SYSTEMATIC CONSERVATION PLANNING IN THAILAND DARAPORN CHAIRAT Thesis submitted in total fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY 2015 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that, anyone who consults it, is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author. Due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any material contained in, or derived from, this thesis. i ii Systematic Conservation Planning in Thailand Daraporn Chairat Abstract Thailand supports a variety of tropical ecosystems and biodiversity. The country has approximately 12,050 species of plants, which account for 8% of estimated plant species found globally. However, the forest cover of Thailand is under threats: habitat degradation, illegal logging, shifting cultivation and human settlement are the main causes of the reduction in forest area. As a result, rates of biodiversity loss have been high for some decades. The most effective tool to conserve biodiversity is the designation of protected areas (PA). The effective and most scientifically robust approach for designing networks of reserve systems is systematic conservation planning, which is designed to identify conservation priorities on the basis of analysing spatial patterns in species distributions and associated threats. The designation of PAs of Thailand were initially based on expert consultations selecting the areas that are suitable for conserving forest resources, not systematically selected. Consequently, the PA management was based on individual management plans for each PA. The previous work has also identified that no previous attempt has been made to apply the principles and methods of systematic conservation planning. Additionally, tree species have been neglected in previous analyses of the coverage of PAs in Thailand. These indicate the importance of this research. This research deals with the identification of complementary areas to the PA network in Thailand, specifically to support the conservation of tree species. This work also contributes to the improvement of conservation planning and PA network design in Thailand using the application of systematic conservation planning techniques. The research focused specifically on 783 target tree species, belonging to 92 families in Thailand, consisting of four groups of tree species that are respectively threatened with extinction, dominate the different forest types in Thailand, are of particular economic importance, and are important to in situ genetic conservation. A GIS-based multi-criteria analysis (MCA) approach was used to support systematic conservation iii planning. ILWIS, a GIS support software was used to identify priority conservation areas in this research. With currently data available, the crucial finding from this research is that the priority areas that should be considered for establishment of new PAs, or to expand existing PAs comprise: (1) areas next to current PAs in the Southern region and (2) areas near to Cambodia in Trat province in the Eastern region, areas near to PAs on Ko Chang and Ko Kut islands in the Gulf of Thailand. It also confirmed that the systematic conservation planning approach should be introduced to PA managers or planners. This should be possible because it is transparent and beneficial, and utilizes user-friendly spatial software to generate spatial data and easy to understand output maps. iv Table of contents Table of contents Abbreviations xv Author’s declaration xvii Acknowledgements xix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Systematic conservation planning 4 1.3 Plants and forests of Thailand 6 1.4 Research on protected areas in Thailand 17 1.5 Trees: the surrogates for biodiversity selected in the research 24 1.6 Aims and hypotheses 25 1.7 Methods 26 1.8 Structure of thesis 31 Chapter 2: Analysis of threats to the protected areas of Thailand 35 Abstract 35 2.1 Introduction 37 2.2 Objectives 40 2.3 Methods 40 2.4 Results 46 2.5 Discussion 69 Chapter 3: Gap Analysis of the protected areas of Thailand in 77 relation to the conservation of tree species Abstract 77 3.1 Introduction 79 3.2 Objectives 82 3.3 Methods 82 3.4 Results 87 3.5 Discussion 109 v Table of contents Chapter 4: The potential geographical distribution of selected tree 119 species in Thailand Abstract 119 4.1 Introduction 121 4.2 Objectives 123 4.3 Methods 124 4.4 Results 127 4.5 Discussion 139 Chapter 5: Systematic conservation planning 145 Abstract 145 5.1 Introduction 147 5.2 Objectives 151 5.3 Methods 152 5.4 Results 175 5.5 Discussion 184 Chapter 6: Discussion 205 6.1 Summary of the research findings 205 6.2 Limitations and uncertainties of the research 210 6.3 Recommendations for future research 212 References 217 Appendices 239 Appendix A: Lists of tree species 239 Appendix B: Maps of 22 layers analysed in ILWIS program 299 Appendix C: Forest Complexes of Thailand 305 Appendix D: Provinces of Thailand 306 vi Table of contents List of Tables Table 1.1 Distribution and composition of the principal 8 forest/vegetation types of Thailand (after Santisuk (2006)) Table 2.1 Forest area burned in national parks in 1999 – 2002 52 Table 2.2 Forest fire frequency in national parks in 2011 53 Table 2.3 Forest area burned in wildlife sanctuaries in 1999 – 2002 53 Table 2.4 Forest fire frequency in wildlife sanctuaries in 2011 54 Table 2.5 Comparison of forest area burned between national parks and 55 wildlife sanctuaries in 1999-2002 Table 2.6 Comparison of forest fire frequency between national parks 55 and wildlife sanctuaries in 2011 Table 2.7 Illegal area clearing in national parks in fiscal year 2009 – 55 2011 Table 2.8 Illegal logging in national parks in fiscal year 2009 – 2011 56 Table 2.9 Illegal area clearing in wildlife sanctuaries in fiscal year 2009 57 – 2011 Table 2.10 Illegal logging in wildlife sanctuaries in fiscal year 2009 – 57 2011 Table 2.11 Comparison between national parks and wildlife sanctuaries 59 regarding the illegal area clearing in fiscal year 2009 – 2011 Table 2.12 Comparison between national parks and wildlife sanctuaries 59 regarding the illegal logging in fiscal year 2009 – 2011 Table 2.13 The legal activities permitted in national parks in fiscal year 60 2006 – 2011 Table 2.14 The legal activities permitted in wildlife sanctuaries in fiscal 64 year 2006 – 2011 Table 2.15 The difference regarding number of PAs that have legal 67 activities permitted in each region in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in fiscal year 2006 – 2011 Table 2.16 The difference regarding frequency of legal activities 68 permitted in PAs in each region in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in fiscal year 2006 – 2011 vii Table of contents Table 3.1 Number of species of targeted groups of trees found inside 89 and outside protected areas Table 3.2 Species of targeted groups of trees found in different types of 89 protected areas Table 3.3 Number of all families of each group of selected tree species 91 that are found 100% outside protected areas Table 3.4 Number of all families of each group of selected tree species 93 that are found 100% inside protected areas Table 3.5 Number of all species of each group of selected tree species 95 that are found 100% inside protected areas Table 3.6 Number of all species of each group of selected tree species 99 that are found 100% outside protected areas Table 3.7 The comparison between the species representation target (%) 107 and the percentage of the extent of occurrence (EOO) of each species covered by protected areas. Table 3.8 The number of records of tree species with precise locations 112 and > 5 records/species found inside each protected area type and outside protected areas Table 4.1 Presence records partitions of training and testing records, the 129 results of areas under curve (AUC) of each tree species produced with Maxent using the environmental variables of both training and testing records, and their feature types used in Maxent Table 4.2 Selected environmental variables and their percent 131 contribution in Maxent for targeted tree species in Thailand Table 4.3 Whole area of three classes of habitat suitability of targeted 137 tree species (moderate, high, and very high suitabilities), their habitat suitability areas and percentage of protection in protected areas Table 4.4 The target trees species that have spatial aggregation more 140 than one record per 1 km2 viii Table of contents Table 5.1 57 tree species with > 5 records/species, together with the 152 AUC value of 24 of 57 species with AUC value > 0.75 (Chapter 4), and the consideration from the gap analysis whether the species are considered as covered species, partial gap species, or gap species (Chapter 3). To identify whether the species are considered as covered, partial gap, or gap species, the percentage of range inside PA of each species was compared to the percentage of representation target that was set individually for each species (more details showed in Chapter 3) Table 5.2 Criteria definitions, processes of producing raster maps of all 158 criteria layers, and sources of criteria Table 5.3 Input values of all criterion layers. Maximum and minimum 167 input values are presented, together with a consideration of criteria regarding whether they were considered as a benefit or as a cost in the process of standardisation, prior to weighting and normalisation Table 5.4 The normalised value of weights applied to subcriteria in four 169 Alternatives (A1 - A4) examined by MCA Table 5.5 The normalised value of weights applied to subcriteria in 172 seven Alternatives (B1 - B7) examined by MCA Table 5.6 The area (km2) of different categories of prioritisation 177 resulting from spatial MCA, applying different weights to three main criteria Table 5.7 The area (km2) of different categories of prioritisation 181 resulting from spatial MCA, applying different weights to six level I subcriteria Table A1 List of tree species mentioned in Thailand red data: plants 239 (Santisuk et.