Forest Protection Research Articles

KEANEKARAGAMAN JENIS DAN POLA PENYEBARAN POHON DI HUTAN LINDUNG GUNUNG EGON DUSUN BLIDIT KECAMATAN WAIGETE KABUPATEN SIKKA

This study aims to determine the diversity of species and distribution patterns of trees in the protected forest of Mount Egon, Blidit Hamlet, Waigete District, Sikka Regency and is expected to be useful for the development of science and technology, especially in the field of forestry and plantations. This research was carried out for one month from February 13 to 13. March 2023. The research used was scientific research using survey and transect methods with an observation plot size of 10 x 10. The results obtained from the study found twelve tree species, namely, Hibiscus tiliaceus, Schleichera oleosa, Santalum Album, Dimocarpus longan, Ficus carica, terminalia catappa toona sinensis, averrhoa bilimbi, canarium indicum, shorea spp, dendrocalamus asper, ficus benjamina, with a diversity index of 2,340 with criteria 1<H'<3, the diversity of tree species in the protected forest of Mount Egon is classified as moderate and the distribution pattern with IM< 1 then the distribution pattern is uniform.

Prioritizing global tall forests toward the 30 × 30 goals.

The Global Deal for Nature sets an ambitious goal to protect 30% of Earth's land and ocean by 2030. The 30 × 30 initiative is a way to allocate conservation resources and extend protection to conserve vulnerable and underprotected ecosystems while reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change. However, most prioritization methods for identifying high-value conservation areas are based on thematic attributes and do not consider vertical habitat structure. Global tall forests represent a rare vertical habitat structure that harbors high species richness in various taxonomic groups and is associated with large amounts of aboveground biomass. Global tall forests should be prioritized when planning global protected areas toward reaching the 30 × 30 goals. We examined the spatial distribution of global tall forests based on the Global Canopy Height 2020 product. We defined global tall forests as areas with the average canopy height above 3 thresholds (20, 25, and 30m). We quantified the spatial distribution and protection level of global tall forests in high-protection zones, where the 30 × 30 goals are being met or are within reach, and low-protection zones, where there is a low chance of reaching 30 × 30 goals. We quantified the protection level by computing the percentage of global tall forest area protected based on the 2017 World Database on Protected Areas. We also determined the global extent and protection level of undisturbed, mature, tall forests based on the 2020 Global Intact Forest Landscapes mask. In most cases, the percentage of protection decreased as forest height reached the top strata. In the low-protection zones, <30% of forests were protected in almost all tall forest strata. In countries such as Brazil, tall forests had a higher percentage of protection (consistently >30%) compared to forests of lower height, presenting a more effective conservation model than in countries such as the United States, where forest protection was almost uniformly <30% across height strata. Our results show an urgent need to target forest conservation in the greatest height strata, particularly in high-protection areas, where most global tall forests are found. Vegetation vertical structure can inform the decision-making process toward the 30 × 30 goals because it can be used to identify areas of high conservation value for biodiversity protection which also contribute to carbon sequestration.

Research the Current Status of Educational Works on Biodiversity Conservation at Than Sa - Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve, Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam

Than Sa - Phuong Hoang Nature Reserve is the largest natural forest in Thai Nguyen province, with high biodiversity with 6 types of vegetation, 1,234 plant species, and 346 animal species. The buffer zone Than Sa - Phuong Nature Reserve has about 6,500 households living, with more than 90% being ethnic minorities. Local people are still dependent on the forest, causing many difficulties for conservation. Education to raise awareness for the community is a long-term, highly effective and sustainable solution to biodiversity conservation. During the research process, the authors used a combination of methods of analyzing and synthesizing documents; field survey method. Research results show that: Biodiversity conservation education is carried out at Than Sa - Phuong Hoang Nature Reserve in different forms for diverse target groups. However, the number of educational programs on biodiversity conservation is not much due to lack of funding and low practical effectiveness. The staff in charge of education and communication work of the Management Board of special-use forests and protection forests in Thai Nguyen province have not been professionally trained.

Water quality improvement and existing challenges in the Pearl River Basin, China

This study highlights the effectiveness of a national water quality improvement initiative on water quality in the Pearl River Basin. The dynamic characteristics of surface water quality in the Pearl River Basin from 2006 to 2018 were analyzed, and the effects of driving factors, including economy, population, land use, water resources, forestry, industry, energy and animal husbandry on water quality were determined. There was a significant improvement in the overall water quality of the Pearl River basin (except Guangzhou) by controlling the discharge of wastewater pollutants and emphasizing environmental protection of forests and disposal of domestic waste. That is particularly evident from the exponential decrease of GDP normalized ammonium (NH4+-N) and COD concentrations. The modeling of water quality and driving factors indicates water quality in the Pearl River Basin was closely related to industrial pollution control investment, afforested area, innocuous disposal capacity of domestic garbage, vegetable sown area, use of natural gas, ecological water consumption, production of sulfuric acid and mutton yields. The improvement in water quality occurred at a time when GDP was increasing providing evidence that economic development and environmental protection can occur through appropriate environmental investment. It is worth noting that although water quality in Guangzhou has improved, nitrogen pollution resulting from domestic sewage and industrial pollutants remains a severe challenge for water quality in this region.

Landfill leachate has multiple negative impacts on soil health indicators in Hyrcanian forest, northern Iran

The storage of municipal solid wastes in unengineered landfills poses a severe threat to soil functions and health. Wastes seriously threaten human health and the terrestrial ecosystem, especially due to heavy metals. There is a general knowledge gap about the long-term impacts of storage wastes on the soil health indicators which are effective on soil functions. This investigation focuses on the examination of landfill leachate on soil health indicators from different years in the Hyrcanian forest region in northern Iran. For this purpose, soil sampling was done in the summer of 2012 and 2022 (from three depths of 0–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm and on a surface of 30 cm × 30 cm). Soil samples were randomly collected from a polluted forest used as waste storage and a nearby unpolluted protected forest. In addition to the general soil physical, chemical and biological parameters, the amounts of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in the soil were also measured. Simultaneously with soil sampling, earthworms (from a depth of 0–30 cm) were collected and identified. Also, the concentration of Cd and Pb in the earthworm's biomass were measured in the laboratory. We found that unpolluted sites had maximum values of N, K, P, and Ca than the polluted sites. In addition, a decrease of soil aggregates stability, nutrient contents, microbial and enzyme activities, and also fauna and microflora abundance were found in the polluted sites in the period 2012–2022. Soil Cd and Pb contents were more in the polluted site in 2022 compared to the unpolluted site. Lumbricus rubellus and Lumbricus terrestris earthworms had significantly higher population in the polluted sites and higher accumulation of Cd and Pb in biomass. According to our results, soil health decreased in the order unpolluted site 2022 > unpolluted site 2012 > polluted site 2012 > polluted site 2022, which corresponds with the reduction of soil health during the release of landfill leachate. This investigation contributes to understand landfill pollution derived from leachate and its effects on soil physical, chemical and biological parameters to help managing landfill leachate. Therefore, the main issue is choosing a landfill system that minimizes the risk of pollution, installing a leachate collection system and constructing a landfill with engineering principles that can reduce the effects of urban waste pollution on soil health. We emphasize that landfilling is dangerous for the environment, so the government should implement sanitary landfilling to prevent further contamination of surface and underground waters, as well as soil in the precious Hyrcanian forest.

The Impact of Land Use Changes on Carbon Flux in the World’s 100 Largest Cities

Urbanization has become an important player in the global carbon cycle, and land use change is the second largest source of carbon emissions. However, despite great advances in remote sensing and satellite imagery, there is no reliable estimate of the impact of land use change on changes in land carbon stock in global cities. This paper quantified the impact of land use change on land carbon flux in the world’s 100 largest cities by using annual land cover data based on LandSat 8 images and land carbon stock parameters provided by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). It was found that significant urban expansion could be observed in 83 cities, while 29 cities showed a deforestation trend, and croplands in 42 cities have shrunk. Carbon stock reduced by more than 112 million tons in the 100 selected cities from 2013 to 2022 due to land cover change. A total of 39 cities showed significant negative trends in land carbon stock that were mainly caused by urban sprawl and shrinkage in forest or cropland, among which Kolkata, Chongqing, Seoul, Guangzhou, and Hefei showed the greatest decline. Because of the growth of forest and cropland, or reduction in barren land and grassland, 28 cities showed clear positive trends in land carbon stock. In order to increase urban land carbon stock, the urban planning of most cities should focus on the protection of forests or afforestation that replace barren land or grassland and should avoid mindless urban expansion.

Identification of Ecological Restoration Approaches and Effects Based on the OO-CCDC Algorithm in an Ecologically Fragile Region

A full understanding of the patterns, trends, and strategies for long-term ecosystem changes helps decision-makers evaluate the effectiveness of ecological restoration projects. This study identified the ecological restoration approaches on planted forest, natural forest, and natural grassland protection during 2000–2022 based on a developed object-oriented continuous change detection and classification (OO-CCDC) method. Taking the Loess hilly region in the southern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China as a case study, we assessed the ecological effects after protecting forest or grassland automatically and continuously by highlighting the location and change time of positive or negative effects. The results showed that the accuracy of ecological restoration approaches extraction was 90.73%, and the accuracies of the ecological restoration effects were 86.1% in time and 84.4% in space. A detailed evaluation from 2000 to 2022 demonstrated that positive effects peaked in 2013 (1262.69 km2), while the highest negative effects were observed in 2017 (54.54 km2). In total, 94.39% of the planted forests, 99.56% of the natural forest protection, and 62.36% of the grassland protection were in a stable pattern, and 35.37% of the natural grassland displayed positive effects, indicating a proactive role for forest management and ecological restoration in an ecologically fragile region. The negative effects accounted for a small proportion, only 2.41% of the planted forests concentrated in Pengyang County and 2.62% of the natural grassland protection mainly distributed around the farmland in the central-eastern part of the study area. By highlighting regions with positive effects as acceptable references and regions with negative effects as essential conservation objects, this study provides valuable insights for evaluating the effectiveness of the integrated ecological restoration pattern and determining the configuration of ecological restoration measures.

POTENSI DAN SKENARIO PENGEMBANGAN WISATA JEMBATAN PELANGI DI KABUPATEN SUPIORI PAPUA (Potensial and Development Scenarios the rainbow bridge tourism in Supiori Regency)

Tourism is one of the sectors that an important contribution to national and regional economic growth. The purpose of this study to assessment potential tourist attraction objects and development scenarios for the rainbow bridge in Sorendiweri Village. The potential assessment uses the tourist attraction guidelines issued by the Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation while the development analysis uses an analysis with the community based ecotourism development (CBED) model. The results showed that the rainbow bridge has a potential tourist attraction object of 2,545 (good). Communities and tourists regarding the development of objects and tourist attractions of the Rainbow Bridge perceive and accept and agree. Development scenarios so that rainbow bridge tourism is better known by the general public, both domestic and foreign tourists, including: adventure tourism in mangrove forest areas, identification of flora and fauna, visitor management, making tour packages, fulfillment and maintenance of infrastructure. The active role of the community and tourists greatly influences the existence of potential and future tourist objects.

Simulation-Based Optimization of the Urban Thermal Environment through Local Climate Zones Reorganization in Changsha City, China with the FLUS Model

Urbanization leads to changes in surface landscapes, such as the increase in built-up areas and the decrease in natural elements, resulting in local changes in land surface temperature, which often create unusually hot weather and affect livability, especially for mid- and low-latitude cities. Therefore, optimizing urban landscapes and adjusting the thermal environment is especially important to improve comfort and to achieve sustainable urban development. Existing studies on optimizing landscapes have considered mainly horizontal land uses/land covers but ignored their elevation. This study considered local climate zones as basic units to describe three-dimensional landscapes; we measured the relationship between local climate zones and land surface temperature, based on which the research further used a genetic algorithm and future land-use simulation models to optimize the spatial layouts of local climate zones in Changsha, China, considering multiple objectives including adjusting land surface temperature without affecting population carrying capacity, economic development, watershed protection, and forest and grass protection. According to the optimization results, the area of open low-rise buildings increased by 5.98% after optimization, and dense trees decreased by 7.64%; open low-rise buildings were suggested to be newly built in the city center and sparsely buildings should be developed in the surrounding administrative district far away from the city center. The optimization results contributed to a −5.2 °C reduction of average land surface temperature, which could significantly improve the thermal environment under the premise of ensuring the population and economic development levels and thus serves as a novel solution for improving urban landscapes to implement sustainable city development.

Landscape Dynamics and Ecological Risk Assessment of Cold Temperate Forest Moose Habitat in the Great Khingan Mountains, China.

The change in habitat pattern is one of the key factors affecting the survival of the moose population. The study of the habitat landscape pattern is the key to protecting the Chinese cold-temperate forest moose population and monitoring the global distribution of moose. Through the ecological risk assessment of the moose habitat landscape pattern in a cold-temperate forest, we hope to assess the strength of habitat resistance under stress factors. This study provides a theoretical basis for the protection of the moose population in the cold-temperate forest in China and the establishment of the cold-temperate forest national park. In the study, the MaxEnt model, landscape index calculation and ecological risk assessment model construction were used to analyze the field survey and infrared camera monitoring data from April 2014 to January 2023. The habitat suitability layer of the moose population in the Nanwenghe National Nature Reserve of the Great Khingan Mountains was calculated, and the range of the moose habitat was divided based on the logical threshold of the model. The landscape pattern index of the moose habitat was calculated by Fragstats software and a landscape ecological risk assessment model was established to analyze the landscape pattern and ecological risk dynamic changes of the moose habitat in 2015 and 2020. The results showed that under the premise of global warming, the habitat landscape contagion index decreased by 4.53 and the split index increased by 4.86 from 2015 to 2020. In terms of ecological risk: the area of low ecological risk areas increased by 0.88%; the area of medium ecological risk areas decreased by 1.11%; and the area of high ecological risk areas increased by 0.23%. The fragmentation risk of the landscape pattern of the moose habitat tends to increase, the preferred patch type is dispersed, the degree of aggregation is low, and the risk of patch type transformation increases. The middle and high ecological risk areas are mainly concentrated in the river area and its nearby forests, showing a fine and scattered distribution. Under the interference of global warming and human activities, the fragmentation trend of the moose habitat in the study area is increasing, and the habitat quality is declining, which is likely to cause moose population migration. For this reason, the author believes that the whole cold temperate forest is likely to face the risk of increasing the transformation trend of dominant patch types in the cold-temperate coniferous forest region mainly caused by global warming, resulting in an increase in the risk of habitat fragmentation. While the distribution range of moose is reduced, it has a significant impact on the diversity and ecological integrity of the whole cold-temperate forest ecosystem. This study provides theoretical references for further research on the impact of climate warming on global species distribution and related studies. It is also helpful for humans to strengthen their protection awareness of forest and river areas and formulate reasonable protection and sustainable development planning of cold-temperate forests. Finally, it provides theoretical references for effective monitoring and protection of cold-temperate forests and moose population dynamics.

Bird diversity in the forests and coconut farms of Sulawesi, Indonesia

AbstractCoconut farming contributes to the livelihoods of millions of people in tropical countries but is less frequently considered as a threat to biodiversity compared to other palm commodities such as oil palm. The expansion of coconut farming alongside other smallholder agriculture in Sulawesi, Indonesia, is of potential concern as the region is a centre of species endemism. We studied bird diversity and community structure in forests, coconut palm plantations and mixed farmland in Gorontalo Province, northern Sulawesi. Forest and non-forest sites supported similar numbers of species overall, but compared to agricultural areas, forest sites had communities that were more diverse and more even (i.e. different species were present at similar abundances). We found far fewer endemic species in agricultural areas compared to forests, and the communities in palm plantations and mixed farmland sites were dominated by generalist birds, with few indicator taxa. Nevertheless, there was a higher number of endemic species in coconut palm plantations than in mixed farmland sites. These findings mirror patterns of biotic homogenization documented elsewhere in the Wallacea centre of endemism, and imply that coconut palm plantations have comparable biodiversity value to other farmland systems. Increased protection of lowland forests and improved management of coconut farms could be important for supporting the conservation of the endemic birds of Sulawesi in the long term, but this warrants further study.

BACSSOC: A novel clustering method for mobile forest protection using wireless sensor network with lower energy consumption and lower latency

The utilization of Mobile Forest Protection Using Wireless Sensor Network (Mobile-FPWSN) has exhibited notable advantages in mitigating economic losses in forestry and enhancing the efficiency of fire prevention, thereby leading to its widespread adoption in the forestry protection industry. However, in the current developmental stage of Mobile-FPWSN, the impact of sensor nodes on the system is often disregarded in forest fire prevention and control. Latest studies have indicated that clustering techniques exhibit noteworthy benefits, including a decrease in energy consumption and an extension of system life. However, current clustering methodologies do not comprehensively address the concerns of latency, energy consumption, and delay while operating under Mobile-FPWSN conditions. In order to tackle these challenges, a novel clustering method called Boltzmann adaptive chaotic salp swarm optimization clustering (BACSSOC) has been proposed for Mobile-FPWSN. This method aims to significantly prolong the system’s lifetime, efficiently reduce energy consumption, and minimize system latency to the greatest extent possible. BACSSOC dramatically reduces the energy consumption of cluster heads during the adaptive clustering phase of Mobile-FPWSN, thereby decelerating the depletion of node energy and improving the forest fire monitoring time in comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms. To evaluate the efficacy of BACSSOC in comparison to ML-AEFA, PCFMO, and SOA-EACR algorithms in mobile FPWSNs, we have conducted a unique forest fire simulation experiment based on a realistic forest fire scenario. The results have unequivocally demonstrated that BACSSOC surpasses ML-AEFA, PCFMO, and SOA-EACR algorithms, exhibiting advantages of at least 15% in reducing node energy consumption, 7% in decreasing system latency, and 9% in increasing system lifespan. These findings highlight the remarkable potential of BACSSOC as an effective network clustering solution in mobile FPWSNs.

Dynamic Change of Forest Ecological Benefit of the Natural Forest Protection Project in the Upper Reaches of Yangtze River

The Natural Forest Protection Project (NFPP) is an ecological restoration project aimed at safeguarding natural forests, and is one of China’s six main forestry initiatives. The upper reaches of the Yangtze River represent the main distribution area of natural forests in China, and are an important area for the implementation of the NFPP. A systematic assessment of forest ecosystem changes in the upper Yangtze River region before and after implementation of the NFPP is of great scientific significance for the improvement of the project implementation effect, regional ecological protection, and further protection and restoration of natural forest resources. This study uses the NFPP area in the Yangtze River’s upper reaches as the study area; the data are primarily derived from the 1998 and 2020 forest resources category II survey data, long-term monitoring data from forest ecological stations, and public social data published by authoritative Chinese organizations. Based on the above data, we used the full index system of forest ecosystem services, continuous observation, and inventory system with the distributed measurement method to analyze the dynamic changes in forest ecosystem services in the study area in terms of three aspects: physical quality, value quality, and dominant function. The results of the study show that: (1) over the studied time scale, compared to the 1998 baseline, the physical quantities (soil erosion control, water regulation, and PM10 retention) and value of each service function of the forest ecosystem in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River project area in 2020 showed a significant increasing trend; (2) at the spatial scale, changes in forest ecosystem service functions in the upper reaches of Yangtze River under the NFPP showed significant spatial heterogeneity from 1998 to 2020; (3) in 2020, the total value of forest ecosystem services in the study area was 3,261,161,000,000 yuan/a, of which the functional value of biodiversity conservation was 1,294,426,000,000 yuan/a and the functional value of water conservation was 841,069,000,000 yuan/a, indicating that the forest ecosystem of the study area plays an important role as a “green gene pool” and “green water reservoir”; (4) the forest ecosystem service functions of the NFPP in the upper reaches of Yangtze River are intricately tied to forest resource features such as forest area, forest volume, age-group structure of arbor forest, etc., which influence the physical quantity and value of each forest ecosystem service function to varying degrees. In addition to illustrating the amazing efficiency of the natural forest preservation initiative, this study provides a scientific foundation for future natural forest resource conservation and restoration. It can serve as a reference for the project’s subsequent development as well to provide scientific foundations and guidance for the development of the natural forest protection and restoration program and to promote the protection and restoration of more natural forest resources.

Mangrove monitoring revealed by MDPrePost-Net using archived Landsat imageries

Acting as a global vital entity in the coastal ecosystem, mangroves are currently facing major threats to destruction due to anthropogenic activities. Restoration and rehabilitation measures of mangroves are being carried out, including in Indonesia. To support conservation actions in many islands in Indonesia, spatio-temporal information on mangroves is required. Remote sensing with advanced techniques such as machine learning and deep learning has proven the capability to spatially observe mangroves. This study aims to monitor mangrove change in three study areas, i.e., South Sumatra, North Kalimantan, and Southeast Sulawesi, using a fully convolutional network (FCN)-based MDPrePost-Net. This method was developed originally to assess the mangrove degradation due to a major event (i.e., Hurricane irma 2017 in southwest Florida), whereas this study adopts it for an extended observation period (1989–2022 for South Sumatra, 1991–2021 for North Kalimantan, and 1990–2021 for Southeast Sulawesi) using medium-resolution Landsat imageries. We observed that the mangroves remain stable within the national parks designated by the government. Outside the national parks, mangrove conversion massively occurred even though the areas are assigned as protection forests. The classification results showed satisfactory accuracy values of more than 84%. The maps produced have an advantage in the spatial change analysis compared to the global datasets such as Global Mangrove Watch version 3.0. Our method has a limitation when cloudless images are not available. The integration with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and a rigorous cloud removal method for the optical images may improve the results of mangrove monitoring.

Assessment of the Impact of Forest Reclamation Measures for the Adaptation of Agriculture to Climate Change in the South of the Russian Plain

The aim of this study was to study the effectiveness and economic efficiency of the impact of agroforestry complexes on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change in the south of the Russian Plain. It has been established that this manifests quantitatively in a significant decrease (by almost a third) in the area of wind-destroyed lands and drought-dead crops in farms protected by forest strips compared with open agricultural territories. The calculation of direct damage prevented by protective forest plantations from degradation and loss of soil fertility as a result of dust storms and indirect damage prevented by protective forest plantations from crop loss as a result of extreme droughts shows that the total amount of remuneration received by farmers from agroforestry in connection with the placement of a forest-forming element in their fields is EUR 317–1239 ha−1 year−1. This value is the contribution of agroforestry to adaptation to climate change and is subject to zonal dynamics—it depends on natural and climatic conditions. The application developed as part of this research has value for decision makers, since it allows for preliminary assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of agroforestry for various areas of farms and various natural zones.

Effect of forest management choices on carbon sequestration and biodiversity at national scale

Forest management methods and harvest intensities influence wood production, carbon sequestration and biodiversity. We devised different management scenarios by means of stakeholder analysis and incorporated them in the forest growth simulator PREBAS. To analyse impacts of harvest intensity, we used constraints on total harvest: business as usual, low harvest, intensive harvest and no harvest. We carried out simulations on a wall-to-wall grid in Finland until 2050. Our objectives were to (1) test how the management scenarios differed in their projections, (2) analyse the potential wood production, carbon sequestration and biodiversity under the different harvest levels, and (3) compare different options of allocating the scenarios and protected areas. Harvest level was key to carbon stocks and fluxes regardless of management actions and moderate changes in proportion of strictly protected forest. In contrast, biodiversity was more dependent on other management variables than harvesting levels, and relatively independent of carbon stocks and fluxes.

Updated distribution of an alien frog species, Lithobates catesbeianus (Shaw, 1802), in Ecuador: new records of Bullfrog in the semideciduous lowland forest of western Ecuador

We report the occurrence of Lithobates catesbeianus (Shaw, 1802), Bullfrog, in a protected semidecidu-ous forest in the city of Guayaquil, Guayas, Ecuador and in a nearby wildlife management center. Bosqueira Pro-tected Forest is an isolated spot of diversity surrounded by urbanization, quarries, and highways. We found a juvenile Bullfrog in a water canal on the edge of the protected forest, near a private housing complex, and several tadpoles in an artificial pond in a wildlife management center located near the reserve. This is the first sighting of the invasive L. catesbeianus in a native ecosystem in Guayaquil. We also report the this species from, three other provinces of Ecuador, based on observations in iNaturalist. These records reinforce the ability of L. catesbeianus to adapt easily to varied environmental conditions and to disturbed areas. The invasion of L. catesbeianus towards semideciduous forest represents a new threat to biodiversity, particularly the endemic fauna, due to predation or competition. In future studies, it will be important to fully evaluate the Bullfrog diet and population status to esti-mate its impact on remnant forests of Guayaquil.

Thirty-meter map of young forest age in China

Abstract. Young forest age mapping at a fine spatial resolution is important for increasing the accuracy of estimating land–atmosphere carbon fluxes and guiding forest management practices. In recent decades, China has actively conducted afforestation and forest protection projects, thereby laying the foundation for the realization of carbon neutrality. However, very few studies have been conducted which map the ages of young forests for the whole of China at a fine spatial resolution. In this research, a continuous change detection and classification (CCDC)-based method suitable for large-scale forest age mapping is proposed and used to estimate young forest ages across China in 2020 at a spatial resolution of 30 m. First, a 10 m spatial-resolution land cover dataset (WorldCover2020) from the European Space Agency (ESA) was used to determine the forest cover areas in 2020. Then, the CCDC algorithm was used to identify stand-replacing disturbances to determine the stand age based on 436 967 Landsat tiles across China from 1990 to 2020. A validation sample set composed of multiple land use and land cover (LULC) products was used to calculate the overall accuracy (OA) of the 2020 young forest age (1–31-year) map of China, and the OA was 90.28 %. The reliability and applicability of the proposed CCDC-based forest age mapping method were validated by comparing the forest age map with Hansen's forest change dataset, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC) 1 km global forest age datasets, and field measurements. The CCDC-based method has strong application potential in real-time mapping of the age of young forests at the global scale. The produced forest age map provides a basic dataset for research on the forest carbon cycle and forest ecosystem services as well as important guidance for government departments, such as the National Forestry and Grassland Administration and the National Development and Reform Commission in China. Data presented in this study is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21627023.v7 (Xiao, 2022).

The spatial and temporal displacement of native species by domestic dogs

Domestic dogs have been predicted to be a high risk to 10 % of mammal and 11 % of bird species across mainland Southeast Asia. Within Thailand their population is estimated at over 12 million and 80 % live in rural areas where they adopt a free-ranging lifestyle. This lifestyle enables them to enter protected forests without restrictions. To access the spatial and temporal impacts domestic dogs have on local wildlife a two-year camera trap study was undertaken in a fragmented forest complex in Northern Thailand. Co-occurrence modelling was used to estimate the impacts of domestic dogs on a native predator (golden jackal) and prey (green peafowl) specie’s occurrence probability. Temporal segregation was accessed using activity pattern overlaps and compared to Huai Kha Khaeng, a more protected and unfragmented forest complex. Although the results from the co-occurrence models did not find any spatial segregation, it was found that temporal avoidance was occurring in the protected areas with domestic dogs and golden jackal having a clear temporal niche, this temporal separation was lessened in the unfragmented forest. Additionally, over 3x more humans were independently photographed than any other species and 2.5x more domestic dogs were independently photographed than golden jackal in the fragmented protected areas. Ultimately, working in partnership with the local community on approaches that will reduce domestic dogs presence in the forest is essential along with a stringent population management plan in order to lower the number of free-ranging dogs in the area.

Оценка современного состояния авиалесоохранных работ на землях особо охраняемых природных территорий федерального значения

The assessment of air protection works on the lands of specially protected natural territories is presented. The disadvantages of aviation forest monitoring are considered. The analysis of the actual fire danger of forests on the lands of specially protected natural territories is carried out. To assess the risks of 111 specially protected natural territories for the period from 2002 to 2021, a retrospective analysis of the registered thermal points in the systems of space monitoring of forest fires of the information system of remote monitoring of Rosleshoz (ISDM-Rosleshoz) and FIRMS was made. The absence of fires in certain periods does not exclude the risks of their occurrence. Based on the analysis of thermal points, the predominance of spring fires was revealed. The description of the areas characterized by the occurrence of fires depending on the season of the year is given. The result of the analysis of the situation with the occurrence of forest fires on the lands of specially protected natural territories in the context of federal districts is presented. During the study of the forest protection system on the lands of specially protected natural territories, an expert assessment of the organizational structure, forms and composition of fire extinguishing teams, as well as the availability of fire extinguishing forces and means was carried out. The structure of forest fire formations, a communication and warning system for ground and aviation forces are analyzed. An expert assessment of the effectiveness of air patrol routes on the lands of specially protected natural territories was carried out. The problem of remoteness of aircraft bases has been identified. Solutions to problems for areas with low and high burnability are proposed. The problem of the absence of an approved unified methodology for assessing the probability of landscape (natural) fires on lands of other categories, from the territory of which there may be a threat of fire transfer to the lands of specially protected natural territories, is revealed. Proposals have been developed for the formation of optimal patrol routes for manned and unmanned aircraft