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Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

2012; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 489; Issue: 7415 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nature11318

1476-4687

William F. Laurance, D. Carolina Useche, Julio Rendeiro, Margareta B. Kalka, Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Sean Sloan, Susan G. W. Laurance, Mason J. Campbell, Katharine Abernethy, Patricia Álvarez, Víctor Arroyo‐Rodríguez, Peter S. Ashton, Julieta Benítez‐Malvido, Allard Blom, Kadiri Serge Bobo, Charles H. Cannon, Min Cao, Richard Carroll, Colin A. Chapman, Rosamond Coates, Marina Cords, Finn Danielsen, Bart De Dijn, Eric Dinerstein, Maureen A. Donnelly, David P. Edwards, Felicity A. Edwards, Nina Farwig, Peter J. Fashing, Pierre‐Michel Forget, Mercedes S. Foster, George A. Gale, David J. Harris, Rhett D. Harrison, John Hart, Sarah M. Karpanty, W. John Kress, Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Willis Logsdon, Jon C. Lovett, William E. Magnusson, Fiona Maisels, Andrew R. Marshall, Deedra McClearn, Divya Mudappa, Martin Reinhardt Nielsen, Richard G. Pearson, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Jan van der Ploeg, Andrew J. Plumptre, John R. Poulsen, Maurício Quesada, Hugo Rainey, Douglas Robinson, Christiane Roetgers, Francesco Rovero, Frederick N. Scatena, Christian Schulze, Douglas Sheil, Thomas T. Struhsaker, John Terborgh, Duncan W. Thomas, Robert M. Timm, J. Nicolás Urbina‐Cardona, Karthikeyan Vasudevan, S. Joseph Wright‬, Juan Carlos Arias-G., Luzmila Arroyo, Mark S. Ashton, P. Auzel, Dennis Babaasa, Fred Babweteera, Patrick J. Baker, Olaf Bánki, Margot Bass, Bila‐Isia Inogwabini, Stephen Blake, Warren Y. Brockelman, Nicholas Brokaw, Carsten A. Brühl, Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin, Jung-Tai Chao, Jérôme Chave, Ravi Chellam, Connie J. Clark, José Clavijo, Robert A. Congdon, Richard T. Corlett, H. S. Dattaraja, Chittaranjan Dave, Glyn Davies, Beatriz de Mello Beisiegel, Rosa de Nazaré Paes da Silva, Anthony Di Fiore, Arvin C. Diesmos, Rodolfo Dirzo, Diane M. Doran‐Sheehy, Mitchell J. Eaton, Louise H. Emmons, Alejandro Estrada, Corneille Ewango, Linda M. Fedigan, François Feer, Barbara Fruth, Jacalyn Giacalone Willis, Uromi Manage Goodale, Steven M. Goodman, Juan Carlos Guix, Paul Guthiga, William A. Haber, Keith C. Hamer, Ilka Herbinger, Jane K. Hill, Zhongliang Huang, I‐Fang Sun, Kalan Ickes, Akira Itoh, Natália Macedo Ivanauskas, Betsy R. Jackes, John P. Janovec, Daniel H. Janzen, Mo Jiangming, Jin Chen, Trevor Jones, Hermes Justiniano, Elisabeth K. V. Kalko, Aventino Kasangaki, Timothy J. Killeen, Hen-Biau King, Erik Klop, Cheryl D. Knott, Inza Koné, Enoka P. Kudavidanage, José Eduardo Lahoz da Silva Ribeiro, John Lattke, Richard К. LaVal, Robert O. Lawton, Miguel E. Leal, Mark Leighton, Miguel Lentino, Cristiane Leonel, Jeremy Lindsell, Ling-Ling Lee, K. Eduard Linsenmair, Elizabeth Losos, Ariel E. Lugo, Jeremiah S. Lwanga, Andrew L. Mack, Marlúcia B. Martins, W. Scott McGraw, Roan McNab, Luciano Fogaça de Assis Montag, Jo Thompson, Jacob Nabe‐Nielsen, Michiko Nakagawa, Sanjay K. Nepal, Marilyn A. Norconk, Vojtěch Novotný, Sean O’Donnell, Muse D. Opiang, Paul E. Ouboter, Kenneth Parker, Narayanaswamy Parthasarathy, Kátia Regina Pisciotta, Dewi M. Prawiradilaga, Catherine M. Pringle, Subaraj Rajathurai, Ulrich H. Reichard, Gay E. Reinartz, Katherine Renton, Glen Reynolds, Vernon Reynolds, Erin P. Riley, Mark‐Oliver Rödel, Jessica M. Rothman, Philip D. Round, Shoko Sakai, Tânia Margarete Sanaiotti, Tommaso Savini, Gertrud Schaab, John Seidensticker, Alhaji Siaka, Miles R. Silman, Thomas B. Smith, Samuel Almeida, Navjot S. Sodhi, Craig B. Stanford, Kristine M. Stewart, Emma J. Stokes, Kathryn E. Stoner, Raman Sukumar, Martin Surbeck, Mathias W. Tobler, Teja Tscharntke, Andrea K. Turkalo, Govindhaswamy Umapathy, M. van Weerd, Jorge Vega Rivera, Meena Venkataraman, Linda Venn, Carlos Verea, Carolina V. Castilho, Matthias Waltert, Benjamin Wang, David A. Watts, William Weber, Paige West, David F. Whitacre, Kenneth D. Whitney, David Wilkie, Stephen E. Williams, Debra D. Wright, Patricia C. Wright, Lu Xiankai, Pralad B. Yonzon, Franky Zamzani,

Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Analysis of changes in functional groups of species and potential drivers of environmental change for protected areas across the world’s major tropical regions reveals large variation between reserves that have been effective and those experiencing an erosion of biodiversity, and shows that environmental changes immediately outside reserves are nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate. Protected areas are a key component of tropical forest conservation strategy, but how well are they performing? These authors assemble a large data set from 60 protected areas across the globe, assessing 31 functional groups of species and 21 drivers of environmental change. They find that about half of the reserves are succeeding but half are experiencing substantial losses of biodiversity, driven as much by environmental change outside the reserves as by change within them. To protect what remains of these habitats, the authors suggest that it is vital to establish sizeable buffer zones around reserves, maintain substantial reserve connectivity to other forest areas and promote low-impact land uses near reserves. The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon1,2,3. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses4,5,6,7,8,9. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world’s major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve ‘health’: about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.