Land Use Change Surrounding Protected Areas and Consequences for Biodiversity

Ruth DeFries, Jan Dempewolf, Konrad Wessels, Andrew Hansen (Montana State University)

Land cover conversion and intensification of land use are altering ecosystems in many places around the world, with major consequences for ecological functioning and populations of species.  Nature reserves and other protected areas are cornerstones for conserving habitat for plant and animal species, but are often exposed to land use change in the surrounding region.  The implications of the surrounding land use change for species within protected areas depend on a multitude of factors, including biophysical characteristics of the landscape, species ranges in relation to the protected area, types of land use change, and locations of key breeding or seasonal habitats.  This research is quantifying these interactions in a number of case studies around the world.  We aim to identify principles useful for regional-scale conservation planning that balance ecological functions of protected areas with human needs for land and other resources.   

  In collaboration with colleagues from a number of US and international institutions, the research is on-going in a number of regional case studies around the world.  These case studies include Masaiiland of Kenya and Tanzania, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Montana and Wyoming, and Mayan Forests of the southern Yucatán peninsula.  These regions are all internationally valued for their conservation importance.  They each straddle political boundaries, but interact ecologically across them, highlighting the needs for regional-scale analyses.

Analysis of satellite data plays a prominent role in this research.  Data from MODIS provides information on land cover and habitat distributions at a regional scale across the study regions.  Data from other sensors such as Landsat provide information for tracking historical land cover changes in the regions. This information, combined with other information on species distributions, land use practices of local human populations, and climate, enable analysis to assess vulnerability of the protected areas to land use change and opportunities for regional-scale planning. 

Example publication: DeFries, R.S., Hansen, A., Newton, A.C., and Hansen, M.C., in review, Increasing isolation of protected areas in tropical forests over the past twenty years.