Research by the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) Consortium in Sumatra provides little support for the original perception ‘poverty causes people to migrate to the forests, but they don’t know how to manage the soils, which forces them to move on and open new forest, leaving a trail of degraded lands behind’. However, ASB research also shows that the land use systems that follow forest conversion differ significantly in the profitability and impacts on biodiversity. For example, farmers have developed agroforests, based on rubber, damar and other local or introduced trees, as sustainable and profitable alternatives to shifting cultivation, but these opportunities have stimulated rather than slowed down forest conversion in the absence of active boundary enforcement mechanisms for natural areas. Although agroforests can maintain part of the biodiversity of the originsl forests, they are no substitute for full protection of biodiversity in dedicated natural areas and conservation reserves.
Tag: biodiversity
Biophysical properties of the conservation and sustainable management of belowground biodiversity (CSM-BGBD) project sites in Indonesia
The Conservation and Sustainable Management Belowground Biodiversity( CSM-BGBD) Project inIndonesia will be conducted in three benchmark areas in Sumatra Island. Two benchmarks Sumber Jayabenchmark (SJ) and Pakuan Ratu benchmark (PR) are located in Lampung Province, while the otherbenchmark will be located in Jambi Province (Figure 1). The Jambi benchmark also consisted of two sites, Rantau Pandan and Muara Kuamang. The benchmark areas represent the ecological zone of Sumatra Island, which consisted of mountainous, piedmont, peneplain and swampy areas. Sumber Jaya is located in the mountainous areas, while Rantau Pandan in the piedmont areas, both Muara Kuamang and Pakuan Ratu are located in peneplain region
Allometric equations for below-ground biomass of four key woody species in West African savanna-woodlands
Accurate estimates of both above-ground biomass (AGB) and below-ground biomass (BGB) are essential for estimating carbon (C) balances at various geographical scales and formulating effective climate change mitigation programs. However, estimating BGB is challenging, particularly for forest ecosystems, so robust allometric equations are needed. To obtain such equations for savanna-woodlands of the West African north sudanian zone, we selected four common native woody species (Anogeissus leiocarpa (DC.) Guill. & Perr., Detarium microcarpum Guill. & Perr., Piliostigma thonningii (Schumach.) Milne-Redh. and Vitellaria paradoxa C.F. Gaertn.). At two sites in Burkina Faso, we determined the BGB of 30 trees of each of these species by excavation, and measured various above-ground dimensional variables. The root:shoot ratio varied widely among the species, from 0.1 to 3.4. Depending on the species, allometric equations based on stem basal area at 20 cm height, basal area at breast height and tree height explained 50–95% of the variation in BGB. The best generic equation we obtained, based on basal area at 20 cm, explained 60% of the variation in BGB across the species. Three previously published generic allometric equations underestimated BGB by 8 to 63%. The presented equations should significantly improve the accuracy of BGB estimates in savanna-woodlands and help avoid costly needs to excavate root systems.
Remote sensing approach for spatial planning of land management interventions in West African Savannas
Forest management, agroforestry and tree planting are some of the key approaches to sustainable rural development, and climate change adaptation and mitigation in West African savannas. However, the planning of land management interventions is hindered by the lack of information at relevant spatial resolution. We examined predictive models for mapping various tree, soil and species diversity attributes with a comparison of RapidEye and Landsat imagery. The field data was collected in the vicinity of the community-managed forest in southern Burkina Faso, where the main environmental threats are agricultural expansion and fuelwood extraction. The modelling was done using Random Forest algorithm. According to our results, tree crown cover and correlated attributes, such as basal area and tree species richness, were predicted most accurately. High spatial resolution RapidEye imagery provided the best accuracy but difference to medium resolution Landsat imagery was negligible for most attributes. Burn scar masked Landsat time series performed similar to dry season single date Landsat imagery, but the former avoids image selection and mosaicking, and could be less sensitive to artifacts due to the burn scars. The presented approach provides valuable information on important tree, soil and species diversity attributes for spatial planning of land management interventions. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd
ANNEX VI Final Narrative Report Tana Kipini Laga Badana Bush-Bush Land and Seascapes (4th November, 2013 – 4th May, 2018)
Biodiversity and Invasive species assessment information dissemination: Workshop Report
Genetic divergence in Jatropha curcas L., a potential biofuel crop in Kenya
Background: The aim of this research was to estimate the genetic divergence among 49 genotypes of Jatropha curcas L. and to identify potential parental lines needed for breeding high oil and seed yielding cultivars. Methodology: The genotypes were studied for several agronomic traits including: plant height, days to flowering (50%), male:female flower ratio, number of fruits, seed yield, 100-seed weight and oil content. Genetic divergence was measured using Mahalanobis’ D2 statistics and Tocher cluster methods. Results & conclusion: The most diverse genotypes were those from different geographical origins, suggesting a relationship between genetic and geographical diversity. Hybridization of genotypes from East Africa with those from Madagascar and Mexico would generate high-level genetic divergence
Digital knowledge of Kenyan succulent flora and priorities for future inventory and documentation
Biodiversity inventory in Kenya has been ongoing for about a century and a half, coinciding with the arrival of naturalists from Europe, America, and elsewhere outside Africa. Since the first collections in the mid-to-late 1800s, there has been a steady increase of plant surveys, frequency of inventory, and discovery of new species that have considerably increased knowledge of faunal and floristic elements. However, as in all other countries, such historical biological collection activities are more often than not, ad hoc, resulting in gaps in knowledge of species and their habitats. While Kenya is relatively rich botanically, with a succulent flora of about 428 taxa, it is apparent that the list is understated owing to, among other factors, difficulty of preparing herbarium material and restricted access to some sites. This study investigated completeness of geographic knowledge of succulent plants in Kenya, with the aim of establishing species distribution patterns and identifying gaps that will guide and justify priority setting for future work on the group. Species data were filtered from the general BRAHMS database at the East African Herbarium and cleaned via an iterative series of inspections and visualizations designed to detect and document inconsistencies in taxonomic concepts, geographic coordinates, and dates of collection. Eight grid squares fulfilled criteria for completeness of inventory: one in the city of Mombasa, one in the Kulal–Nyiro complex, one in Garissa, one in Baringo, and four grid squares in the Nairobi–Nakuru–Laikipia area. Poorly-known areas, mostly in the west, north, and north-eastern regions of the country, were extremely isolated from well-known sites, both geographically and environmentally. These localities should be prioritised for future inventory as they are likely to yield species new to science, species new to the national flora, and/or contribute new knowledge on habitats. To avoid inconsistencies and data leakage, biodiversity inventory and documentation needs streamlining to generate standardised metadata that should be digitised to enhance access and synthesis.
The links between biodiversity and ecosystem services
This chapter examines key concepts that are relevant to understanding the links between biodiversity and ecosystem services. It explains the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as the complexities arising from such linkages. The chapter provides an in-depth description of the links between biodiversity and several critical services, provided through different mechanisms and at different scales. The well-being of society depends to a large extent on the benefits derived from the functions and processes that take place within ecosystems. Biodiversity plays an important role in the delivery of many of these benefits. Biodiversity broadly encompasses the number, abundances, functional variety, spatial distribution, and interactions of genotypes, species, populations, communities, and ecosystems. A critical issue in ecosystem service assessments is the scant knowledge on how ecosystem services and their components are produced and maintained, how they are affected by system changes, such as land use change, and how they depend on different levels of biodiversity.
GlobalUsefulNativeTrees (GlobUNT)
The GlobalUsefulNativeTrees species selection App combines species data from the Botanic Gardens Conservation International GlobalTreeSearch database (GTS) ( website ; Beech et al. 2017 ) with data available from the World Checklist of Useful Plant Species (WCUPS) ( Diazgranados et al. 2020 ). GTS documents the native country distribution of close to 60,000 tree species, whereas the WCUPS contains 40,283 plant species names from the Plantae kingdom, documenting human usage across 10 categories of usage that was modified from the Economic Botany Data Collections Standard.