Tropical Conservation - new cards & studies

Question 1

L—— et al. 201- - Most forests have already been…

Answer 1

Laurence et al., 2014 logged / modified globally

Question 2

What trees are taken in selective logging in the tropics?

Answer 2

The large, marketable trees

Question 3

Edwards et al. 2011 looks at how logging can change species composition
What area of the world is looked at?
How do dung beetle and bird populations compare in primary vs degraded forests?
What are the implications for policy-makers?

Answer 3

Edwards et al. 2011
Looks at primary vs logged and twice logged forests in South East Asia
Tackled the assumption that secondary forests are much less valuable for nature
Looks at birds and dung beetles
75% of bird species persist in secondary logged forests
Logging caused an initial decline in dung beetles. But had no significant effect on species richness in birds
Degraded forests should be protected by policy-makers and conservationists

Question 4

——– & —- 1997 . They look at tree injuries and death in RIL compared with CNV
How much less damage can be done with RIL?
What techniques should be employed to reduce damage?
What forms of damage did CNV commonly result in?

Answer 4

Bertault & Sist 1997: Non-target species being injured or killed as well as less skidding damage from vehicles. Other studies also support this.
Compares pre and post-harvest inventories in RIL and CNV
CNV has more unintended tree injuries and deaths, including tree death via uprooting from skidding and crown damage via non-precise felling techniques
Therefore, tree damage via logging can be reduced by 20% via vigorous planning and logging supervision, as well as a limit on harvest intensity

Question 5

Edwards et al. 2—-: What area is looked at? What is found out about land sparing vs land sharing and for what taxa?
What is controlled for in the study?

Answer 5

2014,
Looks at Borneo again
Looks at species abundance and species richness of birds, dung beetles and ants under land sparing vs land sharing approached>
Land sharing: Timber extraction and biodiversity concessions along boundaries
Land sparing: Intensive timber extraction and intact primary rainforests
Controls for timber yield across both
Higher abundances and consequently richness for all studies taxa along land-sparing initiatives

Question 6

Give the negatives (3) and positive/no loss effects (2) of logging on biodiversity

Answer 6

Negatives:
Changes species composition
Some species apparently extinct in landscape
Logging is harmful, re-logging magnifies harm
Positives:
Substantial amount of biodiversity persists
Includes Red-listed species (e.g. orang utan)

Question 7

G—- et al. 20-1 does a meta analysis to show which uses of converted forests are most detrimental. A——-, b—– and p——- come out worst.

Answer 7

Gibson et al., 2011. Agriculture, burning and plantations

Question 8

What groups found to do best in terms of abundance under land sparing?

Answer 8

Birds, dung beetles and ants seemed to do best in terms of abundance under land sparing

Question 9

Cutting lianas can also increase t—– production and f—- production - Cerullo and E—– 2019

Answer 9

Cerullo & Edwards 2019: timber, fruit

Question 10

what are roads important for?

Answer 10

Giving access to remote areas, cheap labour, and cheaper land clearance. Roads have doubled in size since 2003

Question 11

What study reinforces that road construction may facilitate further clearance

Answer 11

Laurance et al. 2009 - 95% of deforestation within 1km of a road

Question 12

W— et al. 201-: Created study of a fake road with just noise. What was learnt? What did further lab-based studies suggest this meant for the community?

Answer 12

Ware et al. 2015: 31% of birds avoided road, and birds that stayed had lower body condition.

Uses speakers to replicated just the sound of a road and investigate it’s impact on songbird communities during autumn migration
Found that 31% of bird community avoided the roads, and that those that remained had a significantly lower body condition
Further lab-based experiments suggested that this may be down to the foraging-vigilance trade-offs, with noise reducing the suitability of otherwise suitable habitats

Question 13

L——– et al. 2004 - did all bird species suffer from roads?

Answer 13

Laurence et al. 2004. No.Depended on niche. Edge loving / canopy bird species liked it, and terrestrial / solitary understory birds very much did not. Laurance et al. also found that some bird species would NOT cross roads thus becoming isolated

Question 14

What is the problem with mitigation methods for road planning? Give a citation - Ry——- et al. 2015

Answer 14

Rytwinski et al. 2015.
Often poorly tested and greenwashy. Need to test how many of these structures, if they work, where to put them etc.

Question 15

M——- i——– and r——— can potentially help with management of p——- forests - managing p—— forests is the key issue

Answer 15

market incentives, regulations, primary

Question 16

Give the 3 main ways to reduce biodiversity losses in logging

Answer 16

1. Reduced Impact Logging
2. Lower Intensity Logging
3. Land sharing vs land-sparing logging

Note: Sooo RIL and LIL are quite similar. I guess the subtle difference is LIL refers to reducing harvest size and RIL refers to practices to reduce environmental harm of logging. Is subtle though.

Question 17

In RIL, you identify h——– species, p——- species and mature ‘s—’ species

Answer 17

harvestable, protected, seed

Question 18

Give some pre-harvest preperations you’d do in RIL

Answer 18

You then do your pre-harvest preparation where you plan roads to minimise damage, keeping them straight, narrow and to the target trees. You also centralise your log dumps to mimimise dumping, and cut vines so they don’t drag down other trees.

Question 19

why have some studied (Burivalova et al. 2014) found bird species to increase with logging intensity. Ie- what reason is given for their persistence

Answer 19

Birds species richness can INCREASE with logging intensity, perhaps due to more edge-tolerant species coming in.

Question 20

Bic—— et al. 2014 looks at impact of RIL on multiple taxa.
What taxa?
How does RIL change species abundance and composition?
What implications does this have for conservation?

Answer 20

Reports on the impact of RIL on many taxa: Birds, bats and large mammals over a period of 5 years
Assemblages showed very little effect to impact of RIL - structure and composition of species remained very similar
Therefore, study DOES support previously little-proven assumption that RIL is much better for biodiversity
Overall impact of RIL described as relatively benign, thus furhter widespread use could make valuable contribution to conservation reserves.

Question 21

Explain this quote by giving examples of how roads can alter habitats:
Roads cause physical, chemical, structural, environmental and biological impacts on the adjacent habitat.

Answer 21

Roads cause physical (I.e. waterflow changes), chemical (ie. Chemicals from construction leaching out) , structural (ie. Fragmentation), environmental (temperature changes) and biological (Mortality and fragmentation) impacts on the adjacent habitat.

Question 22

What pollution can roads lead to?

Answer 22

Noise, vibrations, chemical run off into the soil air or water

Question 23

“Smaller partially isolated populations at greater risk of extinction due to deterministic processes” - Give examples of some of these deterministic processes

Answer 23

limiting a critical resource (food, shelter or space)
Random demographic changes
Random environmental changes

Question 24

What are some Things which could be done to mitigate the impact of roads (3) ?

Answer 24

• Reduce road widths to improve connectivity
• Maintain large, roadless areas with intact habitats
• Direct roads toareas with yield gas & low biodiversity
• Direct carbon markets (REDD+) to countries with areas of conflict for these things

Question 25

Klienscroth et al. 2019 Looks at road expansion in central Africa using Landsat imagery, and the number of new and abandoned roads, as well as their impact on deforestation.

What do they find?
What are the implications for conservation?

Answer 25

Annual deforestation rates within 1km of roads found to have increased markedly, being highest for the oldest roads and lowest for the new roads.
Higher road abandonment rates have partially lessened impact of roads on deforestation, but increase in roads is still of great concern for carbon sequestration, habitat loss and hunting rates.
Road decommissioning after logging could play a vital role in reducing negative impacts of timber extraction on forest ecosystems. There is call for those with road building concessions to collaborate effectively with governments, local communities and international funders to engage in effective environmental planning.

Question 26

Laurence et al. 2009
Conducts a review of road expansion and linear clearings, focusing on their impact on tropical ecosystems.
Why are tropical forests often especially vulnerable to road expansion? ~5 reasons
What are given as the key things which could reduce road expansion?

Answer 26

1. Many tropical species are specialists and avoid even narrow (under 30m) clearings, thus roads have potential for great impact. Species can also be susceptible to hunting, predation or becoming road kill
2. The conditions of the tropical rainforests as complex, dark, thermally stable, windless places make them especially vulnerable to edge effects (wind, dessication when compared to other ecosystems.
3. The intense rainfall of the tropics can increase erosional damage and sedimentation from infrastructure, harming waterways, for example by accelerating water velocity and scraping away other vegetation. Rainfall can also flush toxic pollutants into waterways, harming many fish, amphibians and freshwater invertebrate species.
4. Tropical forests mainly exist in developing nations, which are being transformed by ongoing industrialization, population growth and natural-resource exploitation. This is exacerbated by poor governance and enforcement. Roads can also open up forests for further destructive exploitative activities

How to change this?

1. REDD+ could be used to help plan and minimize regional road works, establish PAs in advance of road establishment, regulate road access, promote railroads rather than roads when feasible, and close down the most environmentally destructive roads.
2. Actively LIMITING frontier roads is believed to be the most realistic and cost-effective way to conserve tropical forest

Question 27

What are the most important metal trade links? Where are they going to?

Answer 27

Primarily China, with many key suppliers being from developing economies like Chile, Peru, Brazil and India - concentrated in a few nations

Question 28

Why has gold mining rapidly expanded?

Answer 28

Since the International Financial Crisis, there has been an 8-fold increase in 12 years in the price of gold.

Question 29

Explain the Resource Curse

Answer 29

A massive investment in an area with weak governance. Ineffective law enforcement and corruption can take place, potentially leading to civil unrest. Legal frameworks to protect the environment get subverted, or totally ignored.

Question 30

Give some ways that could potentially reduce impact of mining (8)

Answer 30

1. Promote integrated land use planning for mining and assosciated infrastructure development
2. Strengthen the governments’ capacity to plan, manage and monitor the mining sector
3. Promote innovative mechanisms to offset impacts
4. Improve management of artisanal and small-scale mining
5. Carbon payements
6. Identify market choke points
7. Post-mining reforestation
8. Recycling of metals

Question 31

“Identify market choke points” - what does this actually mean and how can it reduce the impact of mining?

Answer 31

This means employing lobbying, publiciyty and consumer boycotts to reduce conservation losses to mining. They can also look at major stock exchanges (Wher mining prosectors sell prospects to Majors) as potential leverage points for improving environmental standards. As they are external to the tropics, they may be less corruptible

Question 32

How can this reduce the impact of mining?
Improving management of artisanal and small sxale mining

Answer 32

• Applying regulatory frameworks to enforce practices in small-scale mining, including giving miners more secutiry in tenure, and establishing realistic environmental and safety requirements

Question 33

How can this reduce the impact of mining?
Promote innovative mechanisms to offset impacts.

Answer 33

Offsets should be seen as a last resource, as they dont necessarily ensure long term protection for the sites, or address the issue of habitat fragmentation. However, they can help to resolve land-use conflicts.
Can set aside PAs, and do post-mining habitat restoration, but ideally should be obliged to reduce impact in the first place, research and enforce measures to reduce initial environmental impact of mining.
Companies should be HELD to obligations which demonstrate commitment to mitigating environmental impact of their practices, so this does not fall on taxpayers to do so

Question 34

How can this reduce impact of mining?Promote integrated land use planning for mining and assosciated infrastructure development

Answer 34

Can identify most promising corridors for mining, and adquiring other commodities, and use appropriate mix of transportation such as railways, rivers and roads, to reduce social and environmental costs

Question 35

Chomitz & Gray 1996 - Roads, land-use and deforestation
The article uses GIS to develop a ‘spatial explicit model for land use’. This can look at detailed spatial variations between variables of interest. Uses characteristics of the current land, such as soil quality and distance to market, to estimate where road building should sensibly take place.
What area does it test its model on? What does it find out about where roads should be being placed?

Answer 35

Tested on Southern Belize, an area experiencing rapid agricultural conversion, both commercial and subsistence. Suggests that building on areas with poor agricultural soils and low population densities may just be a lose-lose for both the environment, via increases habitat fragmentation, and the economy, via small economic returns

Question 36

How can this reduce the impact of mining? Strengthen the governments’ capacity to plan, manage and monitor the mining sector

Answer 36

• This would involve developing a system which assumes oversight of new mining activites, through to their closure. It would ensure legislation incorporates achievanble, international best practices and standards for all stages of a mining operation.
• These would be regularly reviewed and monitored, as well as checking in with dialogues between multiple stakeholders
• Land use clonflicts would be address

Question 37

Adeney et al. 2009 - Reserves Protect against Deforestation Fires in the Amazon
This paper:
Looks at satellite data on forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon to see how effective reserves are against fire, an activity closely linked to deforestation.

What does it find out about reserves effectiveness against fires? Where are they especially effective?

Answer 37

Finds that all types of reserves included in research do indeed reduce deforestation fires. Reserves were found to be especially effective in reducing fire occurrence near ROADS, an area in which they commonly take place in non-protected areas.
:) Reserved can curb fires.

Question 38

Further reading: P—- et al. —-
Conducts a systematic review on latin american studies on impact of roads on vertebrates.

What bias do they find?
What activities were increasing?
What needs to change in research?

Answer 38

Pinto et al. 2020
Identifies research gaps, with need to focus more on understudied species, using predictive tools and such for rare species, and modelling of the risk of proposed roads to species and populations so as to inform road planning.
The development of current transportation infrastructure is outpacing research, so funds must be focused on specific ecosystems, species and research areas.

Question 39

Give some key measures for improving road mitigation methods from the paper ‘Evaluating the effectiveness of road mitigation measures’.

Answer 39

Research into road mitigation methods has lacked appropriate methodologies to gauge their actual effectiveness. Research should establish population-level effects of these measures, not just if they are being used. This research should be clearly communicated to stakeholders.
This is necessary to inform cost-effective road mitigation methods

Question 40

Rytwinski et al. 2015 - road mitigation methods
A meta-analysis of 50 studies has found that mitigation measures reduce road kill by –% on average.
In the past, planners have lacked good ————— with which to formulate a decision
The effectiveness of some, more —-, road mitigation methods is lacking. Studies into mitigation methods should ideally evaluate their effectiveness ——— and after a mitigation method is applied.

Answer 40

40%
Information
Rare
Before

Question 41

Polak et al. 2014 - Optimal planning for road mitigation
Uses case study of koalas to test effectiveness of different road crossing strategies in Queensland.
What does it investigate?
What does it find out?

Answer 41

Investigates importance of determining where and how to act to maximise cost-effectiveness on mitigation methods
Finds that there is no cheap way to come to a solution for koala road crossing

Question 42

Laurence et al. 2014 presents a global strategy for road planning.
What are the main conflict points?
What could mitigate need for further roads?

Answer 42

Presents a global strategy for prioritising road construction, motivated by projections for road construction to increase in the future, especially into high biodiversity areas.
Highlights global areas of priority to NOT construct roads, which are high biodiversity and with low agricultural incomes.
Highlights areas which could be constructed on with relatively little environmental destruction, for positive economic returns.
Also highlights conflict areas, where agricultural income would be high, but environmental destruction would be too.
There are unfortunately extensive conflict areas, often in areas with high population expansion - carbon payements could help with this
Road planning scheme identifies areas where yields could be improved, thus reducing need for agricultural expansion via intensification

Question 43

wordwide, there are how many hectares of degraded land?

Answer 43

2.2 billion

Question 44

What is the risk of tree planting in africa?

Answer 44

• Can plant on ancient savannahs and natural grassland - is happening in Africa, with many areas mistakenly identified as being degraded. Additionally, it is contentious, but often not widely believed that afforestation can sequester carbon at the scale needed

Question 45

a study in c——- shows that natural reforestation can recover much primary forest biodiversity, including e——- and IUCN r– listed species (of dung beetles n birds)

Answer 45

Columbia, endemic, red-listed

Question 46

Explain chinas Mega reforestation plan to yourself. Give some flaws.

Answer 46

Largest reforestation program on Earth
Pay rural households to re-establish forest on sloped marginal cropland

Restoration goals
Timber, tree fruits, other cash crops
Reduce landslides, erosion, flooding
Biodiversity not explicitly considered - primarily monocultures or semi-mixed.
- There was higher bird species richness where it was actually mixed, but NOT bee richness hrmmmm
- An oversight: Mixed FLR found NOT to be more expensive

Question 47

Weigh up the pros and cons of natural regeneration vs

Answer 47

Natural: best when timber not main goal. Cheaper, better for biodiversity and soil. Studies flobally

Question 48

What are the advantages of doing FLRs at larger scales?

Answer 48

• More cost advantages with increasing operational size
• Many ecosystem advantages with growing size- watershed reserves, erosion prevention and functional connectivity
• Couldf also generate jobs, income, and alleviate poverty potentially

Question 49

Explain a study which evidences the expansion of gold mining. Where is it? What is changing? What are the implications?

Answer 49

Asner et al. 2012 - mining in Peruvian Amazon
- Looks at high resolution satellite data in peru
- Shows small scale / artisinal mining to make up around 50% of mining here
- Has increased MASSIVELY
- Indirect effects of mining - erosion, heavy metals, pollution of waterways, will spread much further than these sites alone
- Real challenge to tackle - demand unlikely to decrease, will likely need much more enforcement to tackle the problem in future.

Question 50

Explain that S———G– et al., 2022 on road expansion for mining to yourself. What are the key trade-offs?

Answer 50

Siquiera-Gay et al
.2022 A paper modelling the effects of road expansion for mining, and consequential PA downgrading, on the Brazilian Amazon
There is growing international demand for minerals, and difficult pay-offs, as some minerals would be neeed more for sustainable development goals, such as energy transition
Building new mines should always consider the mitigation hierarchy
BIG CHALLENGE: Opening FEWER PAs for mining would be better for biodiversity, but massive cost entailed in traversing around all of the intact PAs could put pressure to open up remaining PAs. Opening up remaining PAs makes them vulnerable to further land use change, and all road construction entails fragmentation
Long-term regional plans must be developed which account for the indirect, spreading impact of roads being built through areas of high biodiversity. CRITICAL no-go areas for biodiversity must be identified.

Question 51

“Heightened levels and seasonal inversion of riverine suspended sediment in a tropical biodiversity hot spot due to artisanal gold mining”
Explain this paper to yourself

Answer 51

Looks at artisanal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon
Shows increase of artisanal gold mining in recent years
Shows consequential environmental impacts on waterways in the form of increased sedimentation
This has detrimental long-term effects in aquatic life, especially fish populations.
Sediment pollution negatively effects their diversity - reduced visibility, and can impact respiration

Question 52

the cost of lost ecosystem services is MASSIVE - —- billion a year

Answer 52

10.6 billion a year

Question 53

A study looks at PAs in the form of IBAs in Africa.
What do they control for?
What do they find out? What Good News?

Answer 53

Matched protected and unprotected IBAs based on Area, altitude, accessibility, human population density and dominant land cover
Uses high res satellite imagery
Finds that PAS DO significantly reduce degradation but there is significant pressure being placed upon them from outside
ALSO promisingly no evidence of leakage (conversion of areas outside of the PAs instead of within them) was found :)

Question 54

Global demand for gold is another threat to tropical forests
Explain this paper to yourself (it’s easy)

Answer 54

Looks at gold mining in the moist tropical forests of south america
Uses satellite imagery, again
Finds peak in deforestation correlated with international financial crisis

Question 55

Global spatial coincidence between protected areas and metal mining activities
What is the problem?

Answer 55

A smaller number of mines occurred within PAs, but more mines within the proximity of PAs than expected by chance.
► Our results indicate metal mines as a potential threat to global PA system, especially as mines impact on ecosystems extend way beyond the coverage of the mine

Question 56

What is the biggest threat to globally endangered bird species and 80% of threatened vertebrates?

Answer 56

Agriculture

Question 57

“Forest regeneration on European sheep pasture is an economically viable climate change mitigation strategy”
When is it viable? Why should it be a considered strategy more?

Answer 57

Discusses the moralities of subsidising farming in the UK whilst spending billions to incentivize developing countries to plant trees
Without subsidies, sheep farming is not financially viable
Natural regeneration (using seeding from adjacent natural woodland) is financially viable for these areas WITHOUT subsidies
However, if forests need to be PLANTED based on the prevailing market conditions, the economic returns from selling carbon credits are insufficient to cover the expenses of planting and establishing forests

Question 58

PERSONAL READING: Land-sharing/-sparing connectivity landscapes for ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation
What is said to be the best solution to this debate? What are the pros and cons to each strategy?
G—- et al. —-

Answer 58

Grass et al. 2019
Discussion around these principles has ‘stagnated’ and remained inconclusive
However, a combination of these two approaches could likely be the best solution
Land sparing would be good for species which do badly in farmland, and to retain remaining important conservation areas
Land sharing is needed as some species can thrive in the agricultural environment , and this can prompt integrated ecosystem services necessary for environmentally friendly farming practices
The SHAPE of these spaces is important: connectivity allows species to move, improve ecosystem resilience in the face of climate change, and allow beneficial ecosystem services to be utilized in surrounding farmland
NOTE ^ NOT a primary research paper

Question 59

PERSONAL READING: Tropical Forest Fragments Enhance Pollinator Activity in Nearby Coffee Crops
R——— —-
What area of the world do they look at? Why is this a Good Find?

Answer 59

Tropical Forest Fragments Enhance Pollinator Activity in Nearby Coffee Crops
Ricketts 2004

Looks at importance of forest remnants to Coffee pollinators in Costa Rica
Much more bee richness and pollination found nearing the remaining forest
So yes, forests provided ecosystem services in the form of a reduced dependency on a single imported pollinator
An economic argument for forest preservatio

Question 60

What percentage of the worlds ecoregions are imperilled?

Answer 60

24%

Question 61

With the amount of sufficient unaltered habitat remaining in ecoregions, can we reach the 2050 targets?

Answer 61

YES, conflicting goals are going to be a problem though

Question 62

Mehrabi et al. 2018: Can also show the total crop c——— loss under these 50% projections. Obviously much more c——— are lost in projections where PAs are n——o—- landscapes. These are REDUCED under a land-s——– approach. Difficult trade-offs. - Mehrabi et al. 2018

Answer 62

Calory, calories, nature-only, sparing

3-29% of crop calories could be lost if 2050 target occurred

Question 63

Ward et al. 2010: Only –% of PAs are well protected. Is it possible for them to be connected?

Answer 63

10%, yes, this study concludes that connected PAs CAN be created, even in areas with relatively little intact land

Question 64

PERSONAL READING: Protected areas and local communities: an inevitable partnership toward successful conservation strategies?
What’s the citation?
What evidence is found? What do they look at?

Answer 64

Gustavo & Rhodes 2012
Ecology and society 17 (4), 2012
A meta-analysis of 55 PAs
Traditionally, PA approach can be exclusionary and disrupt the locals way of life, blocking traditions and access to resources
This can therefore cause conflicts
Meta-analysis looks at other criteria: (1) PA age, (2) PA area, (3) the existence of a buffer zone, (4) the level of protection as defined by IUCN categories, (5) gross domestic product per capita, (6) population density in the vicinity of PAs, and (7) the level of local community participation in PA management. Local community participation in PA decision making found to be ONLY criterion leading to significantly more compliance in PA policies. More participation generally lead to more compliance.