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Enhancing biodiversity conservation in existing land-use plans with widely available datasets and spatial analysis techniques

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2017

SEBASTIAN MARTINUZZI ,
LUIS RIVERA ,
NATALIA POLITI ,
BROOKE L. BATEMAN ,
ESTEFANIA RUIZ DE LOS LLANOS ,
LEONIDAS LIZARRAGA ,
M. SOLEDAD DE BUSTOS ,
SILVIA CHALUKIAN ,
ANNA M. PIDGEON  and
VOLKER C. RADELOFF
SEBASTIAN MARTINUZZI*
Affiliation:
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
LUIS RIVERA
Affiliation:
Instituto de Ecorregiones Andinas (INECOA) –Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) – Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, Alberdi 47, 4600, Jujuy, Argentina
NATALIA POLITI
Affiliation:
Instituto de Ecorregiones Andinas (INECOA) –Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) – Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, Alberdi 47, 4600, Jujuy, Argentina
BROOKE L. BATEMAN
Affiliation:
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Science Division, National Audubon Society, 225 Varick St, New York, NY 10014, USA
ESTEFANIA RUIZ DE LOS LLANOS
Affiliation:
Instituto de Ecorregiones Andinas (INECOA) –Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) – Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, Alberdi 47, 4600, Jujuy, Argentina
LEONIDAS LIZARRAGA
Affiliation:
Delegación Regional Noroeste, Sistema de Información de Biodiversidad, Administración de Parques Nacionales, Santa Fe 23, 4400, Salta, Argentina
M. SOLEDAD DE BUSTOS
Affiliation:
Secretaría de Ambiente de la Provincia de Salta, Zuviría 744, 4400, Salta, Argentina
SILVIA CHALUKIAN
Affiliation:
Proyecto de Investigación y Conservación del Tapir en el Noroeste Argentino, 4400, Salta, Argentina
ANNA M. PIDGEON
Affiliation:
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
VOLKER C. RADELOFF
Affiliation:
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr Sebastian Martinuzzi email: martinuzzi@wisc.edu
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Summary

In many developing countries, high rates of deforestation and biodiversity loss make conservation efforts urgent. Improving existing land-use plans can be an option for enhancing biodiversity conservation. We showcase an approach to enhancing an existing forest land-use plan using widely available data and spatial tools, focusing on Argentina's Southern Yungas ecoregion. We mapped the distribution of wilderness areas and species and habitats of conservation concern, assessed their representation in the land-use plan and quantified potential changes in habitat availability and forest connectivity. Wilderness comprised 48% of the study area, and the highest concentrations of elements of conservation concern were in the north. In the current land-use plan, wilderness areas often occur in regions where logging and grazing are allowed, and a large proportion of the forest with the highest conservation value (43%) is under some level of human influence. Furthermore, we found that deforestation being legally allowed in the land-use plan could reduce forest connectivity and habitat availability substantially. We recommend updating the current land-use plan by considering human influence and elements of conservation concern. More broadly, we demonstrate that widely available spatial datasets and straightforward approaches can improve the usefulness of existing land-use plans so that they more fully incorporate conservation goals.

Keywords

human footprintland-use planningspatial analysisthreatened speciesdeforestationspecies distributions
Type
Non-Thematic Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 45 , Issue 3: Thematic section. Humans and Island Environments , September 2018 , pp. 252 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2017 

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Footnotes

Supplementary material can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892917000455

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Appendix S1

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Figure S1

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Table S1

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