Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:31:26.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evaluating the utility of protected area status and conservation legislation in tropical forest conservation using satellite data: a case study of the great hornbill in Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2022

Naparat Suttidate
Naparat Suttidate*
Affiliation:
Akkhraratchakumari Veterinary College, Walailak University, 222 Thaiburi, Thasala, Nakhon Si Thammarat80160, Thailand Centre for One Health, Walailak University, 222 Thaiburi, Thasala, Nakhon Si Thammarat80160, Thailand
*
Author for correspondence: Naparat Suttidate, Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Preserving wildlife and their environment from anthropogenic activities requires identification and establishment of protected areas, and monitoring of their long-term effects on wildlife and habitat. Tropical forests are one of the most at-risk habitats and many tropical species have become extinct recently due to human activity. It is imperative to monitor habitat in protected areas and without in order to identify strategies and legislative policies that optimize conservation outcomes. To this end, I quantified habitat fragmentation for the great hornbill (Buceros bicornis) in Om Koi Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand, pre- and post-establishment, within and outside the protected area, from 1973, 1985, and 1992, to assess the effectiveness of the protected area status, established in 1978, and a national logging ban, established in 1989, in preserving and restoring hornbill habitat. The results demonstrate that the establishment of Om Koi Wildlife Sanctuary did not decrease the rate of hornbill habitat fragmentation relative to areas outside the protected area. While the protected area had less fragmentation to begin with, protection status did not affect the rate of loss. Fragmentation increased significantly both inside and outside the protected area between the first and second time points (p < 0.05), after the protected area was first established. However, the national logging ban policy implemented in 1985 seems to have successfully halted the fragmentation of habitat within the protected area and surrounding unprotected areas, with all areas showing no significant change (p > 0.05). While not significant, the rate of fragmentation outside the protected area was greater. This suggests that the establishment of a protected area alone may not be sufficient to stop or reverse anthropogenic damage to endangered habitat and the species that utilize these environments. The incorporation of multiple strategies for management is likely needed to increase the ability of protected areas to preserve tropical forest species and habitats. The assessment of protected areas via satellite and ground-level data is an essential tool for evaluating the effectiveness of conservation strategies and improving outcomes.

Keywords

FragmentationGreat hornbillLogging banProtected areaTropical forest
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , May 2022 , pp. 127 - 133
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andam, KS, Ferraro, PJ, Sims, KRE, Healy, A and Holland, MB (2010) Protected areas reduced poverty in Costa Rica and Thailand. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, 9996–10001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bachan, KHA, Kannan, R, Muraleedharan, S and Kumar, S (2011) Participatory conservation and monitoring of Great Hornbills and Malabar Pied Hornbills with the involvement of endemic Kadar tribe in the Anamalai Hills of southern Western Ghats, India. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 37–43.Google Scholar
Baicha, W (2016) Land Use Dynamics and Land Cover Structure Change in Thailand (As Exemplified by Mountainous Nan Province. Geography and Natural Resources 37, 87–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barlow, J, Lennox, GD, Ferreira, J, Berenguer, E, Lees, AC, Mac Nally, R, Thomson, JR, Ferraz, SFD, Louzada, J, Oliveira, VHF, Parry, L, Solar, RRD, Vieira, ICG, Aragao, L, Begotti, RA, Braga, RF, Cardoso, TM, De Oliveira, RC, Souza, CM, Moura, NG, Nunes, SS, Siqueira, JV, Pardini, R, Silveira, JM, Vaz-De-Mello, FZ, Veiga, RCS, Venturieri, A and Gardner, TA (2016) Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation. Nature 535, 144-+.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bowker, JN, De Vos, A, Ament, JM and Cumming, GS (2017) Effectiveness of Africa’s tropical protected areas for maintaining forest cover. Conservation Biology: The Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology 31, 559–569.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bruner, AG, Gullison, RE, Rice, RE and Da Fonseca, GA (2001) Effectiveness of parks in protecting tropical biodiversity. Science 291, 125–128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chaisuriyanun, S, Gale, GA, Madsri, S and Poonswad, P (2011) Food consumed by Great Hornbill and Rhinoceros Hornbill in tropical rainforest, Budo-Sungai Padi National Park, Thailand. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 123–135.Google Scholar
Crooks, KR, Burdett, CL, Theobald, DM, King, SRB, Di Marco, M, Rondinini, C and Boitani, L (2017) Quantification of habitat fragmentation reveals extinction risk in terrestrial mammals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114, 7635–7640.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cushman, SA, Mcgariyal, K and Neel, MC (2008) Parsimony in landscape metrics: Strength, universality, and consistency. Ecological Indicators 8, 691–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, RH and Urban, DL (2007) Neutral models for testing landscape hypotheses. Landscape Ecology 22, 15–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, RH, Milne, BT, Turnei, MG and O’neill, RV (1987) Neutral models for the analysis of broad-scale landscape pattern. Landscape Ecology 1, 19–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermhuk, S, Chaiyes, A, Thinkampheang, S, Danrad, N and Marod, D (2020) Land use and above-ground biomass changes in a mountain ecosystem, northern Thailand. Journal of Forestry Research 31, 1733–1742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurni, K and Fox, J (2018) The expansion of tree-based boom crops in mainland Southeast Asia: 2001 to 2014. Journal of Land Use Science 13, 198–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, DA, Bachan, KHA and Kannan, R (2011) Installation of artificial nest cavities for the endangered great hornbill: A pilot study in southern India. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 73–76.Google Scholar
Kitamura, S, Yumoto, T, Poonswad, P, Chuailua, P and Plongmai, K (2004) Characteristics of hornbill-dispersed fruits in a tropical seasonal forest in Thailand. Bird Conservation International 14, S81–S88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kupfer, JA (2012) Landscape ecology and biogeography: Rethinking landscape metrics in a post-FRAGSTATS landscape. Progress in Physical Geography-Earth and Environment 36, 400–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, X, Lu, L, Cheng, GD and Xiao, HL (2001) Quantifying landscape structure of the Heihe River Basin, north-west China using FRAGSTATS. Journal of Arid Environments 48, 521–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGarigal, K, Cushman, SA, Neel, MC and Ene, E (2002) FRAGSTATS v3: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Categorical Maps. the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Newmark, WD, Jenkins, CN, Pimm, SL, Mcneally, PB and Halley, JM (2017) Targeted habitat restoration can reduce extinction rates in fragmented forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114, 9635–9640.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pattanavibool, A and Dearden, P (2002) Fragmentation and wildlife in montane evergreen forests, northern Thailand. Biological Conservation 107, 155–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phromma, I, Pagdee, A, Popradit, A, Ishida, A and Uttaranakorn, S (2019) Protected area co-management and land use conflicts adjacent to Phu Kao - Phu Phan Kham National Park, Thailand. Journal of Sustainable Forestry 38, 486–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pichler, M, Bhan, M and Gingrich, S (2021) The social and ecological costs of reforestation. Territorialization and industrialization of land use accompany forest transitions in Southeast Asia. Land Use Policy, 101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pimm, SL and Jenkins, CN (2019) Connecting Habitats to Prevent Species Extinctions Conservation biologists are creating links between forest fragments where the most animals with small ranges live. American Scientist 107, 162–169.Google Scholar
Pimm, SL, Jenkins, CN, Abell, R, Brooks, TM, Gittleman, JL, Joppa, LN, Raven, PH, Roberts, CM and Sexton, JO (2014) The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science 344, 987-+.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomoim, N, Zomer, RJ, Hughes, AC and Corlett, RT (2021) The Sustainability of Thailand’s Protected-Area System under Climate Change. Sustainability 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poonswad, P and Tsuji, A (1994) Ranges of males of the great hornbill Buceros bicornis, brown hornbill Ptilolaemus tickelli and wreathed hornbill Rhyticeros undulatus in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. Ibis 136, 79–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodrigues, AS and Cazalis, V (2020) The multifaceted challenge of evaluating protected area effectiveness. Nature Communications 11, 1–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schleicher, J, Peres, CA and Leader-Williams, N (2019) Conservation performance of tropical protected areas: How important is management? Conservation Letters 12, e12650.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sims, KRE (2014) Do Protected Areas Reduce Forest Fragmentation? A Microlandscapes Approach. Environmental & Resource Economics 58, 303–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suksawang, S (2018) Protected area complexes: a new approach to connectivity in Thailand. Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany) 46, 25–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talerngsri-Teerasuwannajak, K (2020) Forests, peoples, and governments: Persistent land-use conflict in Northern Thailand. Economics of Peace and Security Journal 15, 19–35.Google Scholar
Tantipisanuh, N and Gale, GA (2013) Representation of threatened vetebrates by a protected area system in Southeast Asia: The importance of non-forest habitats. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 61, 359–395.Google Scholar
Trisurat, Y (2018) Planning Thailand’s protected areas in response to future land use and climate change. International Journal of Conservation Science 9, 805–820.Google Scholar
Trisurat, Y, Alkemade, R and Verburg, PH (2010) Projecting land-use change and its consequences for biodiversity in northern Thailand. Environ Manage 45, 626–639.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Trisurat, Y, Kanchanasaka, B and Kreft, H (2014) Assessing potential effects of land use and climate change on mammal distributions in northern Thailand. Wildlife Research 41, 522–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trisurat, Y, Shirakawa, H and Johnston, JM (2019) Land-Use/Land-Cover Change from Socio-Economic Drivers and Their Impact on Biodiversity in Nan Province, Thailand. Sustainability 11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Watson, JEM, Dudley, N, Segan, DB and Hockings, M (2014) The performance and potential of protected areas. Nature 515, 67–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, MC, Chen, XY, Corlett, RT, Didham, RK, Ding, P, Holt, RD, Holyoak, M, Hu, G, Hughes, AC, Jiang, L, Laurance, WF, Liu, JJ, Pimm, SL, Robinson, SK, Russo, SE, Si, XF, Wilcove, DS, Wu, JG and Yu, MJ (2016) Habitat fragmentation and biodiversity conservation: key findings and future challenges. Landscape Ecology 31, 219–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeng, ZZ, Gower, DB and Wood, EF (2018) Accelerating forest loss in Southeast Asian Massif in the 21st century: A case study in Nan Province, Thailand. Global Change Biology 24, 4682–4695.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhang, JJ and Su, FZ (2020) Land Use Change in the Major Bays Along the Coast of the South China Sea in Southeast Asia from 1988 to 2018. Land 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar