The effectiveness of Tiger Conservation Landscapes in decreasing deforestation in South Asia: a remote sensing-based study

Abstract

The alarming loss of tiger (Panthera tigris) populations due to degrading habitat called for an international commitment to double the wild tiger population by 2022 (''Tx2'' goal). In the present study, eighteen Priority Tiger Conservation Landscapes (PTCLs) distributed in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar were identified to investigate the trends in deforestation and fragmentation in core forest area. We used multi-decadal remote sensingbased maps to assess the rate of deforestation from 1975 to 2016. The time-series analysis revealed that there is a low to moderate level of deforestation reported in PTCLs from 1975 to 2016. The Northern Forest Complex-Namdapha-Royal Manas and Tenasserims are the geographically larger landscapes of the eighteen PTCLs that show the relatively high annual rate of deforestation from 2005 to 2016 due to the practice of shifting cultivation. The Mann Kendall trend test has indicated a statistically significant decreasing trend in deforestation across the 18 PTCLs. Overall, a low level of forest fragmentation was found in core forest habitat in the landscapes from 1995 to 2016. The results indicate management has been effective in minimizing habitat loss. The study outcomes would lead to a holistic understanding at the landscape level for long-term conservation planning in PTCLs.

Range-wide trends in tiger conservation landscapes, 2001 - 2020

“…The largest TCL in the world was the Northern Triangle of India, Myanmar, China, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, which covered 294,847 km 2 in 2020, 32.3% of all TCL area worldwide. Unfortunately, tigers are unlikely to be continuously distributed throughout this vast area (Lwin et al, 2021;Sarkar et al, 2021;Sabu et al, 2022). Conflicts in Myanmar and India have constrained on-the-the ground surveys; the consequences of those conflicts for tigers and their prey remain poorly understood (Win, 2022).…”

“…Subsequently, these maps have been cited in many analyses and planning efforts to save tiger habitat, plan surveys, and safeguard tigers (e.g. Dinerstein et al, 2007;Forrest et al, 2011;Global Tiger Initiative Secretariat, 2012;Joshi et al, 2016;Harihar et al, 2018;Sanderson et al, 2019;Sabu et al, 2022;Vasudeva et al, 2022). This paper describes the third iteration of systematic improvements to the Tiger Conservation Landscape approach (abbreviated hereafter TCL 3.0; Figure 1; Table 1).…”

Online Monitoring of Ecoenvironmental Pollution Data in Internet Environment

“…According to the distribution of sampling points in Figure 1, after soil sample collection is completed, the corresponding ecological pollution monitoring indicators are [19,20]. The monitoring equipment is used to monitor and collect relevant information and data on the ecological pollution of the land.…”

Simplified and High Accessibility Approach for the Rapid Assessment of Deforestation in Developing Countries: A Case of Timor-Leste

“…Despite the development of various algorithms and techniques for assessing FDD, many developing countries with limited resources for scientific research face significant challenges in monitoring and managing FDD [37,38]. However, these countries have made some progress in recent years in developing their capacity for environmental monitoring and management [39,40]. For example, many countries have established national systems for monitoring land use, forest cover change, and human activities using field survey data and satellite imagery [41][42][43][44].…”