https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/preview/728232/Olofsson_good%20practices.pdf

Good practices for estimating area and assessing accuracy of land change

Dynamics of global forest area: Results from the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015

Human pressures on the environment are changing spatially and temporally, with profound implications for the planet’s biodiversity and human economies. Here we use recently available data on infrastructure, land cover and human access into natural areas to construct a globally standardized measure of the cumulative human footprint on the terrestrial environment at 1 km2 resolution from 1993 to 2009. We note that while the human population has increased by 23% and the world economy has grown 153%, the human footprint has increased by just 9%. Still, 75% the planet’s land surface is experiencing measurable human pressures. Moreover, pressures are perversely intense, widespread and rapidly intensifying in places with high biodiversity. Encouragingly, we discover decreases in environmental pressures in the wealthiest countries and those with strong control of corruption. Clearly the human footprint on Earth is changing, yet there are still opportunities for conservation gains. Habitat loss and urbanization are primary components of human impact on the environment. Here, Venter et al.use global data on infrastructure, agriculture, and urbanization to show that the human footprint is growing slower than the human population, but footprints are increasing in biodiverse regions.

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Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation

Countries are encouraged to identify drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the development of national strategies and action plans for REDDC. In this letter we provide an assessment of proximate drivers of deforestation and forest degradation by synthesizing empirical data reported by countries as part of their REDDC readiness activities, CIFOR country profiles, UNFCCC national communications and scientific literature. Based on deforestation rate and remaining forest cover 100 (sub)tropical non-Annex I countries were grouped into four forest transition phases. Driver data of 46 countries were summarized for each phase and by continent, and were used as a proxy to estimate drivers for the countries with missing data. The deforestation drivers are similar in Africa and Asia, while degradation drivers are more similar in Latin America and Asia. Commercial agriculture is the most important driver of deforestation, followed by subsistence agriculture. Timber extraction and logging drives most of the degradation, followed by fuelwood collection and charcoal production, uncontrolled fire and livestock grazing. The results reflect the most up to date and comprehensive overview of current national-level data availability on drivers, which is expected to improve over time within the frame of the UNFCCC REDDC process.

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An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries

Forests are of major importance to human society, contributing several crucial ecosystem services. Biodiversity is suggested to positively influence multiple services but evidence from natural systems at scales relevant to management is scarce. Here, across a scale of 400,000 km2, we report that tree species richness in production forests shows positive to positively hump-shaped relationships with multiple ecosystem services. These include production of tree biomass, soil carbon storage, berry production and game production potential. For example, biomass production was approximately 50% greater with five than with one tree species. In addition, we show positive relationships between tree species richness and proxies for other biodiversity components. Importantly, no single tree species was able to promote all services, and some services were negatively correlated to each other. Management of production forests will therefore benefit from considering multiple tree species to sustain the full range of benefits that the society obtains from forests.

Higher levels of multiple ecosystem services are found in forests with more tree species, Suppl info

Erkki Tomppo1, Matti Katila1, Kai Mäkisara1, Jouni Peräsaari1, Rogers Malimbwi2, Nurudin Chamuya3, Jared Otieno3, Søren Dalsgaard4, Mikko Leppänen5 1 Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa, Finland PO Box 18 (Jokiniemenkuja 1) FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland tel: +358 10 211 2170, fax: 358 10 211 2202 email erkki.tomppo@metla.fi 2 Sokoine University of Agriculture, the United Rebublic of Tanzania 3 Forest and Beekeeping Division of Ministry of Natural Resources, the United Rebublic of Tanzania 4 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Dar es Salaam 5 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome

A report to the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (FAO) in support of sampling study for National Forestry Resources Monitoring and Assessment (NAFORMA) in Tanzania

Søren Dalsgaard

Papers

A report to the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (FAO) in support of sampling study for National Forestry Resources Monitoring and Assessment (NAFORMA) in Tanzania