (30 m) of the data sets. The results indicate that the average annual global forest Rs from 2000 to 2020, as estimated by the optimal ANN model with an r2 value of 0.67 and a root‐mean‐square error of 252.6 g C m−2 yr−1, was 46.24 ± 5.86 Pg C yr−1. From 2001 to 2019, the average theoretical annual global forest Rs loss was 0.22 ± 0.06 Pg C yr−1 due to an average forest loss area of 23.4 million ha yr−1. In addition, the annual Rs theoretically increased by 0.75 Pg C in 2012 due to a global forest gain area of 80.5 million from 2001 to 2012. The presented data sets of global forest Rs and its changes can provide an accurate benchmark for discussing the carbon cycle and climate change at global to regional scales, even when operating over a small forest area (i.e., dozens of ha), which is a scale that has been ignored in other global Rs studies.

Phosphorus forms and adsorption properties of paddy field soils and potential risk to Indawgyi Lake, Myanmar

The largest freshwater and oligotrophic lake in northern Myanmar, called Indawgyi Lake, is at potential risk of eutrophication due to the phosphorus (P) export from nearby paddy fields. In this study, the P status of the soil of paddy fields and its potential mobility to the lake water to cause eutrophication have been evaluated. The Indawgyi Lake is the third largest lake in Asia and became a UNESCO biosphere reserve in June 2017 for its outstanding contribution to providing habitat for threatened birds and aquatic species. Although many other sources, e.g. high tourist interest, loss of natural forest areas, the gathering of pilgrims and lack of proper wastewater treatment plants are contributing to the P nutrients input to the lake, the increase of paddy fields around the lake area and use of synthetic fertiliser which exports to the lake is considered to the primary source of P export to the lake. In this study, the soil P was examined with different P extracted methods and P export to the lake was calculated. The extracted P differed in order and magnitude with different methods, and the order was increased in accordance with CaCl2 < DL-P < Olsen-P < BD-P < HCL-P < TP and for iron, it was HCl-Fe < TFe. All extracted Olsen-P was below 10 mg kg−1, which is below the critical level (30–172 mg kg−1) for P loss. On the other hand, the soil has a high P sorption capacity, and the maximum sorption capacity among the soil samples that were done with the Langmuir equation is 0.790 mg g−1. Our findings suggested that paddy fields are not contributing to the eutrophication of the lake at present. However, comparing the historical map around the lake area from 1944 to 2017, it has been found that the area of paddy fields around the lake has increased almost three-fold from 1944 to 2017. As a result of increasing paddy fields and synthetic fertiliser use, we can say that P export from paddy fields can cause severe eutrophication to the lake in the near future.

Bird diversity in Aketajawe Lolobata National Park

Research on richness and bird species diversity are important for conservation efforts in National Park. Currently, the Aketajawe Lolobata National Park (ALNP) is a habitat patch among industrial areas on Halmahera Island, so that it is important to carry out periodic bird inventories in the national park. Therefore, the need to study the current bird diversity and the status of bird species as a basis for future monitoring and implementation of appropriate conservation measures are important. Bird diversity research needs to be carried out because. Observation plots are placed at primary and secondary forest in Akejawi resort. The research was conducted on January to February 2022. Total observation point is 20 plots. The method was used by point count. The distance between the observation plot is 200 m and the radius of observation is 50 m. The observation were made in the morning (06.00-09.00 am). Repetition of observation on each habitat was carried out 10 times. Data were analyzed by using Shannon-Wiener Index Diversity. Based on findings, There were 345 individuals of 39 species from 19 families inhabited Akejawi Resort. Secondary forest had the highest diversity index when compared to primary forest. This study revealed that there were 9 birds originated from North Maluku and there were 15 species categorized as protected species. The latest data can provide opportunities for further research to reveal patterns of bird distribution and various protection measures due to the loss of forest areas around national parks.

Assessing Spatio-Temporal Variation and Associated Factors of Forest Fragmentation from Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis and Geo-Detector Analyses: A Case Study of Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province of Eastern China

In the context of economic boom and climate change, monitoring the spatio-temporal dynamics of forest fragmentation induced by disturbances and understanding its corresponding associated factors are critical for developing informed forest management strategies. In this study, based on multi-temporal Landsat images acquired from 1999 to 2020, a SVM classifier was first applied to produce high-accuracy land cover maps in Xinyu City. Next, morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) was implemented to characterize the spatio-temporal patterns of forest fragmentation by producing maps of seven fragmentation components, including the core, islet, perforation, edge, bridge, loop, and branch. Then, both natural and human factors responsible for the observed forest fragmentation dynamics were analyzed using the geo-detector model (GDM). The results showed that over the past two decades, Xinyu City experienced a process of significant forest area loss and exacerbating forest fragmentation. The forest area decreased from 1597.35 km2 in 1999 to 1372.05 km2 in 2020. The areal ratio of core patches decreased by 8.49%, and the areal ratio of edge patches increased by 5.98%. Spatially, the trend of forest fragmentation exhibited a progressive increase from the southern and northern regions towards the central and eastern areas. Large-scale forest core patches were primarily concentrated in the northwestern and southwestern regions, while smaller core patches were found in the eastern and central areas. Notably, human activities, such as distance from the roads and land use diversity, were identified as significantly associated with forest fragmentation. The interaction effect of these factors had a greater impact on forest fragmentation than their individual contributions. In conclusion, Xinyu City possesses the potential to further alleviate forest fragmentation by employing the regional differentiation development strategies: (1) intensive development in the northwest and southern regions; (2) high-density development in the western, northwestern, and southern regions, and (3) conservation development in the southwest, northeast, and east-central regions, thus aligning with the path of local social advancement.

Forest Loss Related to Brazil Nut Production in Non-Timber Forest Product Concessions in a Micro-Watershed in the Peruvian Amazon

Madre de Dios is considered an important center of biodiversity in Peru due to its extensive Amazonian forests. However, the forests are under growing pressure due to land invasion, agricultural expansion, and gold mining. This makes support for forest management very important. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between forest loss, land cover, land-use changes, and Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa Humb. &amp; Bonpl) production in forest concessions in the Peruvian Amazon (2004–2020). Remote sensing techniques were used to classify images using the random forest algorithm, which was applied to the Landsat-5 thematic mapper, Landsat-7 enhanced thematic mapper, and Landsat-8 operational land imagery. Brazil nut production data from 2004–2020 was provided by the Regional Forest and Wildlife Service of Madre de Dios. In forest concessions, the forest area decreased continuously over the whole study period (160.11 ha/year). During the same time period, the change in forest cover in the concessions from Brazil nut to other uses was 4681 ha. At the same time, the authorization and extraction of Brazil nuts varied during the study period but did not show a downward trend. We found a significant and inverse relationship between the conversion of forest to agricultural land and Brazil nut production. However, there were insignificant relationships between forest loss, the persistence of agricultural and forest areas, and Brazil nut production. Therefore, despite the forest loss in the forest concession areas, Brazil nut production has not decreased. Production may not be affected because land pressure is higher near access roads, affecting only the areas near the roads rather than the actual areas where the Brazil nut-producing trees are located. Our results showed that nut production in non-timber forest product concessions would be negatively affected by deforestation and forest degradation, but only slightly.

Remote Sensing Based Deforestation Monitoring at the Change Hotspot Area in Hindu Kush Himalayan Region

Forests play an essential role in providing sustainable ecosystem services and livelihood options for a growing population. In the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, forests have been continuously reduced due to increasing demand for timber, fuelwood, and agriculture. Identification of deforestation hotspots and monitoring changes in those hotspots will be highly useful for forest managers to prevent illegal deforestation. In this paper, we identified forest cover change hotspots and areas for annual monitoring in those hotspots. For that factors like land cover from 1990 and 2010, shuttle radar topography mission (SRTM) digitalelevation model (DEM), slope, curvature, and distance from the settlement and roads for all four countries which could influence loss in forest area and overplayed to determine forest hotspots, were considered. Land cover maps of 1990 and 2010 and other GIS layers were used for identification of hotspots using the model builder ArcGIS software. For monitoring of deforestation in the hotspot areas, Landsat 8 images (2013, 2014 and 2015) and geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) technique was used. The method was validated in four study sites in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan. The study revealed that the sites in Bangladesh have higher deforestation during 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 with forest loss of 1121.58 and 1773.18 ha respectively. The web-based forest monitoring system provides information on deforestation useful for forest managers to enforce annual management plans.

Reconstruction of Human-Induced Forest Loss in China during 1900–2000

Forests not only are an essential resource for human society but also have a significant impact on the climate. With the development of remote sensing technology, some progress has been made in forest change monitoring. However, relatively little research has been conducted on historical forest dynamics. Estimating forest loss and its drivers during historical time periods remains a scientific pursuit. In this study, we reconstructed forest loss and its dominant drivers across China based on long time-series socioeconomic and environmental data using LightGBM classification and regression models. The models showed good performance in both 10-fold cross-validation and comparison with other datasets. The results indicate that from 1900 to 2000, forest loss mainly occurred in southern China, with a total loss area of 34.4 × 104 km2. Additionally, there was significant spatial heterogeneity, showing a decreasing trend from east to west and from south to north. The forest loss in China can be divided into two stages: (1) the stable stage from 1900 to 1949; and (2) the fluctuating stage from 1950 to 1999. In the first stage, most of the forest loss was attributed to forestry (&gt;80%), followed by commodity-driven deforestation. In the early stage of the development of the People’s Republic of China, forest loss showed an increasing trend. In the 1960s, the forest loss area decreased by 12.9% due to the stagnation of the economy. With the adoption of the reform and opening-up policy, the total forest loss area in China reached its peak value (6.4 × 104 km2) during 1980–1989. The models also accurately captured the impact of urbanization and government policy in this period. This study not only provides an in-depth understanding of historical forest change in China, but also offers data and methodological references for the further study of human–nature interactions over the long term.

Annual emissions of carbon from land use, land-use change, and forestry from 1850 to 2020

Abstract. Estimates of the annual emissions of carbon from land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) are important for constructing global, regional, and national carbon budgets, which in turn help predict future rates of climate change and define potential strategies for mitigation. Here, we update a long-term (1850–2020) series of annual national carbon emissions resulting from LULUCF (https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/U7GHRH, Houghton and Castanho, 2023), based largely, after 1960, on statistics of land use from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/, FAO, 2021). Those data suggest that rates of deforestation in the tropics (and thus net emissions of carbon) have decreased over the last 10 years (2011–2020). The data also indicate that the net loss of tropical forest area was greater than the net gain in agricultural lands, and we explore four alternative explanations for this apparent forest conversion, one of which is shifting cultivation. We also discuss how opposing trends in recent estimates of tropical deforestation (and emissions) might be reconciled. The calculated emissions of carbon attributable to LULUCF approximate the anthropogenic component of terrestrial carbon emissions, but limiting national carbon accounting to the anthropogenic component may also limit the potential for managing carbon on land.

Cocoa plantations are associated with deforestation in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana

Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the world’s largest producers of cocoa, account for two thirds of the global cocoa production. In both countries, cocoa is the primary perennial crop, providing income to almost two million farmers. Yet precise maps of the area planted with cocoa are missing, hindering accurate quantification of expansion in protected areas, production and yields and limiting information available for improved sustainability governance. Here we combine cocoa plantation data with publicly available satellite imagery in a deep learning framework and create high-resolution maps of cocoa plantations for both countries, validated in situ. Our results suggest that cocoa cultivation is an underlying driver of over 37% of forest loss in protected areas in Côte d’Ivoire and over 13% in Ghana, and that official reports substantially underestimate the planted area (up to 40% in Ghana). These maps serve as a crucial building block to advance our understanding of conservation and economic development in cocoa-producing regions.

Direct and indirect effects of agricultural expansion and landscape fragmentation processes on natural habitats

Agricultural expansion has led to a large-scale loss of natural vegetation and landscape fragmentation, seriously threatening biodiversity. In addition to directly encroaching on natural habitats, agricultural expansion can indirectly affect surrounding natural habitats. However, the indirect effects of agricultural expansion on natural habitats and their responses to landscape fragmentation processes are poorly understood. Taking Lishui city, China, as an example, changes in land use/land cover and habitat quality during 2000–2020 were assessed. Then, an agricultural expansion scenario was designed to separate the direct and indirect effects of agricultural expansion on natural habitats. Regression analysis and geographical detector methods were used to explore the relationships among the four landscape fragmentation processes (area, edge, shape, and isolation) and the direct/indirect impacts. The results showed that agricultural expansion resulted in a forest loss area of 376.04 km2. Agricultural expansion led to a 6.08 % decrease in natural habitats, of which 43.84 % were direct effects and 56.16 % were indirect effects. Agricultural expansion indirectly impacted 14,209.06 km2 of natural habitats, and this value was approximately 32 times larger than the area that was directly impacted (449.51 km2). Different landscape fragmentation processes had linear/nonlinear effects on natural habitats. The interaction effects of landscape fragmentation showed duality and nonlinear enhancement. Changes in area and edge contributed the most to the direct effects, but indirect effects were also affected by the shape of agricultural land and the isolation of forest. The agricultural land system balance policy was the main driver of agricultural expansion and landscape fragmentation. Sustainable agricultural landscape management is necessary to mitigate the impact of agricultural expansion on biodiversity. This study provides new insights for agricultural landscape planning and biodiversity conservation.

Identifying socioeconomic and biophysical factors driving forest loss in protected areas.

Protected areas (PAs) are a commonly used strategy to confront forest conversion and biodiversity loss. Although determining drivers of forest loss is central to conservation success, understanding of them is limited by conventional modeling assumptions. We used random forest regression to evaluate potential drivers of deforestation in PAs in Mexico, while accounting for nonlinear relationships and higher order interactions underlying deforestation processes. Socioeconomic drivers (e.g., road density, human population density) and underlying biophysical conditions (e.g., precipitation, distance to water, elevation, slope) were stronger predictors of forest loss than PA characteristics, such as age, type, and management effectiveness. Within PA characteristics, variables reflecting collaborative and equitable management and PA size were the strongest predictors of forest loss, albeit with less explanatory power than socioeconomic and biophysical variables. In contrast to previously used methods, which typically have been based on the assumption of linear relationships, we found that the associations between most predictors and forest loss are nonlinear. Our results can inform decisions on the allocation of PA resources by strengthening management in PAs with the highest risk of deforestation and help preemptively protect key biodiversity areas that may be vulnerable to deforestation in the future.

Reducing natural vegetation loss in Amazonia critically depends on the formal recognition of indigenous lands

The Brazilian Amazon contains the world's largest tract of tropical forest, about 22 % of which is within demarcated indigenous territories. Formal governmental recognition of these traditional territories is often a critical deterrent to deforestation, but the relative conservation performance of Indigenous Lands (ILs) under different legal categories and geographic contexts remains poorly understood. We used 30-m resolution Landsat satellite imagery to quantitatively assess the land cover status and annual rates of natural vegetation loss between 1985 and 2020 for 381 indigenous territories amounting to ~115 million hectares. Using a comprehensive set of environmental and socio-economic covariates and a mixed-modelling approach, we found that all stages of formal IL recognition consistently inhibit natural vegetation loss throughout the Brazilian Amazon compared to adjacent unprotected areas. Formal physical demarcation and distance from roads were the main proximate drivers of avoided natural vegetation loss inside ILs. Forest loss associated with road access is substantially curbed by ILs, showing the importance of frontier expansion when assessing indigenous reserve performance in counteracting natural vegetation loss. Because loss of natural forest and savannah areas associated with agribusiness frontiers and infrastructure projects are likely to intensify, the importance of ecosystem services provided by ILs is expected to increase across the Brazilian Amazon. Cultural profile and human density exerted no impacts on IL effectiveness in precluding natural vegetation loss. Given widespread encroachment of timber extraction and agribusiness, formal recognition of indigenous territories is a critical factor in decelerating primary habitat conversion across the Amazon.

Carbon Neutrality of Ukraine as a Determinant of Green Development

The article presents the research results on some aspects of achieving carbon neutrality in Ukraine. Carbon neutrality is a challenge for the whole world. In 2020, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a historical maximum. The work aims to study the features of achieving carbon neutrality in Ukraine. The tasks of the work are the analysis of the components of the transition to low-carbon development, analysis of the consumption of fossil fuels, and activities related to the preservation of forests, natural steppe, and meadow ecosystems. Interest in carbon neutrality issues grows yearly, with a particularly in 2021–2022. Most articles on carbon neutrality were published by scientists from China, the USA, Great Britain, Turkey, and Pakistan. They are mainly devoted to carbon dioxide emissions, economic growth, renewable energy, energy consumption, financial development, co-integration, dioxin emissions, etc. Positive trends regarding the achievement of carbon neutrality have been identified: the supply of natural gas, coal, and peat has decreased, while the supply of renewable energy sources has increased; the share of coal and peat decreased by 26.4%, and the percentage of energy produced from renewable sources increased to 6.6%; the use of coal and peat decreased by 8.5%, natural gas by 5%, and biofuels increased by 16%; the share of biofuel use increased to 5.8%. Expenditures for environmental protection increased by 88.5%, for preserving biodiversity and habitat – by 3.6 times, and costs for air protection and climate change problems – by 2.5 times. The share of expenditures on the protection of biodiversity and habitat increased to 3.2%, and costs on atmospheric air protection and climate change problems to 19.3%. Negative trends that restrain the development of a carbon-neutral economy were also revealed: a low share of renewable sources in the structure of supply and use. Thus, the percentage of biofuel in aggregate use remains low – only 5.8% in 2020. The area of forest loss is increasing, and the area of forest regeneration has decreased by 36%. The area of reforestation remained at the same level, but the area of afforestation decreased ten times during 2010–2020. The scientific novelty consists in the development of theoretical foundations for the identification of regularities in the formation of the energy transformation theory, which differs from the existing ones using bibliometric (VOSviewer v. 1.6.13) analysis.

Techniques of Geoprocessing via Cloud in Google Earth Engine Applied to Vegetation Cover and Land Use and Occupation in the Brazilian Semiarid Region

Thematic maps of land cover and use can assist in the environmental monitoring of semiarid regions, mainly due to the advent of climate change, such as drought, and pressures from anthropic activities, such as the advance of urban areas. The use of geotechnologies is key for its effectiveness and low operating cost. The objective was to evaluate and understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of the loss and gain of land cover and use in a region of the Brazilian semiarid region, and identify annual trends from changing conditions over 36 years (1985 to 2020), using cloud remote sensing techniques in Google Earth Engine (GEE). Thematic maps of land cover and land use from MapBiomas Brazil were used, evaluated by Mann–Kendall trend analysis. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was also determined from the digital processing of about 800 orbital images (1985 to 2020) from the Landsat series of satellites. The trend analysis for land cover and use detected, over time, the loss of forest areas and water bodies, followed by the advance of exposed soil areas and urban infrastructure. The modification of native vegetation directly influences water availability, and agricultural activities increase the pressure on water resources, mainly in periods of severe drought. The NDVI detected that the period from 2013 to 2020 was most affected by climatic variability conditions, with extremely low average values. Thematic maps of land cover and use and biophysical indices are essential indicators to mitigate environmental impacts in the Brazilian semiarid region.