Journal ArticleDOI
Deforestation and Reforestation of Latin America and the Caribbean (2001–2010)
T. Mitchell Aide,Matthew L. Clark,H. Ricardo Grau,David López-Carr,Marc A. Levy,Daniel J. Redo,Martha Bonilla-Moheno,George Riner,María José Andrade-Núñez,Maria Muñiz +9 more
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In this paper, the authors presented a wall-to-wall, annual maps of change in woody vegetation and other land-cover classes between 2001 and 2010 for each of the 16,050 municipalities in Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC).Abstract:
Forest cover change directly affects biodiversity, the global carbon budget, and ecosystem function. Within Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC), many studies have documented extensive deforestation, but there are also many local studies reporting forest recovery. These contrasting dynamics have been largely attributed to demographic and socio-economic change. For example, local population change due to migration can stimulate forest recovery, while the increasing global demand for food can drive agriculture expansion. However, as no analysis has simultaneously evaluated deforestation and reforestation from the municipal to continental scale, we lack a comprehensive assessment of the spatial distribution of these processes. We overcame this limitation by producing wall-to-wall, annual maps of change in woody vegetation and other land-cover classes between 2001 and 2010 for each of the 16,050 municipalities in LAC, and we used nonparametric Random Forest regression analyses to determine which environmental or population variables best explained the variation in woody vegetation change. Woody vegetation change was dominated by deforestation (541,835 km 2 ), particularly in the moist forest, dry forest, and savannas/shrublands biomes in South America. Extensive areas also recovered woody vegetation (+362,430 km 2 ), particularly in regions too dry or too steep for modern agriculture. Deforestation in moist forests tended to occur in lowland areas with low population density, but woody cover change was not related to municipality-scale population change. These results emphasize the importance of quantitating deforestation and reforestation at multiple spatial scales and linking these changes with global drivers such as the global demand for food.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Increasing human dominance of tropical forests.
TL;DR: Tropical forests house over half of Earth’s biodiversity and are an important influence on the climate system, but ongoing pressures, together with an intensification of global environmental change, may severely degrade forests in the future unless new “development without destruction” pathways are established alongside climate change–resilient landscape designs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trends in Global Agricultural Land Use: Implications for Environmental Health and Food Security
Navin Ramankutty,Zia Mehrabi,Katharina Waha,Larissa Jarvis,Claire Kremen,Mario Herrero,Loren H. Rieseberg +6 more
TL;DR: Both the successes and failures of the global food system are reviewed, addressing ongoing debates on pathways to environmental health and food security and calling on plant biologists to lead this effort and help steer humanity toward a safe operating space for agriculture.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reconstructing Three Decades of Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Brazilian Biomes with Landsat Archive and Earth Engine
Carlos Souza,Julia Z. Shimbo,Marcos R. Rosa,Leandro Parente,Ane Alencar,Bernardo Friedrich Theodor Rudorff,Heinrich Hasenack,Marcelo Matsumoto,Laerte Guimarães Ferreira,Pedro Walfir M. Souza-Filho,Sergio W. de Oliveira,Washington de Jesus Sant'Anna da Franca Rocha,Antônio V. Fonseca,Camila B. Marques,Cesar Guerreiro Diniz,Diego Pereira Costa,Dyeden Monteiro,Eduardo R. Rosa,Eduardo Vélez-Martin,Eliseu Jose Weber,Felipe E. B. Lenti,Fernando F. Paternost,Frans G. C. Pareyn,João V. Siqueira,José L. Viera,Luiz C. Ferreira Neto,Marciano Saraiva,Marcio H. Sales,Moises Pereira Galvao Salgado,Rodrigo Antunes de Vasconcelos,Soltan Galano,Vinícius Vieira Mesquita,Tasso Rezende de Azevedo +32 more
TL;DR: A novel approach and the results achieved by a multi-disciplinary network called MapBiomas to reconstruct annual land use and land cover information between 1985 and 2017 for Brazil, based on random forest applied to Landsat archive using Google Earth Engine are described.
Journal ArticleDOI
Carbon sequestration potential of second-growth forest regeneration in the Latin American tropics
Robin L. Chazdon,Robin L. Chazdon,Eben N. Broadbent,Danaë M. A. Rozendaal,Danaë M. A. Rozendaal,Danaë M. A. Rozendaal,Frans Bongers,Angelica M. Almeyda Zambrano,T. Mitchell Aide,Patricia Balvanera,Justin M. Becknell,Vanessa K. Boukili,Pedro H. S. Brancalion,Dylan Craven,Dylan Craven,Jarcilene S. Almeida-Cortez,George A. L. Cabral,Ben de Jong,Julie S. Denslow,Daisy H. Dent,Daisy H. Dent,Saara J. DeWalt,Juan Manuel Dupuy,Sandra M. Durán,Mário M. Espírito-Santo,María C. Fandiño,Ricardo Gomes César,Jefferson S. Hall,José Luis Hernández-Stefanoni,Catarina C. Jakovac,Catarina C. Jakovac,André Braga Junqueira,André Braga Junqueira,Deborah K. Kennard,Susan G. Letcher,Madelon Lohbeck,Madelon Lohbeck,Miguel Martínez-Ramos,Paulo Eduardo dos Santos Massoca,Jorge A. Meave,Rita C. G. Mesquita,Francisco Mora,Rodrigo Muñoz,Robert Muscarella,Robert Muscarella,Yule Roberta Ferreira Nunes,Susana Ochoa-Gaona,Edith Orihuela-Belmonte,Marielos Peña-Claros,Eduardo A. Pérez-García,Daniel Piotto,Jennifer S. Powers,Jorge Rodríguez-Velázquez,Isabel Eunice Romero-Pérez,Jorge Ruiz,Jorge Ruiz,Juan Saldarriaga,Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa,Naomi B. Schwartz,Marc K. Steininger,Nathan G. Swenson,María Uriarte,Michiel van Breugel,Michiel van Breugel,Michiel van Breugel,Hans van der Wal,Hans van der Wal,Maria das Dores Magalhães Veloso,Hans F. M. Vester,Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira,Tony Vizcarra Bentos,G. Bruce Williamson,G. Bruce Williamson,Lourens Poorter +73 more
TL;DR: This study estimates the age and spatial extent of lowland second-growth forests in the Latin American tropics and model their potential aboveground carbon accumulation over four decades to guide national-level forest-based carbon mitigation plans.
Journal ArticleDOI
Multiple successional pathways in human-modified tropical landscapes: New insights from forest succession, forest fragmentation and landscape ecology research
Víctor Arroyo-Rodríguez,Felipe P. L. Melo,Miguel Martínez-Ramos,Frans Bongers,Robin L. Chazdon,Jorge A. Meave,Natalia Norden,Bráulio A. Santos,Inara R. Leal,Marcelo Tabarelli +9 more
TL;DR: It is shown that secondary succession in tropical landscapes is a multifactorial phenomenon affected by a myriad of forces operating at multiple spatio‐temporal scales, and succession must be examined using more comprehensive explanatory models.
References
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Accessibility, Demography and Protection: Drivers of Forest Stability and Change at Multiple Scales in the Cauvery Basin, India
TL;DR: This research highlights the importance of using a regional approach to study land cover change, and indicates that the drivers of forest change may be very different in long settled landscapes, for which little is known in comparison to frontier forests.