Correlates of long-term land-cover change and protected area performance at priority conservation sites in Africa

The drivers of habitat loss, and the circumstances under which protected areas succeed in slowing it, are poorly understood. We use satellite images to quantify long-term land-cover change in and around a matched sample of protected and unprotected Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas in Africa. We modelled the annual survival of natural land covers as a function of plausible environmental and anthropic predictors. There were significant differences in rates of loss between major habitat types, with forest suffering the highest loss. However, the net benefit of protection, in terms of the difference in rates of loss between protected and unprotected sites, was highest in forest. Survival rates of natural land-cover were highest in steeper areas, at higher altitudes, in areas with lower human population densities and in initially more intact areas. Survival rates of natural land-cover in protected areas were, on average, around twice those in unprotected areas, but the difference between them varied along different environmental gradients. Targets to improve the world’s protected area network, such as Aichi Target 11 of the CBD, need to look beyond simple area-based metrics of success and to identify and prioritise places where protection is likely to have the greatest net benefit.

BERESFORD Alison;  BUCHANAN Graeme M.;  PHALAN Ben;  ESHIAMWATA George W.;  BALMFORD Andrew;  BRINK Andreas;  FISHPOOL Lincoln D. C.;  DONALD Paul F.; 

2017-04-07

CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS

JRC100414

0376-8929,   

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892917000157,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC100414,   

10.1017/S0376892917000157,