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      The last frontiers of wilderness: Tracking loss of intact forest landscapes from 2000 to 2013

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          Abstract

          Intact forest landscapes have the greatest conservation value but are shrinking due to industrial logging and fragmentation.

          Abstract

          An intact forest landscape (IFL) is a seamless mosaic of forest and naturally treeless ecosystems with no remotely detected signs of human activity and a minimum area of 500 km 2. IFLs are critical for stabilizing terrestrial carbon storage, harboring biodiversity, regulating hydrological regimes, and providing other ecosystem functions. Although the remaining IFLs comprise only 20% of tropical forest area, they account for 40% of the total aboveground tropical forest carbon. We show that global IFL extent has been reduced by 7.2% since the year 2000. An increasing rate of global IFL area reduction was found, largely driven by the tripling of IFL tropical forest loss in 2011–2013 compared to that in 2001–2003. Industrial logging, agricultural expansion, fire, and mining/resource extraction were the primary causes of IFL area reduction. Protected areas (International Union for Conservation of Nature categories I to III) were found to have a positive effect in slowing the reduction of IFL area from timber harvesting but were less effective in limiting agricultural expansion. The certification of logging concessions under responsible management had a negligible impact on slowing IFL fragmentation in the Congo Basin. Fragmentation of IFLs by logging and establishment of roads and other infrastructure initiates a cascade of changes that lead to landscape transformation and loss of conservation values. Given that only 12% of the global IFL area is protected, our results illustrate the need for planning and investment in carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation efforts that target the most valuable remaining forests, as identified using the IFL approach.

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          Most cited references11

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          Primary forests are irreplaceable for sustaining tropical biodiversity.

          Human-driven land-use changes increasingly threaten biodiversity, particularly in tropical forests where both species diversity and human pressures on natural environments are high. The rapid conversion of tropical forests for agriculture, timber production and other uses has generated vast, human-dominated landscapes with potentially dire consequences for tropical biodiversity. Today, few truly undisturbed tropical forests exist, whereas those degraded by repeated logging and fires, as well as secondary and plantation forests, are rapidly expanding. Here we provide a global assessment of the impact of disturbance and land conversion on biodiversity in tropical forests using a meta-analysis of 138 studies. We analysed 2,220 pairwise comparisons of biodiversity values in primary forests (with little or no human disturbance) and disturbed forests. We found that biodiversity values were substantially lower in degraded forests, but that this varied considerably by geographic region, taxonomic group, ecological metric and disturbance type. Even after partly accounting for confounding colonization and succession effects due to the composition of surrounding habitats, isolation and time since disturbance, we find that most forms of forest degradation have an overwhelmingly detrimental effect on tropical biodiversity. Our results clearly indicate that when it comes to maintaining tropical biodiversity, there is no substitute for primary forests.
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            Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems

            Urgent need for conservation and restoration measures to improve landscape connectivity.
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              Climate change, deforestation, and the fate of the Amazon.

              The forest biome of Amazonia is one of Earth's greatest biological treasures and a major component of the Earth system. This century, it faces the dual threats of deforestation and stress from climate change. Here, we summarize some of the latest findings and thinking on these threats, explore the consequences for the forest ecosystem and its human residents, and outline options for the future of Amazonia. We also discuss the implications of new proposals to finance preservation of Amazonian forests.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Sci Adv
                Sci Adv
                SciAdv
                advances
                Science Advances
                American Association for the Advancement of Science
                2375-2548
                January 2017
                13 January 2017
                : 3
                : 1
                : e1600821
                Affiliations
                [1 ]University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA.
                [2 ]Laestadius Consulting LLC, Silver Spring, MD 20901, USA.
                [3 ]Greenpeace Russia, Moscow, Russia.
                [4 ]Greenpeace Germany, Hamburg, Germany.
                [5 ]Global Forest Watch Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
                [6 ]World Resources Institute, Washington, DC 20002, USA.
                [7 ]NGO Transparent World, Moscow, Russia.
                Author notes
                [* ]Corresponding author. Email: potapov@ 123456umd.edu
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5568-0504
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1091-2882
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4683-138X
                Article
                1600821
                10.1126/sciadv.1600821
                5235335
                28097216
                3cf1300d-d8b3-4c86-8bf3-da4dc85b1a9f
                Copyright © 2017, The Authors

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 18 April 2016
                : 29 November 2016
                Categories
                Research Article
                Research Articles
                SciAdv r-articles
                Conservation Biology
                Custom metadata
                Mikee Bernabe

                wildlands,forest,biodiversity,carbon storage,intactness,ecosystem services,remote sensing,intact forest landscapes

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