Multifunctional landscapes and conservation strategies

Question 1

What is Land use change?
What is the major cause of land cover change?

Answer 1

• Humans have modified their environment for thousands of years. More importantly used land for agriculture.
  -How we transform our environment for economical processes
• Land use change : is a process by which human activities transfrom the natural landscape, referring to how land has been used, usually emphasizing the functional role of land for economic activities.
• Agriculture is the major cause of land cover change

Question 2

What are the 3 human activites that contribute the most to forest change? Which is the strongest driver of land change?

Answer 2

• Agriculture, Logging and Mining
• Agriculture is the strongest driver of land change
• Agriculture includes - Food production, fodder , fibre and fuel crops, livestock farming , cultivation of trees

Question 3

What is forest transition curve?

Answer 3

• “The change in forest cover over time as the value of land uses changes relative to the competing uses, usually resulting in rapidly decreasing forest area during early industrialization and development. followed by slow expansion of forest area to lower than original levels.”
• Simplified : The forest transition curve shows the change in forest cover when it experiences shrinkage due to deforestation and expansion due to reforestation.

Question 4

What are the stages of the forest transition curve? What is something that cannot be attained with reforestation?

Answer 4

• Essentially there is very fast loss in forest cover due to logging (for paper or furniture) and agriculture
• If the land is abandoned the nutrients could be depleted.
• With the assistance of planting or by abandoning the land - if the soil is not too depleted it is likely the forest will regrow
• Primary forest CANNOT be attained with reforestation. With assistance planting can produce a secondary forest.

Question 5

What is the difference between primary forest and secondary forest?

Answer 5

• Primary forest : untouched forest with no human degradation.
  
  • Even with assistance/reforestation it could never attain this stage
• Secondary forest - is when the forest is changed from Primary.
  
  • With assistance we could get to a secondary forest. The species diversity will be different and the forest will be very different from the initial forest state.

Question 6

World population growth

In 2100 human population is expected to reach 11 billion reaching its peak. Why has the human population increased so much?

Answer 6

• Many changes in the past 50 years to live longer due to medical advancements
• People use to reproduce more in the past but not all offspring would get to a reproductive age
• More people are surviving and getting to a reproductive age due to medical advancements allowing people to reproduce at age 50.
  -more of us viable to produce/ increase in fertility rates
  -more diseases are treated

Question 7

World population growth

What will happen to the forests that are left?

Answer 7

• Forests will continue being converted to agricultural land at an increasing rate
• more land is needed for housing and agriculture leading to deforestation

Question 8

What are major threats to biodiversity?

Answer 8

• habitat loss and degradation , especially driven by agricultural expansion and intensification

Question 9

Over the last 2 decades, one tenth ( approx 3.3 million km squared) of all wilderness areas worldwide were converted to what?
Where are the most affected regions?

Answer 9

• One tenth of wilderness areas worldwide were converted to anthropogenic land uses
• Most affected regions were South America and Africa

Question 10

What does this quote mean “ Given that the human footprint continues to expand relentlessly, particularly into the most species -rich biomes, the fate of biodiversity will increasingly rely primarily on human-modified habitats.”

Answer 10

As human populations keep growing, it becomes more common for biodiversity to be forced into human modified landscapes
* As human populations keep growing we need more land to grow food so we keep encroaching forests where biodiversity is
* Untouched primary forests will be exploited
Biodiversity will have to live in a place of Human modified landscape because humans have invaded their land.

Question 11

What is a landscape?

Answer 11

• Mosaic of heterogeneous land forms, vegetation types , and land uses
• Different land forms, vegetation types and land uses
• Ex: Rice plantation, abandoned land , forest , other crops

Question 12

Multifunctional landscapes

We have a finite amount of land, what are the multiple things we use it for? (6 ways)

Answer 12

• Producing food
• providing a habitat for wildlife
• sequestering carbon
• reducing flood risk
• providing space for recreation
• improving the quality of our air and water

Question 13

Multifunctional landscapes

For all the reasons humans have for using land- can all of them be done using the same land?

Answer 13

• Some of these things can be delivered by the same land use
  -Ex: forests sequester carbon , acts as flood defences, provides habitats for wildlife , and can be used for recreation
• Other types of land use such as intensive farming may only help to deliver one outcome

Question 14

Multifunctional landscapes

What can landscape planning help with?
What can be created to help with these issues?

Answer 14

• Landscape planning can help anticipate and adapt to changes caused by human population growth, decline of biodiverstity and climate change
• Creating multifunctional landscapes may help deal with these challenging issues - plays an important role in developing sustainable landscapes

Question 15

What are multifunctional landscapes? Why are they created?

Answer 15

• Basic definition of multifunctional landscapes: **landscapes that can provide multiple functions **
• multifunctional landscapes encompass/include a mosaic of different land uses that collectively provide a range of benefits to its residents.
• Residents can be human or wildlife
• Are created and managed to integrate human production and landscape use into the ecological fabric of a landscape maintaining critical ecosystem function , service flows and bioversity retention
• Simplified ^- they are created to integrate space for human purposes and space for wildlife

Question 16

Tropical forest landscapes face competing demands for what?

Answer 16

• conserving biodiviersity
• sustaining ecosystem
• accomodating production systems such as forestry and agriculture

Question 17

What are two strategies to manage trade-offs between production and biodiversity conservation? Are they strategies that can both be applied simultaneously or is it an either/or situation?

Answer 17

• Land sparing and land sharing have emerged as constrasting strategies to manage trade-offs between production and biodiversity conservation
• These two are contrasting strategies that are either/or

Question 18

Have studies reported the impact of land-sparing and land-sharing strategies?

Answer 18

• Studies rarely report the impacts of these strategies , assessed for multiple stakeholders and multiple ecosystem services, particularly in real landscapes

Question 19

What is Land Sharing?

Answer 19

• Wildlife-friendly farming. **Essentially you are sharing the land with wildlife. **
• Land can deliver a range of goods and services simultaneously. Land can provide resources for wildlife and humans simultaneously.
• Farm landscapes are made as friendly as possible to wild plant and animal species, often by encouraging the growth of endemic species, or planting crops that attract wild pollinators.

Question 20

What are the issues associated with land sharing?

Answer 20

• Lower yields due to the area left for animals
• Not enough space for bigger animals
• Animals that raid crops or eat so much of the crop they destroy it become a problem for farmers

Question 21

Is coexistence the end goal of land sharing?

Answer 21

• Coexistence would not work for a lot of species - Land sharing is trying to coexist
• Pollinators is a service wild life is providing
• Can only be in areas where it works for smaller species
• Problematic for bigger animals like big primates or elephants
• Works but has the issue of conflict for farmers

Question 21

Is coexistence the end goal of land sharing?

Answer 21

• Coexistence would not work for a lot of species - Land sharing is trying to coexist
• Pollinators is a service wild life is providing
• Can only be in areas where it works for smaller species
• Problematic for bigger animals like big primates or elephants
• Works but has the issue of conflict for farmers

Question 22

What is Land Sparing? Does this strategy imply high yield farming?

Answer 22

• involves large, separate areas of intensified agriculture and wilderness
• involves restoring or creating non-farmland habitat in agricultural landscapes at the expense of field-level agricultural production
• This approach does not necessarily imply high yield farming

Question 23

What is the advantage and disadvantage of Land sparing?

Answer 23

Advantage : species that are bigger could use a bigger area
Disadvantage: Humans may have an issue because there is less space for agriculture by restoring habitat for wildlife.
* the restored habitat might not be the ecosystem animals need
* Intact forest is better

Question 24

Why is land sparing needed for conservation?

Answer 24

• needed to conserve species incompatible with agriculture , such as endemic or rare taxa as well as natural ecosystem

Question 25

Is land sparing or landsharing better?

Answer 25

• Land sparing is better because you are leaving space or restoring space for bigger animals

Question 26

Primates outside the forest

Do primates show ecological flexibility ?

Answer 26

• Some primate species show considerable ecological flexibility , and **use other habitat types if needed **
• However, Primates still need the forest to survive!
• many species **adapt to human presence **

Question 27

Primates outsdie the forest

What are two examples of primates that have adapted?

Answer 27

• Bornean orangutans occur in homogeneous plantations of oil-palm and acacia
  -unlikely to survive only on plantations
• Dian’s tarsiers perfer agroforestry areas to natural forests
  -Tarsiers prefer living outside the forest completely. Agroforestry is a combination of forest and agriculture.
  -**Higher insect density and abundance of trees suitable as sleeping sites. **

Question 28

Why did Estrada, Raboy, and Oliveira (2012) do a review of agrosystems and primate conservation in the tropics?

Answer 28

• Because of the continued extensive transformation of primate habitat into human-modified landscapes , it is important to explore the extent to which agroecosystems are used by primates.

Question 29

What were the results of the Estrada, Raboy , Oliveira (2012) review of agroecosystems and primates?

Answer 29

• **57 primate taxa used 38 types of agroecosysems as temporary or permanent habitats **
• Of the 57 species the IUCN categories were listed : 51% Least concerned. 20% endangered, 18% vulnerable , 9% Near threatened , 2% critically endangered
• Overall - there is a good amount of primates that can use agroecosystems and do okay in them

Question 30

Estrada, Raboy and Oliveira (2012) Agroecosystems &Primate Conservation

What does the large proportion of threatened primates in agroecosystems suggest? What are agroecosystems?

Answer 30

• The large proportion of threatened primates in agroecosystems suggests that **agroecosystems may play an important role in landscape approaches to primate conservation **
• Agroecosystems are basically an agricultural area (from pastureland to polycultures)

Question 31

Guzman et al. 2016

Guzman et al. 2016 did a study called “ Agroecosystems and primate conservation : Shade coffee as potential habitat for the conservation of Andean night monkeys in the northern Andes”.

• What did they evaluate ?
• How did they sample them ? What was part of their data?

Answer 31

• Evaluate the potential role of shade coffe plantations on the conservation of Andean night monkeys in the Colombian highlands
• Essentially - looked at nigh monkeys and wanted to know how shade coffee helps them
• They used fecal animal sampling - two groups were followed. Data involved ranging patterns, habitat use , activity budget and diet

Question 32

Guzman et al. 2016 did a study called “ Agroecosystems and primate conservation : Shade coffee as potential habitat for the conservation of Andean night monkeys in the northern Andes”.

• What were the results ?
• what can be used as a complementary strategy for the conservation of primates
• What does the results say about multifunctional landscapes?

Answer 32

1.Preferred natural forests over coffe shade agroecosystems
2.They relied on shade trees as stepping stones and feeding resources
-Spent more time foraging in natural forests
-Shade coffee can be used as a complementary strategy for the conservation of primates
3.Multifunctional landscapes - need to find ways to share land with wildlife and find other ways for agricultural uses.