Accessing Local Knowledge to Identify Where Species of Conservation Concern Occur in a Tropical Forest Landscape

Conventional biodiversity surveys play an important role in ensuring good conservation friendly management in tropical forest regions but are demanding in terms of expertise, time, and budget. Can local people help? Here, we illustrate how local knowledge can support low cost conservation surveys. We worked in the Malinau watershed, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, an area currently at risk of extensive forest loss. We selected eight species of regional conservation interest: rafflesia (Rafflesia spp.), black orchid (Coelogyne pandurata), sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), tarsier (Tarsius bancanus), slow loris (Nycticebus coucang), proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi/N. nebulosa), and orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus). We asked 52 informants in seven villages if, where and when they had observed these species. We used maps, based on both geo-referenced and sketched features, to record these observations. Verification concerns and related issues are discussed. Evaluations suggest our local information is reliable. Our study took 6 weeks and cost about USD 5000. Extensive expert based field surveys across the same region would cost one or two orders of magnitude more. The records extend the known distribution for sun bear, tarsier, slow loris, and clouded leopard. Reports of rafflesia, proboscis monkey, and orang-utan are of immediate conservation significance. While quality concerns should never be abandoned, we conclude that local people can help expand our knowledge of large areas in an effective, reliable, and low cost manner and thus contribute to improved management.     

Integrating Local and Scientific Knowledge: An Example in Fisheries Science

Attempting to predict the spatial dynamics fish stocks, as required for management, is an ominous task given our incomplete understanding of biological and ecological mechanisms underpinning behavioral responses of fish. Large gaps still exist in our basic scientific knowledge. Nonetheless, the knowledge of fishers and fishery managers is not incorporated into our scientific analyses, even though such information is rich in observation since knowledge of fish behavior and distribution is a prerequisite for their profession. Combining such observations with more conventional scientific studies and theoretical interpretations provides a means by which we may bridge some gaps in our knowledge. Presented here is an example of how both local and scientific knowledge can be integrated in a heuristic model. The model, CLUPEX, is developed in the framework of a fuzzy logic expert system and uses linguistic statements written in natural language to capture and combine knowledge sources in the form of IF … THEN rules. The rules are inferred from interviews with experts and fishery professionals including fishers, fishery managers, scientists, and First Nations people. The knowledge base, comprised of the set of rules, is flexible in the sense that it can easily be modified to add additional information or change current information. Using input pertaining to biotic and abiotic environmental conditions, CLUPEX uses the rules to provide quantitative and qualitative predictions on the structure, dynamics and mesoscale distribution of shoals of migratory adult herring during different life stages of their annual life cycle.     

A Hierarchical Approach to Forest Landscape Pattern Characterization

Landscape spatial patterns have increasingly been considered to be essential for environmental planning and resources management. In this study, we proposed a hierarchical approach for landscape classification and evaluation by characterizing landscape spatial patterns across different hierarchical levels. The case study site is the Red Hills region of northern Florida and southwestern Georgia, well known for its biodiversity, historic resources, and scenic beauty. We used one Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper image to extract land-use/-cover information. Then, we employed principal-component analysis to help identify key class-level landscape metrics for forests at different hierarchical levels, namely, open pine, upland pine, and forest as a whole. We found that the key class-level landscape metrics varied across different hierarchical levels. Compared with forest as a whole, open pine forest is much more fragmented. The landscape metric, such as CONTIG_MN, which measures whether pine patches are contiguous or not, is more important to characterize the spatial pattern of pine forest than to forest as a whole. This suggests that different metric sets should be used to characterize landscape patterns at different hierarchical levels. We further used these key metrics, along with the total class area, to classify and evaluate subwatersheds through cluster analysis. This study demonstrates a promising approach that can be used to integrate spatial patterns and processes for hierarchical forest landscape planning and management.     

Integrating the Management of Ruaha Landscape of Tanzania with Local Needs and Preferences

Sustainable management of landscapes with multiple competing demands such as the Ruaha Landscape is complex due to the diverse preferences and needs of stakeholder groups involved. This study uses conjoint analysis to assess the preferences of representatives from three stakeholder groups—local communities, district government officials, and non-governmental organizations—toward potential solutions of conservation and development tradeoffs facing local communities in the Ruaha Landscape of Tanzania. Results demonstrate that there is little consensus among stakeholders about the best development strategies for the Ruaha region. This analysis suggests a need for incorporating issues deemed important by these various groups into a development strategy that aims to promote conservation of the Ruaha Landscape and improve the livelihood of local communities.     

Understanding and Integrating Local Perceptions of Trees and Forests into Incentives for Sustainable Landscape Management

We examine five forested landscapes in Africa (Cameroon, Madagascar, and Tanzania) and Asia (Indonesia and Laos) at different stages of landscape change. In all five areas, forest cover (outside of protected areas) continues to decrease despite local people's recognition of the importance of forest products and services. After forest conversion, agroforestry systems and fallows provide multiple functions and valued products, and retain significant biodiversity. But there are indications that such land use is transitory, with gradual simplification and loss of complex agroforests and fallows as land use becomes increasingly individualistic and profit driven. In Indonesia and Tanzania, farmers favor monocultures (rubber and oil palm, and sugarcane, respectively) for their high financial returns, with these systems replacing existing complex agroforests. In the study sites in Madagascar and Laos, investments in agroforests and new crops remain rare, despite government attempts to eradicate swidden systems and their multifunctional fallows. We discuss approaches to assessing local values related to landscape cover and associated goods and services. We highlight discrepancies between individual and collective responses in characterizing land use tendencies, and discuss the effects of accessibility on land management. We conclude that a combination of social, economic, and spatially explicit assessment methods is necessary to inform land use planning. Furthermore, any efforts to modify current trends will require clear incentives, such as through carbon finance. We speculate on the nature of such incentive schemes and the possibility of rewarding the provision of ecosystem services at a landscape scale and in a socially equitable manner.     

The National Forest and Local Agenda 21: An Experiment in Integrated Landscape Planning

The post-Rio environmental accord has offered new opportunities for landscape planning linking global concerns with Local Agenda 21 through concepts of sustainable development. This paper analyses the potential for integrated landscape planning by linking the aims of global sustainability with a major initiative of the UK Government, the National Forest located in the English Midlands. A common commitment to concepts of partnership and participation facilitated by local authorities can be found in the National Forest Strategy and in the principles of Local Agenda 21. Using case studies comparing local fora created to implement parts of the National Forest Strategy with focus groups formed to prepare Local Agenda 21 Action Plans, it is argued that a common consensus between these endeavours has not so far been achieved. Problems associated with the interpretation of national government policy guidance following the Earth Summit coupled with the constitution, membership and goals of specific groups are viewed as the primary reasons for conflict. These have implications for achieving compatibility between the Forest ideals and those enshrined in Local Agenda 21, particularly in localities where mineral exploitation and landfill are contentious planning concerns.     

Integrating Landscape Ecology and Geoinformatics to Decipher Landscape Dynamics for Regional Planning

We used remote sensing and GIS in conjunction with multivariate statistical methods to: (i) quantify landscape composition (land cover types) and configuration (patch density, diversity, fractal dimension, contagion) for five coastal watersheds of Kalloni gulf, Lesvos Island, Greece, in 1945, 1960, 1971, 1990 and 2002/2003, (ii) evaluate the relative importance of physical (slope, geologic substrate, stream order) and human (road network, population density) variables on landscape composition and configuration, and (iii) characterize processes that led to land cover changes through land cover transitions between these five successive periods in time. Distributions of land cover types did not differ among the five time periods at the five watersheds studied because the largest cumulative changes between 1945 and 2002/2003 did not take place at dominant land cover types. Landscape composition related primarily to the physical attributes of the landscape. Nevertheless, increase in population density and the road network were found to increase heterogeneity of the landscape mosaic (patchiness), complexity of patch shape (fractal dimension), and patch disaggregation (contagion). Increase in road network was also found to increase landscape diversity due to the creation of new patches. The main processes involved in land cover changes were plough-land abandonment and ecological succession. Landscape dynamics during the last 50 years corroborate the ecotouristic-agrotouristic model for regional development to reverse trends in agricultural land abandonment and human population decline and when combined with hypothetical regulatory approaches could predict how this landscape could develop in the future, thus, providing a valuable tool to regional planning.     

Spatial Patterns of Land Use Changes Across a Mediterranean Metropolitan Landscape: Implications for Biodiversity Management

Land use and land cover change (LUCC) is an acknowledged cause of the current biodiversity crisis, but the link between LUCC and biodiversity conservation remains largely unknown at the regional scale, especially due to the traditional lack of consistent biodiversity data. We provide a methodological approach for assessing this link through defining a set of major pressures on biodiversity from LUCC and evaluating their extent, distribution, and association with a set of physical factors. The study was performed in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (MRB, NE of Spain) between 1956 and 2000. We generated a LUCC map for the time period, which was reclassified into a set of pressures on biodiversity (forestation, deforestation, crop abandonment, and urbanization). We then explored the association of these pressures with a set of physical factors using redundancy analysis (RDA). Pressures encompassed 38.8 % of the MRB area. Urbanization and forestation were the dominating pressures, followed by crop abandonment and deforestation. RDA showed a significant distribution gradient of these pressures in relation to the studied physical factors: while forestation and deforestation are concentrated in remote mountain areas, urbanization mainly occurs in lowlands and especially on the coast, and close to previous urban centers and roads. Unchanged areas are concentrated in rainy and relatively remote mountain areas. Results also showed a dramatic loss of open habitats and of the traditional land use gradient, both featuring Mediterranean landscapes and extremely important for their biodiversity conservation. Implications of these results for biodiversity management are finally discussed.     

滇东南峰林峰丛区主要盆地土地利用景观格局及生态环境效应

盆地包括以山地、高原为主的盆边区域和以平原或少量缓坡、丘峰分布为主的盆底区域。云南是个多山的省份,人口主要分布在地势低平的盆地区域尤其是盆底区域,盆地人口密集,是云南省主要的经济文化发展要地和农业生产基地。选取生态意义较明显的景观格局特征指数,对滇东南峰林峰丛区主要盆地土地利用结构及生态环境效应进行分析。结果表明:依据盆地的地理环境特征不同,盆地景观系统可分为平坝区、盆地边缘山麓带和盆地边缘山坡带三种景观亚系统类型,每一种景观系统都有多种景观要素构成,且因所处地貌不同而差异显著。盆地土地利用结构中,耕地景观所占的比例最大,平均值最高,其次是森林、草地和人造地表。八宝、广南、丘北、曰者和珠琳盆地景观优势度指数大,景观破碎度指数小,盆地生态环境质量高。景观格局指数与生态环境之间相关性较大,其中景观类型多样性与生态环境指数呈正相关,景观破碎度与生态环境指数呈负相关,景观格局的空间特征对当地的生态环境影响较大。     

秦皇岛海滨森林公园森林景观改造探讨

秦皇岛海滨森林公园是秦皇岛沿海防护林的重要组成部分，也是秦皇岛重要的城市森林公园之一。针对秦皇岛海滨森林公园阔叶树多、针叶树少、树种单一、林龄老化、景观单调的现状．探讨了森林公园景观改造的原则、措施和技术，并描绘了景观改造后的效果。     

我国林业资源与可持续发展

本文简述了我国林业资源发展的现状及发展中存在的问题,并指出了实现林业资源可持续发展的主要途径。     

中国森林公园资源保护和旅游开发

到1992年底,我国已建立森林公园255处,其中国家森林公园155处。森林公园资源十分丰富,具有众多的动植物资源、山水资源和人文资源。森林旅游具有其它类型旅游不可比拟的独特作用,已成为现代旅游的新潮流。森林公园的建立,客观上保护了自然和自然资源,但急功近利的经营思想和掠夺式开发导致了自然资源的破坏。本文最后对森林公园资源保护和旅游开发如何协调统一提出了几点建议。     

中国森林生态旅游资源的开发与保护

本文分析了我国森林生态旅游资源的现状和开发状况，从深度和广度上论述了森林生态旅游开发的内容，在开发与保护问题上强调必须坚持生态经济的原则，把保护放在首要地位，并提出了相应的措施。     

建设用地省际空间再配置——改进建设用地空间配置现状的路径选择

从我国建设用地需求不断增长且供需之间存在着严重结构性不均衡的实际背景出发,在考察我国相关土地政策的建设用地空间配置现状的基础上,从正反两个角度论证了实施建设用地省际空间再配置的可能性,并提出了在建设用地省际空间再配置完成从理论可能到事实可行时应警惕的若干问题,指出如果机制设计合理,实施建设用地省际空间再配置将真正成为一种改进建设用地空间配置现状的多赢路径,也将成为推动我国经济增长和区域协调发展的新动力。     

阜康绿洲景观空间格局分析

基于景观生态学理论分析景观空间格局，选用阜康市1999年LANDSAT TM影像，运用ARC／INFO对影像进行目视判读和数字化工作，利用景观统计软件Fragstats For Arcview分别计算一些常用的景观指数，通过运用景观空间理论对景观指数分析，得出阜康绿洲总体景观格局特征。     

Habitat, Landscape and Bird Composition in Mountain Forest Fragments

The study attempts to separate the effects of forest fragmentation related to landscape (patch area, isolation) and habitat (altitude, vegetation structure) on bird community composition in a mountain pine forest. Bird composition was related, using a multivariate approach (canonical correspondence analyses), to either habitat or to landscape, eliminating the effect of habitat statistically. Bird composition and species richness varied with patch area and isolation from large pine stands, but this effect could be assigned principally to variation in vegetation structure and altitude. Another effect, that of increasing occurrence and numbers of Anthus trivialis with decreasing distance to nearest low-altitude forest, could be assigned to both habitat (grass cover) and landscape (connectivity effects). Management implications are drawn from the results.     

Land Use-Based Landscape Planning and Restoration in Mine Closure Areas

Landscape planning and restoration in mine closure areas is not only an inevitable choice to sustain mining areas but also an important path to maximize landscape resources and to improve ecological function in mine closure areas. The analysis of the present mine development shows that many mines are unavoidably facing closures in China. This paper analyzes the periodic impact of mining activities on landscapes and then proposes planning concepts and principles. According to the landscape characteristics in mine closure areas, this paper classifies available landscape resources in mine closure areas into the landscape for restoration, for limited restoration and for protection, and then summarizes directions for their uses. This paper establishes the framework of spatial control planning and design of landscape elements from “macro control, medium allocation and micro optimization” for the purpose of managing and using this kind of special landscape resources. Finally, this paper applies the theories and methods to a case study in Wu’an from two aspects: the construction of a sustainable land-use pattern on a large scale and the optimized allocation of typical mine landscape resources on a small scale.     

厦门市污水林地生态处理工程

文章介绍了厦门市狐尾山原生生活污水林地生态处理工程依循“污水-土壤-植物”资源再生机制，提出了“截流井＋氧化塘（调节池）＋污水动力输送、管网投配＋林地＋城市景观林地”的基本模式。