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| Title | Landscape Dynamics Over Time and Space From Ecological Perspective | | Author | Sonya Dewi and Andree Ekadinata | | Year | 2010 | | Publisher | World Agroforestry Centre - ICRAF, SEA Regional Office | | City of Publication | Bogor, Indonesia | | Series Number | Working paper no 103 | | Number of Pages | 75 | | Call Number | WP0138-11 | | Keywords | Landscape composition, configuration, matrix, connectivity, fragmentation, drivers of landuse changes, multifunctional landscapes |
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| Abstract: |
Land-use and land-cover changes driven by multiple factors have a tremendous impact on services provided by the environmental as well as the livelihoods and economic development of people living in, and far from, particular landscapes. For biodiversity in particular, landscape configuration is as important as landscape composition especially where there is increasing fragmentation and reduced connectivity of habitat.
Protected areas alone are necessary but not sufficient in maintaining biodiversity at the
landscape level for several reasons: (i) management and enforcement are often weak;
(ii) protected areas are often in remote, rough terrain that does not represent various ecoregions with various species assemblages and endemism; (iii) the extent of protected areas is sometimes not large enough to allow minimum viable populations so that in the long run species extinction might happen nevertheless; (iv) protected areas without buffer zones and corridors can easily be isolated rather than integral parts of a landscape.
Multifunctional landscapes that accommodate conservation and development need to be considered as integrated, rather than segregated, systems; this will allow us to achieve the objective of maintaining biodiversity at the landscape level. Land-use plans that aim to increase multifunctionality of landscapes should be informed by the current status of landscape composition and configuration, the process of land-use and land-cover changes in the past and planned for the future, areas that are vulnerable to changes in the future and options for intervention. The land-use planning process should be conducted within a negotiation process among multiple stakeholders.
Our research provides some results to be used as a basis for negotiation, which are produced from a combination of tools for remote sensing, GIS and spatial analysis guided by ecological principles. The results provide data for further research as well as suggest follow-up research questions.
These analyses of five landscapes (Bungo in Indonesia, Viengkham in Laos, Manompana in Madagascar, Takamanda-Mone in Cameroon and East Usambara in Tanzania) use the same methodology and tools, allowing comparisons across sites. Deforestation rates and land-use and land-cover changes across landscapes are used to define the stage of forest transition: Takamanda-Mone, Viengkham, Manompana, East Usambara and Bungo is the ordered list from earliest to advanced stages. Spatial patterns of deforestation, depending on landscape topography, level of accessibility and the state of forest transition, either are concentrated in relatively flat areas in the landscape, follow encroachment patterns on the primary forest block, run along the transportation network or expand from existing settlements. Combining these spatial patterns of deforestation with changes in landscape configuration, especially at sub-landscape level (quantified by selected indices), we can identify vulnerable areas in the future so that options to reduce risks can be discussed and negotiated within land-use planning processes. |
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