¿Es la cobertura forestal conservada y restaurada por las zonas protegidas?: El caso de dos áreas silvestres protegidas en el Pacífico Central de Costa Rica

Abstract

Changes in land use are mainly a consequence of anthropogenic actions. The current agricultural and urban transformations in Costa Rica have raised questions about the effectiveness of conservation and restoration within protected areas. Herein we analyzed the patterns of land use change between three periods: 1997, 2005 and 2010 in terms of magnitude, direction, and pace through categorical maps generated by the photointerpretation for La Cangreja National Park (LCNP), Rancho Mastatal Wildlife Refuge (RMWR), and their surrounding areas (SA), this last compound of one kilometer radius outside the protected areas' boundaries. The matrix which describes the landscape within the protected areas is natural coverage, composed mainly by forest cover and thickets. We found that the most abundant natural cover for both protected areas was forest cover for all years tested. The stability and large areas of forest cover in LCNP and RMWR for 2005 and 2010, reflected that policies, management actions and vigilance, have a positive impact on the conservation and restoration of natural habitats in these Costa Rican Central Pacific areas. However, the high landscape complexity of the SA in 1997, 2005 and 2010 was an evidence of the anthropogenic pressure on these protected areas, and suggested the ineffectiveness of local governments to monitor and abate land use changes, that could hinder the management, conservation and restoration of species in the protected areas. Rev. Biol. Trop. 63 (3): 579-590. Epub 2015 September 01.

Twenty Years of the National Protected Areas System: are Brazilian National Parks achieving their legal objectives?

“…In the year 2000 a federal law established a National System of Protected Areas (Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação, SNUC, literally translated as National Conservation Units System) (Brasil 2000), following a model similar to the one adopted in 1995 in Costa Rica with the creation of a protected area system with different management categories (Guzman & Heiner 2015). From then on, specifically in Brazil, the protected areas are known as Conservation Units (Unidades de Conservação -UC), a term used to distinguish them from other natural protected areas, such as indigenous or quilombola lands, or from legal reserves and permanent preservation areas, such as riparian forests and river springs .…”

Análise De Componente Principal Do Rappam Em Unidades De Conservação De Caatinga Na Depressão Sertaneja Setentrional, Brasil / Principal Component Analysis of Rappam in Caatinga Protected Areas in the Setentrional Sertaneja Depression, Brazil

“…As UCs são instrumentos legais de proteção imprescindíveis para a preservação ambiental, já que contribuem para reduzir a perda de áreas florestais, minimizando a degradação dos ecossistemas. Porém, essa função exercida pelas UCs não depende somente da porcentagem de área protegida, mas da sua eficácia (GUZMÁN;SIBAJA, 2015;LEBERGER et al, 2020).…”