In an effort to increase conservation effectiveness through the use of Earth observation technologies, a group of remote sensing scientists affiliated with government and academic institutions and conservation organizations identified 10 questions in conservation for which the potential to be answered would be greatly increased by use of remotely sensed data and analyses of those data. Our goals were to increase conservation practitioners' use of remote sensing to support their work, increase collaboration between the conservation science and remote sensing communities, identify and develop new and innovative uses of remote sensing for advancing conservation science, provide guidance to space agencies on how future satellite missions can support conservation science, and generate support from the public and private sector in the use of remote sensing data to address the 10 conservation questions. We identified a broad initial list of questions on the basis of an email chain-referral survey. We then used a workshop-based iterative and collaborative approach to whittle the list down to these final questions (which represent 10 major themes in conservation): How can global Earth observation data be used to model species distributions and abundances? How can remote sensing improve the understanding of animal movements? How can remotely sensed ecosystem variables be used to understand, monitor, and predict ecosystem response and resilience to multiple stressors? How can remote sensing be used to monitor the effects of climate on ecosystems? How can near real-time ecosystem monitoring catalyze threat reduction, governance and regulation compliance, and resource management decisions? How can remote sensing inform configuration of protected area networks at spatial extents relevant to populations of target species and ecosystem services? How can remote sensing-derived products be used to value and monitor changes in ecosystem services? How can remote sensing be used to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of conservation efforts? How does the expansion and intensification of agriculture and aquaculture alter ecosystems and the services they provide? How can remote sensing be used to determine the degree to which ecosystems are being disturbed or degraded and the effects of these changes on species and ecosystem functions?
File: Rose_etal_ConsBio_2015_0.pdf
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We estimate the impact of strict and multiple-use protected areas on forest disturbance in European Russia between 1985 and 2010. We construct a spatial panel dataset that includes five periods of change. We match protected areas to control observations and compare coefficients from fixedversus random-effects models. We find that protected areas have few statistically significant impacts on disturbance, with little difference across parks closer to or farther from major cities or roads. Random-effects estimates differ qualitatively and quantitatively from those of fixed effects in our study, serving as a cautionary note for evaluations where time-invariant unobservables are important.
File: Wendland_etal_LandEconomics_2015.pdf
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1. Biodiversity conservation is a primary function of protected areas. However, protected areas also attract people, and therefore, land use has intensified at the boundaries of these lands globally. In the USA, since the 1970s, housing growth at the boundaries (<1 km) of protected areas has increased at a rate far higher than on more distant private lands. Here, we designed our analyses to address our central hypothesis that increasing housing density in and near protected areas will increasingly alter their avian communities 2. We quantified the relationship between abundance and richness of protected-area avian species of greatest conservation need, land-cover affiliates (e.g. species associated with natural land cover such as forest breeders) and synanthropes (e.g. species associated with humans) with housing density on the boundary of protected areas and on more distant private lands from 1970 to 2010 in three ecoregions of the USA. We accomplished this using linear mixed-model analyses, data from the US Census Bureau and 90 routes of the North American Breeding Bird Survey 3. Housing density at the boundary of protected areas tended to be strongly negatively related with the abundance and richness of species of greatest conservation need and land-cover affiliates (upwards of 88% of variance explained) and strongly positively related with synanthropes (upwards of 83% of variance explained). The effect size of these relationships increased in most cases from 1970 to 2010 and was greatest in the densely developed eastern forests. In the more sparsely populated West, we found similar, though weaker, associations 4. Housing density on private lands more distant from protected areas had similar, but more muted negative effects 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results illustrate that as housing density has increased along the boundary of protected areas, the conservation benefit of these lands has likely diminished. We urge conservation planners to prioritize the purchase of private-land inhold-ings in order to maximize the extent of unfragmented natural lands within protected areas. Further, we strongly recommend that land-use planners implement boundary management strategies to alter the pattern of human access to protected areas, cluster development to con-centrate the footprint of rural housing, and establish conservation agreements through local land trusts to buffer protected areas from the effects of development along protected-area boundaries. To maximize the conservation benefit of protected areas, we suggest that housing development should be restricted within 1 km of their boundaries.
File: Wood_et_al-2015-Journal_of_Applied_Ecology.pdf
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Himalayan forests are undergoing rapid changes due to population growth and economic development and their associated bird communities are among the most threatened and least-studied on earth. In the Chinese Himalaya, traditionally managed Tibetan sacred forests are keystone structures for forest bird conservation. Yet, it remains unclear which fine-scale habitat characteristics of the sacred forests are best associated with Himalayan forest bird species. Our goal here was to quantify the relationship between forest habitat characteristics and bird communities in Tibetan sacred forests to understand habitat associations of common forest birds in the Chinese Himalaya. In 2010 and 2011, we conducted bird point counts and habitat surveys at 62, 50-m radius, sample points distributed within and adjacent to six Tibetan sacred forests in northwest Yunnan, China. From this data, we constructed habitat-occupancy relationship models for 35 bird species and documented tree-use patterns of 14 common arboreal foraging bird species. Our modeling results revealed that large diameter trees and heterogeneity in vertical vegetation structure were the most important habitat characteristics, and were positively associated with occupancy of 63 % of the study bird species. Furthermore, we found that occupancy of eight bird species of conservation concern was related to specific thresholds of forest integrity characteristics. For example, predicted occupancy of three of eight species was high in forested habitats with[15 % bamboo cover and was greatly reduced when bare ground cover exceeded 5 %. We found that bird species foraged on pine (Pinus densata, 58 % more than it was available) and poplar (Populus davidiana, 41 %) in higher proportion to their availability, but that foraging success was highest on fir (Abies spp.), oak (Quercus spp.), willow (Salix spp.) and Chinese Larch (Larix potaninii). Our findings suggest that, although conservation is not a primary management goal of Tibetan sacred forests, these lands harbor critical habitat features for forest breeding birds of the Chinese Himalaya.
File: Wood_etal_2015_Birds_TibetanSacredForests_0.pdf
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Forests are critically important for life on earth, prompting a variety of efforts to protect them. Protected areas and logging regulations are the most commonly used forest conservation strategies, but local traditions and religious beliefs can also protect natural resources by limiting exploitative use. We compared the effectiveness of protected areas, a logging ban, and sacred areas to protect forests from logging in Northwest Yunnan, China, a global biodiversity hotspot. We combined Mahalanobis matching and panel regression techniques to measure effectiveness of these three protection strategies paying special attention to old growth forest communities. We found that protected areas had no impact on total forest cover, but effectively conserved old-growth forests relative to non-protected areas. The implementation of the logging ban resulted in positive forest conservation outcomes over most of the landscape. The exception was that logging in old-growth forests inside sacred areas accelerated following the implementation of the logging ban, suggesting that local institutions may have been weakened by official policies. Our research finds little evidence that overlapping conservation policies decrease deforestation and suggests that the implementation of official policies may displace local forms of protection. Our results further highlight that relying on total forest cover as a single indicator of conservation outcomes can lead to misleading conclusions about the impacts of forest protection strategies.
File: Brandt_etal_BioCons_2015.pdf
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Conservation plans are commonly used tools for prioritizing areas for protection, but plan implementation is ofte limited and rarely formally evaluated. Without evaluations of planning outcomes, it is difficult to justify expendin resources to develop new plans and to adapt future plans so they are more likely to achieve desired conservatio outcomes. We evaluated implementation of four conservation plans in Wisconsin, USA, by quantifying land protectio within plan boundaries over time. We found that 44% of lands inside plans are currently protected, compared t 5% outside plans. We then asked which environmental, institutional, and socio-economic factors explained implementatio of the most recent (2008) plan by the state natural resources agency. Institutional and environmenta metrics related to agency policy and past actions explained 61% of implementation variability among individual priorit areas within the plan: the agency having secured acquisition authority (a policy requirement) and subsequentl successfully protected land in the priority area prior to the conservation plan being completed, and acquiring lan near open water (a policy priority). Our findings suggest that implementation is possible under a wide variety o socio-economic settings and indicate that development of new conservation plans may not necessarily lead to actio in new locations in the near term, but rather may facilitate action in locations where the institutional groundwor for action has already been laid. Considering institutional policies of active conservation partners in the developmen of future conservation plans can facilitate identification of priority areas that are more likely to correspond with onthe-groun implementation opportunities.
File: Carter_etal_2015_BiologicalConservation.pdf
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Land-use change around protected areas limits their ability to conserve biodiversity by altering ecological processes such as natural hydrologic and disturbance regimes, facilitating species invasions, and interfering with dispersal of organisms. This paper informs USA National Wildlife Refuge System conservation planning by predicting future land-use change on lands within 25 km distance of 461 refuges in the USA using an econometric model. The model contained two differing policy scenarios, namely a 'businessas-usual' scenario and a 'pro-agriculture' scenario. Regardless of scenario, by 2051, forest cover and urban land use were predicted to increase around refuges, while the extent of range and pasture was predicted to decrease; cropland use decreased under the business-as-usual scenario, but increased under the pro-agriculture scenario. Increasing agricultural land value under the pro-agriculture scenario slowed an expected increase in forest around refuges, and doubled the rate of range and pasture loss. Intensity of landuse change on lands surrounding refuges differed by regions. Regional differences among scenarios revealed that an understanding of regional and local land-use dynamics and management options was an essential requirement to effectively manage these conserved lands. Such knowledge is particularly important given the predicted need to adapt to a changing global climate.
File: Hamilton_etal_EnvCons_2015_0.pdf
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Land use change around protected areas can diminish their conservation value, making it important t predict future land use changes nearby. Our goal was to evaluate future land use changes around protecte areas of different types in the United States under different socioeconomic scenarios. We analyze econometric-based projections of future land use change to capture changes around 1260 protecte areas, including National Forests, Parks, Refuges, and Wilderness Areas, from 2001 to 2051, under differen land use policies and crop prices. Our results showed that urban expansion around protected area will continue to be a major threat, and expand by 67% under business-as-usual conditions Concomitantly, a substantial number of protected areas will lose natural vegetation in their surroundings National land-use policies or changes in crop prices are not likely to affect the overall pattern of land use but can have effects in certain regions. Discouraging urbanization through zoning, for example, ca reduce future urban pressures around National Forests and Refuges in the East, while the implementatio of an afforestation policy can increase the amount of natural vegetation around some Refuges throughou the U.S. On the other hand, increases in crop prices can increase crop/pasture cover around some protecte areas, and limit the potential recovery of natural vegetation. Overall, our results highlight that futur land-use change around protected areas is likely to be substantial but variable among regions an protected area types. Safeguarding the conservation value of protected areas may require serious consideratio of threats and opportunities arising from future land use
File: Martinuzzi_etal_2015_BioCons.pdf
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Rapid global changes due to changing land use, climate and non-native species are altering environmenta conditions, resulting in more nove communities with unprecedented species combinations Understanding how future anthropogeni changes may affect novelty in ecosystems is importan to advance environmental management an ecological research in the Anthropocene. The mai goal of this study was to understand how alternativ scenarios of future land-use change may affect novelt in ecosystems throughout the conterminou United States. We used five spatially explicit scenario of future land-use changes, reflecting differen land-use policies and changes in agricultural markets to quantify andmap potential drivers of novelty Our results showed large areas where futureland-us changes may increase novelty in ecosystems. Th major land-use changes known to increase novelty including land abandonment and land-use expansion were widespread in all scenarios (73 million t 95 million ha), especially in the eastern U.S. an along the West Coast. Our scenarios revealed that, a broad scales, future land-use changes will increas novelty in ecosystems, and that traditional conservatio policies may have limited ability to preven the process. In places such as the eastern U.S., conservin and maintaining historical conditions an associated biological diversity may become increasingl difficult due to future land-use changes an related ecological factors. Successful biodiversit conservation and environmental management in th Anthropocene will require novel conservation approache to be relevant in areas with high levels o novelty in ecosystems.
File: Martinuzzi_etal_2015_Ecosystems.pdf
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Land-use change is a major cause of wildlife habitat loss. Understanding how changes in land-use policies and economic factors can impact future trends in land use and wildlife habitat loss is therefore critical for conservation efforts. Our goal here was to evaluate the consequences of future land-use changes under different conservation policies and crop market conditions on habitat loss for wildlife species in the southeastern United States. We predicted the rates of habitat loss for 336 terrestrial vertebrate species by 2051. We focused on habitat loss due to the expansion of urban, crop, and pasture. Future land-use changes following business-as-usual conditions resulted in relatively low rates of wildlife habitat loss across the entire Southeast, but some ecoregions and species groups experienced much higher habitat loss than others. Increased crop commodity prices exacerbated wildlife habitat loss in most ecoregions, while the implementation of conservation policies (reduced urban sprawl, and payments for land conservation) reduced the projected habitat loss in some regions, to a certain degree. Overall, urban and crop expansion were the main drivers of habitat loss. Reptiles and wildlife species associated with open vegetation (grasslands, open woodlands) were the species groups most vulnerable to future land-use change. Effective conservation of wildlife habitat in the Southeast should give special consideration to future land-use changes, regional variations, and the forces that could shape land-use decisions.
File: Martinuzzi_etal_EcoApps_2015.pdf
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