From “Finca” to Forest: Forest Cover Change and Land Management in Los Santos, Panama
Ruth Ngolela Byrnes Metzel
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Princeton University Stephen Pacala, Ph.D April 26, 2010 This thesis represents my own work in accordance with University regulations.
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Ruth Metzel
1 Dedico esta tesis a mi hermanita Sarah, y a mis hermanas Santeñas This thesis is dedicated to my little sister Ana Cristina, Ana Carolina, Sarah, Anaís y Thaysth con la and to my Santeña sisters Ana Cristina, Ana esperanza que juntas dejarémos Carolina, Anaís, and Thaysth este mundo un mejor lugar que in hopes that together we will leave this world el que encontramos. a better place than we found it.
Artista/artist: Anaís García
2 Agradecimientos/Acknowledgements
Boca arriba miro el hondo Face up I stare into the deep Cielo en su dimensión, Sky in all its dimensions Busco el fín de la cuestión I seek the end of the question Pero nunca llego al fondo. But never reach the bottom, Me pregunto y no respondo I ask myself and find no answer Semejante magnitud, Of a similar magnitude Lo grande, la infinitud The immensity, the infinity De la sombra constelada Of the constellated shadow Y así no comprendo nada And thus, I understand nothing Y me asombra esa quietud. And am amazed by that stillness. ~ Décima Panameña, Changmarín ~ Panamanian Décima, Changmarín
Many people helped me in the attempt to understand the dimensions of this “constellated shadow,”1 and I am immensely grateful to them all. Many thanks to my adviser, Stephen Pacala, and to Stephanie Bohlmann, Anping Chen, and Jeremy Lichstein. I owe an incredible debt of gratitude to three extremely dedicated university students who helped me with the Santeño survey: Anayansi Vera, Javier Alexander Pérez, and Yanaira Barria – without your help, this thesis would not exist, and I would be eternally lost somewhere in the Azuero. To all the Santeño survey participants: you taught me more than these pages can ever contain – thank you. My thanks to Tsering Wangyal Shawa and William Guthe, Princeton’s GIS gurus, for their gracious responses to my many frantic questions. I also appreciate the contributions made to this work by Edwina Von Gal, Vernon Scholey, Omar Lopez, Ryan Chisholm, José Deago, Adrian de Froment, Angel García, Eva Garen, and by MIDA and ANAM technicians in Macaracas, Pedasí, and Las Tablas. Much love and gratitude to my parents, grandparents and friends, and twasakidila n’Zambi for blessing me with this unforgettable opportunity.
Muchas personas me ayudaron mientras intentaba entender las dimensiones de este “hondo cielo” y estoy inmensamente agradecida a todos. Muchas gracias a mi profesor Stephen Pacala, y a Stephanie Bohlmann, Anping Chen y Jeremy Lichstein. Debo muchísima gratitud a tres estudiantes universitarios extremadamente dedicados y creativos: Anayansi Vera, Javier Alexander Pérez, y Yanaira Barria – sin sus ayudas, esta tesis no existiría y yo estaría perdida eternalmente en algún rincón del Azuero. A todos los participantes de la encuesta: me enseñaron mucho mas que estas páginas jamás podrían contener – gracias. Gracias a Tsering Wangyal Shawa y William Guthe, los gurús de GIS en Princeton, por contestar mis preguntas frenéticas. También agradezco las contribuciones a mi trabajo hechas por Edwina Von Gal, Vernon Scholey, Omar Lopez, Ryan Chisholm, José Deago, Adrian de Froment, Angel García, Eva Garen, y los técnicos de las oficinas de MIDA y ANAM en Macaracas, Pedasí, y Las Tablas. Mucho amor y gratitud a mis padres, mis abuelos y mis amigos, y twasakidila n’Zambi por esta bendita oportunidad inolvidable.
This research would not have been possible without the generous support of the John T. Bonner Senior Thesis Fund, the Dean’s Fund, Princeton Environmental Institute, and the Round Table Senior Thesis Fund.
Because this thesis grew out of research I conducted for my junior paper, cited sections of my thesis introduction are modified from my junior paper and from a CEE334 paper on Panama.
1 Changmarín, translation by the author
3 TABLE OF CONTENTS AGRADECIMIENTOS/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 3 REFERENCE MAP OF LOS SANTOS, PANAMA...... 5 RESUMEN/ABSTRACT:...... 6 CHAPTER I: DEVELOPMENT, POPULATION DENSITY, AND THE FOREST TRANSITION ...7 THE SANTEÑO STORY...... 14 FOREST COVER AND CONSERVATION VALUES IN LOS SANTOS: WHY DO WE CARE?...... 18 CHAPTER II: DETECTING FOREST COVER THROUGH SATELLITE IMAGE ANALYSIS....20 METHODS ...... 20 Field Data Collection ...... 20 Classifying Current (2009) Forest Cover...... 22 Classifying Past (1990 and 2001) Forest Cover...... 24 Creating a Land Cover Change Map...... 26 RESULTS...... 26 DISCUSSION...... 30 Comparison of Results with Past Forest Cover Classifications ...... 30 Forest Cover Trends in Los Santos ...... 32 The Los Santos Forest Transition...... 35 A Preliminary Analysis ...... 35 CHAPTER III: FACTORS BEHIND SMALL-SCALE FOREST COVER CHANGE...... 37 METHODS ...... 37 Survey Development...... 37 Logistic Regression Analysis of Survey Data...... 40 Categorization of reasons for planting forest ...... 42 RESULTS...... 43 Characteristics Affecting the Decision to Maintain Forest ...... 43 Characteristics Associated with the Fraction of Land Forested...... 46 Stated Reasons for Leaving Forest on Land...... 47 DISCUSSION...... 48 Land and Labor Relationships with Forest Cover...... 48 Educational Effects? An Area for Further Research...... 50 Water and Cattle: Stated Reasons for Reforestation ...... 52 CHAPTER IV: THINKING BEYOND THE FOREST ...... 54 METHODS ...... 54 RESULTS...... 58 Trees Left on Land ...... 58 Trees Planted on Land...... 59 Live Fence Species and Management ...... 60 DISCUSSION...... 61 CHAPTER V: BLURRING THE LINE BETWEEN “FINCA” AND FOREST...... 65 THE RACE TOWARD EXOTIC TIMBER: PANAMANIAN REFORESTATION POLICY IN THE 1990S...... 67 POLICY SUGGESTIONS FOR LOS SANTOS ...... 70 CONCLUSIONS ...... 78 REFERENCES ...... 81 APPENDIX I: DISTRICT FOREST COVER DATA/INTERMEDIATE SATELLITE IMAGES.....89 APPENDIX II: SURVEY ...... 97 APPENDIX III: CHAPTER IV FIGURES...... 112
4 Reference Map of Los Santos, Panama
Districts within Los Santos province: 1. Macaracas 2. Los Santos 3. Guararé 4. Las Tablas 5. Pocrí 6. Pedasí 7. Tonosí
5 Resumen: Esta tesis investiga los factores socioeconómicos que hacen que una región llegue a su momento de transición forestal mediante una exploración del caso de la provincia de Los Santos, Panamá. Primero, determino si la cobertura boscosa en la provincia de Los Santos está aumentando. Segundo, determino los factores socioeconómicos que contribuyen a este cambio. Tercero, sugiero políticas para guiar este periodo de reforestación. Un análisis de imágenes de satélite Landsat demuestra que en el periodo desde el año 1990 hasta el 2009, cobertura boscosa aumentó 4.4% en Los Santos, señalando que esta provincia deforestada en el país mas próspero de América Central está experimentando una transición forestal. Al nivel del individuo, una encuesta de 85 administradores de tierras en dos distritos de Los Santos, Macaracas y Pedasí, indica que la decisión de mantener bosque en una propiedad se relaciona con la cantidad de propiedad que posee el dueño, la posesión de una ocupación secundaria, si la propiedad esta heredada, y si el dueño ha asistido a escuela secundaria (en Macaracas). La fracción de bosque mantenido por los dueños que si decidieron mantenerlo se relaciona con la cantidad de propiedad del dueño, su nivel educativo, y el número de sus hijos que trabajan en el sector agropecuario. Las respuestas de la encuesta sobre la administración de fincas revelan especies de árboles, razones, y ubicaciones de árboles en las fincas, y estrategias para el mantenimiento de las cercas vivas. Estos resultados sugieren estrategias para ampliar cercas vivas, incentivar plantaciones heterogéneas de especies nativas, y educar sobre la degradación de suelos como maneras de sostener el incremento actual de cobertura boscosa en Los Santos y asegurar que este incremento promueve la biodiversidad además de producir ganancia económica.
Abstract: This thesis explores the socioeconomic factors that lead a region to its forest transition point through examining Los Santos province, Panama. First, I determine whether forest cover is increasing in Los Santos; second, I determine the socioeconomic factors underlying this change; and third, I suggest policies to guide this reforestation period. An analysis of Landsat satellite images shows that from 1990 to 2009, forest cover increased 4.4% in Los Santos, indicating that this environmentally degraded province in the wealthiest Central American nation is experiencing a forest transition. At the individual level, a survey of 85 land managers in two Los Santos districts, Macaracas and Pedasí, indicates that the decision of whether to maintain forest is associated with land-holding size, secondary occupation, inheritance status of land, and secondary school education (in Macaracas). The fraction of forest maintained by those who do decide to maintain forest in Macaracas is associated with land-holding size, education level, and number of children working in agriculture. Participants’ answers to questions about farm management practices reveal the species, reasons and locations of trees left and planted on their farms, and their strategies for management of live fences. These results suggest that to sustain the current increase in forest cover and ensure that this increase promotes biodiversity the Panamanian government and non-profits should encourage live fence and riparian corridors, mixed native species carbon-timber plantations, and education about erosion and soil degradation.
6 Chapter I: Development, Population Density, and the Forest Transition
Across the world, nations are beginning to regrow forest. Forest transitions, points at which land begins to convert from other uses back into forest after centuries of deforestation, have been observed in countries ranging from Switzerland to Vietnam
(Mather 2007; Mather and Fairbairn 2000). The forest transition theory of land use suggests that although economic growth initially causes deforestation, as development proceeds, countries will eventually urbanize, and this decrease in rural population density should produce less deforestation (Metzel 2009). Accordingly, forest regrowth will occur first on marginal land in wealthy nations. This thesis evaluates whether a forest transition has occurred in Los Santos province, a highly deforested and environmentally degraded region in Panama, the wealthiest nation in Central America (WDI 2008).
Much of the empirical evidence for forest transition theory has been collected in temperate, developed nations and used to develop income (GDP per capita) thresholds past which forest cover within a region is predicted to increase. In the 19th and 20th centuries, forest transitions occurred on the Northeastern Atlantic coast of the United
States and in European nations, where land abandonment and afforestation followed urbanization (Mather et al. 1999; Mather and Fairbairn 2000; Mather 2004; Kauppi et al.
2006; Metzel 2009) The simplified relationship between population density, economic development and forest cover change can be described graphically by an inverse Kuznets curve where forest decreases until the transition point and then increases thereafter
(Cropper and Griffiths 1994).
7 The forest transition theory linking economic development and decreases in rural population density with afforestation not only explains past forest transitions but also predicts a certain threshold past which tropical, developing regions will begin to regrow forest. Income thresholds past which countries will begin to afforest range from $1,300
(in 2003 dollars; Panayotou 1995) to $10,000-11,800 (in 2003 dollars; Madhusudan et al.
2001; Yandle et al. 2004). Yet, where are these tropical forest transitions? Out of all developing regions, forest transition predictions are most optimistic for Latin America, predicting a net increase in regional forest cover by 2030 (Metzel 2009; Wright and
Samaniego 2008). However, Latin American countries with incomes above the most stringent $10,000-11,800 GDP per capita threshold in 2003 are still deforesting (WDI
2008).
Although Latin America has a lower deforestation rate (0.33%/yr) than Asia
(0.36%/yr) and Africa (0.71%/yr), the region is still deforesting (Achard et al. 2002).
Studies report that tropical deforestation produces approximately 20% of global anthropogenic carbon emissions (Stern et al. 2006), project that global food demand will double within 50 years (Tilman et al. 2002), and claim that the recent surge in biofuel production may indirectly lead to tropical deforestation by increasing pressure on cropland (Searchinger et al. 2008). This research suggests that a large-scale tropical forest transition is not imminent. If some tropical countries have passed the threshold income value after which forest regeneration is predicted, where is the forest regrowth in these regions?
Researchers have recently begun to identify some Latin American forest transitions at provincial and national scales in Puerto Rico (Lugo and Helmer 2004; Grau
8 et al. 2003; Parés-Ramos et al. 2008), the Dominican Republic (Grau et al. 2007),
Ecuador (Rudel et al. 2002), Argentina (Grau et al. 2008; Izquierdo et al. 2008), El
Salvador (Hecht and Saatchi 2007), and Honduras (Southworth and Tucker 2001).
However, although they show forest regrowth, many of these studies question whether this increase in forest cover results from decreasing rural population density, initially considered one of the dominant factors influencing forest regrowth (Mather 1992). In the
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and El Salvador, no relationship was found between population density or outmigration and forest cover (Grau et al. 2003; Hecht and Saatchi
2007; Rudel et al. 2002), while in Honduras, population density increased along with forest cover (Southworth and Tucker 2001).
While these empirical studies have shown little relationship between regional forest cover and population density, the “hollow frontier” hypothesis suggests that population density can decrease while forest cover remains static or even decreases within a region. The “hollow frontier” hypothesis questions forest transition theory and its use as evidence for policies promoting rural-to-urban migration by suggesting that rural populations may leave their land and thus decrease population density, but rather than being abandoned, their land is consolidated into increasingly larger landholdings
(Casetti and Gauthier 1977; Heckadon-Moreno 1983; Metzel 2009). Thus, a transition from subsistence agriculture to large-scale industrial agriculture or cattle ranching may actually decrease forest cover while also decreasing population density (Metzel 2009). A study of a region of the Brazilian Amazon found that despite a decrease in population density, cattle pasture remains the dominant land use, and large ranchers themselves live in urban areas while investing capital into deforestation of rural areas (Fearnside 2008;
9 Metzel 2009). Research from the Darién region of Panama also supports the “hollow frontier” theory; from 1990-2000, the population decreased by almost 20% in the
Darién’s most populous Bayano region, but pasture area and number of cattle increased by 50% and 100%, respectively (Sloan 2007; Metzel 2009). Thus, decreased population density does not always produce land abandonment and reforestation.
In the world of macroscopic forest transition theory, the term “forest cover” shifts from defining an intact ecosystem to a broader definition encompassing all concentrated regional tree regrowth. A forest transition in no way implies the regeneration of healthy biodiverse forest ecosystems. Rather, the “forest” that regrows after a forest transition can encompass everything from agroforestry to monoculture exotic forestry plantations to secondary succession forest growth (Hecht and Saatchi 2007, 664). Studies in Argentina raise questions about the ecological integrity of regenerated forest cover, showing that contiguous, biodiverse forests may continue to be cut as monoculture forest plantations numerically increase forest cover but with a much lower ecological value, often due to slow biodiversity recovery or exotic invasive species (Grau et al. 2008; Izquierdo et al.
2008).
While forest transition theory largely focuses on what tips the scales in a forest- agriculture dichotomy, many areas experiencing forest transitions are redefining the traditional conceptions of agriculture and forest. For example, the definition of “forest” has now stretched and expanded into the realm of agroforestry and carbon offset forests.
These “forests” prioritize specific ecosystem services over others. Agroforestry prioritizes increasing tree cover on cropland or in pasture in order to increase agricultural productivity, while carbon offset forests may prioritize the carbon storage capacity of a
10 forest without regard for its sustained biodiversity or ecological integrity. The recognized importance of maintaining and increasing forest cover to mitigate global warming has increased interest in these land uses that blur the line between intact forest ecosystems, food production systems, and timber plantations. These land uses, and the policies that encourage them, may precipitate the forest transition in countries that are on the brink of a reforestation trend.
Methods of increasing forest cover are of particular importance in tropical regions, where deforestation rates are highest and where the greatest incentives exist to implement carbon storage projects. These incentives include voluntary carbon market projects, which tripled in growth to a value of more than US $7 billion in 2008 (Hamilton et al. 2009), mandatory carbon markets like those managed through the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union, and the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) program, scheduled to begin its implementation phase in 2012 (UN-REDD 2009). Identifying forest transitions is important because it can guide how and where the international community implements
REDD and other carbon storage projects to achieve the greatest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
In examining afforestation trends according to traditional forest transition theory, we would expect a forest transition most likely to occur on the least productive land in the richest country within a region (Grau et al. 2003, 1160). This thesis examines the forest transition and its contributing factors in Los Santos province, Panama, precisely because this province exhibits the characteristics typical of a region at the transition point. Hilly land with nutrient-poor soil is usually the first to transition from deforestation
11 to afforestation (Southworth and Tucker 2001; Grau et al. 2007). Los Santos is one of the most heavily deforested and nutrient-poor Panamanian provinces (CONALSED 2008).
Panama is the wealthiest Central American nation (WDI 2008), and Los Santos is the province with the third highest human development index (0.710) in Panama; the two most developed provinces, Panama (0.764) and Colón (0.715; CONALSED 2008, 38) contain the urban centers at either end of the Canal. The combination of nutrient-poor, marginal land and a high level of economic development suggests that a forest transition is in store for Los Santos’ immediate future. Panamanian regions, like Los Santos, that were progressively deforested from the Spanish conquest in the 16th century until the first agricultural census was taken in 1947 are the regions first expected to experience this transition (Wright and Samaniego 2008). Indeed, at a national level, Panama’s recent documented increase in forest cover from 1992 to 2001 after five decades of recorded deforestation was heralded as a national forest transition (Wright and Samaniego 2008).
Yet, although from 1992 to 2001 Los Santos reforested along with the nation as a whole, data on provincial population density changes during the same time echo earlier studies’ questioning of the inverse relationship between population density and forest cover. Sloan presents data showing that although total forest cover in Los Santos remains low, since 1980 Los Santos province has been slowly reforesting as its population density increases (Table 1; Sloan 2007; Metzel 2009). However, despite this increasing trend and a potential Panamanian forest transition on a national scale during the 1990s, ANAM’s estimates of forest cover for 2008 in Los Santos show that forest cover in the province has decreased since the turn of the century (ANAM, CATHALAC 2009; ANAM,
12 CATHALAC 2008; Metzel 2009). Is Los Santos, the Panamanian province with the least forest and one of the highest proportions of marginal land, undergoing a forest transition?
Table 1: Population and Forest Cover Data for Los Santos Province (1960-2008) 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2008
Population 70,544 72,380 70,261 76,947 83,495 90,259 Population density 16.5 16.7 15.4 16.5 17.7 19.1 (inhabitants/km2) Forest Cover ~ 186 ~ 212 279 257.16* (km2) Forest cover (% ~ 4.8 ~ 5.4 7.2 6.76 total km2) Source: Date from Sloan 2007, Metzel 2009, Data for 2008 are taken from Contraloria (population) and ANAM (forest), 2008, *forest cover includes mature forest, mature secondary forest, mangrove and forestry plantations larger than 50 ha
Los Santos province is a region likely to demonstrate the traditional relationship between increased economic development, decreased population density, and forest cover. Yet, census data suggests that in Los Santos, as in many Latin American regions that have undergone forest transitions, there is a more complex combination of socioeconomic factors that confound the relationship between GDP per capita, population density, and forest cover change.
The complex combination of influences on forest cover and ambiguity in the direction of forest cover change make designing regional policy difficult. For policymakers, the choice between investing in forestry projects, carbon offset forests, or food production is one made with paper, but for landowners in Los Santos, this decision is one made with their pockets. Decisions about whether to reforest or replant trees are made with limited financial resources in a cultural context that has historically emphasized the importance of tangible agricultural productivity and viewed the presence of forest as a resource to be exploited to exhaustion (Heckadon-Moreno 2009). Los Santos may be poised at the brink
13 of a forest transition, and this study aims to understand how and why forest cover in the province has changed from 1990 to 2009 by asking the following questions:
1) First, is forest cover in Los Santos, Panama currently increasing or decreasing? Is
the province undergoing a forest transition?
2) Second, what are the socioeconomic factors contributing to forest cover change
within the province?
3) Third, what policies can government agencies or non-governmental organizations
implement to encourage reforestation that promotes biodiversity and other
ecosystem services that do not have immediately visible economic benefits to
land managers?
A study of how and why forest cover is changing in Los Santos, Panama has the potential to inform new government and non-profit incentives to precipitate and guide reforestation during periods of forest transition.
The Santeño Story
¡Onde hay "hombres machos" no hay palo que se resista!2 Where there are real men, no tree can resist them.
Los Santos, Panama is situated between 7°13’32” and 8°00’05” N and 80°37’50” and 80°22’21” W on the Central American isthmus. The province encompasses the southeastern third of the Azuero Peninsula, stretching from the forested fringes of Cerro
Hoya National Park in the southwest to the coastal urban centers of La Villa de Los
Santos and Las Tablas in the northeast (see reference map). Los Santos experiences a dry
2 Moises Castillo, La Derriba
14 season from December to April and a bimodal rainy season from May to November with a short dry period, the “Veranillo de San Juan,” in June (Love and Spaner 2005;
Heckadon-Moreno 1983). With 1600-1700 mm of average annual rainfall, the province is one of Panama’s driest regions and has a long history of serious droughts (Contraloria
2001; Heckadon-Moreno 1983; Heckadon-Moreno 2009). The eastern part of the province forms part of “El Arco Seco,” a dry region that was at one time covered by a
Panamanian dry forest ecoregion that differed dramatically from the mangrove forests along the coast and the wet tropical evergreen forest that still exists in Cerro Hoya
National Park today (Olson et al. 2001). Less than 2% of Mesoamerican tropical dry forests are left and the forest type is critically endangered on a global scale because it is highly desired for human colonization and exploitation (Janzen 1988; Miles et al. 2006).
Within Panama, tropical dry forest has been almost entirely eliminated (Deago and Perez
2001). After centuries of human exploitation, virtually no primary dry forest exists in Los
Santos, and large contiguous patches of secondary regrowth are scarce.
Even before the arrival of the Spanish in the mid 16th century, the eastern Azuero peninsula was colonized by Pre-Columbian human settlement and used for rotating crop cultivation (Cooke et al. 2007). When the Spanish arrived in eastern Los Santos province, they likely found a deforested plain that had been occupied and altered by humans for almost 3000 years (4405 BP) and contained only fragments of riparian and hilltop forest
(Cooke and Ranere 1992). However, despite early Paleoindian settlement and centuries of maize cultivation by the Spanish, up until the late 19th century, the density of cattle on the peninsula was kept low and institutions like communal forests allowed for the preservation of some dry tropical forest (Heckadon-Moreno 1983). The completion of the
15 Panama Canal Railway in 1855 and the Panama Canal in 1914 spurred an enormous increase in the demand for beef from the rapidly urbanizing centers of Colón and Panama
City (Heckadon-Moreno 2009). The steady stream of Santeño colonizers from eastern
Los Santos to the southwestern parts of the peninsula in the 1880s and 1890s became a flood from 1903 to 1924 as the new Panamanian government expropriated common lands and then sold them to wealthy individual landowners (Heckadon-Moreno 1983). In 1926, the Panamanian government gave the Tonosí Fruit Company rights over ~40,000 ha in the southwestern part of the province, and granted similar large concessions to other international companies. Many of the small-scale farmers that sold their land to the company because of economic temptation or eviction rumors moved to more remote areas of Tonosí or to neighboring districts in search of new land, contributing further to deforestation.
Once forested land in Los Santos became scarce in the 1960s and 1970s, Santeños began to migrate to urban centers like Panama City and other forest frontiers like Darién province seeking new opportunities working with the Canal or clearing forest for cropland and pasture (Heckadon-Moreno 1983; Hernández 1967). By 1980, Los Santos had the largest out-migration of any province in the country, with 79.6% of its emigrants settling in Panama City (Gandasegui 1980, 106-7; Metzel 2009). In 2000, 51.3% of people born in Los Santos were living in other parts of the country (79.2% of these in
Panama City), making it the second highest province in terms of emigrant population, second only to the Darién (Vignoli 2004, 70-72; Metzel 2009).
In the past two decades, a new demographic has been introduced into Santeño society. Foreign residents and tourists have increasingly populated the coastal areas of the
16 province. From 1990-2000, the foreign-born population in Los Santos province increased by 66% but still made up a small 0.5% of the total registered Santeño population
(Contraloria 2000). This small but wealthy population of Canadians, U.S. Americans,
Europeans, Israelis and wealthy Panamanians have invested in seasonal and permanent residences in coastal areas like Pedasí district, causing property values in these areas to skyrocket (Levin 2008). From 2006-2009, the Panamanian Ministry of Public Works registered 45 investment projects in Los Santos, ranking it third in the nation in terms of new investment, trailing Panamá and Chiriquí provinces (IPAT 2008). However, these large investments in Los Santos are still in their initial phases, and have yet to draw a high volume of tourists for short stays in the province. In 2008, Los Santos had roughly the same small percentage of hotel rooms (1.42%; IPAT 2008) in the country as it had in
2000 (1%; Condo et al. 2001). The Azuero peninsula still hosts only 3% and 4% of the national total of nightly tourist stays and tourist visits, respectively (IPAT 2008). This tourism development is also largely confined to the province’s coast. For example, while the town of Pedasí has at least three hotels and more line the district’s coast, residents in
Macaracas, the only district that is entirely landlocked, comment on the fact that their district has no hotel.
Much of the tourism development in Los Santos markets itself by advertising the region’s real or perceived ecological heritage. Yet although many of these new tourism and housing developments profess environmental values, and the press highlights the
“green side” and “ecological treasures” of the Azuero peninsula, it is unclear what role the foreign-born community or the recent coastal tourism development will play in the changing environment and ecology of the peninsula (Hinestroza 2008; Rodríguez 2007).
17 The arrival of this foreign demographic, added to the two historically influential populations - small-scale subsistence farmers and large-scale landowners - already on the peninsula, creates a complex environment for designing reforestation policies that successfully appeal to all landowners in Los Santos.
Forest Cover and Conservation Values in Los Santos: Why do we care?
Forest cover trends are important to Santeño society because of what they mean to the economy of the region. If the coastal areas begin to market themselves as tourist destinations based in part on the province’s ecotourism value, the unique ecology of the peninsula, with its endangered endemic species like the Azuero spider monkey, acquires a greater economic importance to the human population. As early as 1967, studies noted a regional decline in agricultural and soil productivity in the province (Hernández 1967), effects that will likely worsen as the effects of climate change intensify. Lastly, the potential for carbon storage forestry and REDD projects on the peninsula makes this an opportune time to examine its forest cover trends and reforestation practices.
This thesis examines forest cover change both at a provincial scale and individual decision-maker level. In Chapter II, satellite image analysis highlights large-scale deforestation and reforestation patterns at the provincial and district level. An analysis of these trends determines whether Los Santos is, in fact, at its forest transition point.
Chapter III examines these trends at a finer scale by examining the factors that are associated with an individual land manager’s decision to maintain forest on his/her land.
Chapter IV explores which trees land managers leave and plant on land designated for other uses, and the reasons they provide for maintaining these tree species in a productive
18 agricultural system. Chapters V and VI conclude by exploring the implications of these micro- and macroscopic trends for the future of Los Santos province and how the results of this study can inform future Panamanian land use policy and reforestation efforts led by the growing nonprofit community on the peninsula.
19 Chapter II: Detecting Forest Cover Change through Satellite Image Analysis
To answer the question of how forest cover is changing in Los Santos and how trends in forest cover change differ at the district level, I analyzed satellite images spanning the past two decades.
Methods
Field Data Collection
I collected Global Positioning System (GPS) ground control points on the Azuero
Peninsula during two field seasons (August-September, 2009, and December-January,
2010) to provide ground-truth information for a supervised classification of forest cover in Los Santos province. During the first August-September field season, two members of the Pacala Laboratory at Princeton University and I collected 429 GPS data points, accompanied by a category label (pasture, agriculture, water body, forestry plantation, forest, mangrove, urban, or abandoned field/”rastrojo”), a description, a compass direction, an estimated distance to center, and a photograph of the land use parcel observed. We collected these season 1 GPS points along major and minor roads accessible by four-wheel drive pickup truck during the Panamanian rainy season using a
Garmin GPSmap 60CSx device (See Figure 1.A for season 1 point locations)
During the second December-January field season, I collected 191 ground-truth
GPS points to check my supervised classification. I used car, horse, and foot transportation to collect this second round of GPS points, focusing my efforts on transition areas between forest and pasture to further clarify the distinction between forest and pasture in my classified image. Data collection areas included two sides of Cerro
20 Canajagua, two private forest patches near Cambutal and Tonosí, two sections of the La
Tronosa forest reserve, the El Colmón communal forest, the road between Macaracas and
Tonosí, and small interior roads near Cerro Quema (See Figure 1.B for season 2 point locations). I used these season 2 GPS points to independently verify the accuracy of the forest and agricultural classification categories in my satellite image analysis.
Figure 1: A. locations of Aug.-Sept. season 1 GPS points (97) used to classify 2009 Landsat image, B. locations of Dec.-Jan. season 2 GPS points (114) used for accuracy assessment of 2009 image
It is important to emphasize that “forest cover” is defined broadly for the purposes of this study, and consists of any patch of tree cover that is larger than 30 meters by 30 meters in surface area (the size of a Landsat 7 image pixel) with a minimum age estimate of 5 years. The term “forest cover” does not in any way signify a healthy or un- fragmented ecosystem, and encompasses forestry plantations, riparian corridors, and large isolated tree stands. The Food and Agriculture Organization has a similarly broad
21 definition of forest cover which includes “areas under reforestation that have not yet reached but are expected to reach a canopy cover of 10 percent and a tree height of 5 m”
(FAO 2004). Although my definition will register a much larger percentage of forest cover in Los Santos than have previous studies focusing on the few large intact forest fragments that remain in the province, I believe this broader definition is instrumental to highlighting interesting areas of priority focus based on the degree to which these fragments can be used to extend forest cover.
Classifying Current (2009) Forest Cover
I performed a supervised land cover classification on bands 1-5 of a March 12,
2009 Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) image subset of Los Santos province, Panama, using the maximum likelihood estimation method in ERDAS software. The maximum likelihood estimation method classifies pixels into land cover classes based on their best fit within each class’s probability distribution function, which is assumed to be Gaussian (Campbell 2007; Lillesand and Kiefer 2000). Before classification, I subset this image with the political boundaries of Los Santos3 in ArcGIS and trained the software using 97 season 1 ground truth GPS points. In the field, we originally labeled data training points with one of the eight land cover categories mentioned above, but before performing the supervised classification, I consolidated these eight original categories into four training classes and added cloud and cloud shadow to produce a total of 6 classification categories:
3 Political boundaries obtained from Tommy Guardia Geographic Institute, Panamá
22 • agricultural (agriculture • water
and pasture points) • urban
• forest (forest and • cloud
mangrove points) • cloud shadow
Plantation and rastrojo points were few in number and extremely heterogeneous in pixel value, so I eliminated them from the analysis before performing the supervised classification.
The number of points used to train the classification is much lower than the collected number of field points for several reasons. Points located outside the boundaries of Los Santos province, in cloud cover, and within the lines of ETM+ sensor malfunction were discarded from the analysis. In addition, I moved GPS points in the software that were taken along paved roads and visually perceived to be influenced by road pixel values a further distance perpendicular to the road into their corresponding land use patch. The March 12, 2009 primary image classification has an accuracy of 95.24% when tested against the original classification data set and an accuracy of 89.38% when tested against the independent forest and agricultural season 2 ground truth data set (Table 2).
Table 2: Satellite images used in forest cover classification Year Satellite Source Image Date Classification Accuracy (%, Accuracy Use (primary same (%, or classification independent replacement) points) data set) 2009 Landsat 7 ETM+ 3-12-2009 Primary 95.24 89.38 Landsat 7 ETM+ 4-26-2008 Replacement 89.71 70.37 2001 Landsat 5 TM 2-10-2001 Primary 100 -- Landsat 5 TM 1-17-2001 Replacement 96 -- 1990 Landsat 5 TM 3-8-1990 Primary 96 -- Landsat 5 TM 12-15-1988 Replacement 92 -- Landsat 5 TM 1-3-1987 Replacement 92 --
23 Landsat 7 ETM+ images taken after 2001 have an irreparable sensor malfunction that causes large striping across parts of the images (Williams 2009; Chander et al. 2009).
To eliminate this striping effect in the 2009 image, I classified a second Landsat 7 ETM+ image taken in 2008 and replaced striped, cloudy, and shadowed areas in the 2009 classification with this secondary classification using ArcGIS. This secondary 2008 image is 89.71% accurate when tested against its own classification points, and 70.37% accurate when tested against the independent forest and agricultural season 2 ground truth data set (Table 2).
I determined the percentage of forest cover for individual districts within Los
Santos by extracting district subsets from this 2008-2009 composite image in ArcGIS.
After eliminating unclassified, cloud, and cloud cover classes from the district total, I calculated pixel percentages dedicated to each land cover class within each district. I performed these district level calculations with and without eliminating the striping sensor defect area to determine how closely the composite image matched the primary
2009 image classification.
Classifying Past (1990 and 2001) Forest Cover
To classify past forest cover, I followed my 2009 classification procedure using a smaller dataset of 29 ground truth points taken during my survey and forest visits (Figure
2). For each data point on this list, the forest or pasture owner verified that the land use had remained static for at least 30 years. I determined urban, water, cloud, and cloud cover classification points by visually interpreting the image and added these points to
24 the list of forest and agricultural points collected in the field to produce a total of 70 training points.
For each year, multiple image classifications of Landsat 5 satellite images were combined to eliminate cloud and cloud shadow cover as much as possible through the same method used for the 2009 image. For 2001, a February 2001 primary classification image with replacements by a January
2001 classification formed the basis of the analysis. For 1990, I used a 1990 image with replacements by 1988 and
1987 images. District totals were calculated using the same method used for 2009 and thus, surface areas that were covered with remaining unclassified data (sensor stripes), cloud Figure 2: Locations of GPS points (29) taken at locations that have not changed land use for the past or cloud shadow are not accounted for 30 years and were used to classify 1990 and 2001 Landsat images within this analysis. The last images mosaicked into the 2001 and 1990 composite images, the 1-17-2001 and 1-3-1987 images, were classified without the urban category, because when urban was included it contaminated portions of the agricultural areas in rural parts of the image. Urban should form a minor, distinctive portion of the image, since most of the urban area occurs in the major cities along the eastern coast of the province. The percentages of usable surface area used to calculate forest cover in each image when remaining cloud, cloud shadow and unclassified surface covers are eliminated are presented, by district, in Appendix I.
25
Creating a Land Cover Change Map
Once I obtained supervised classifications for 1990, 2001, and 2009, I created land cover change maps for the 1990-2001, 2001-2009, and 1990-2009 time periods. The change maps show the net deforestation and reforestation that occurred during these time intervals.
Results
The 2009 classified image of Los Santos (Figure 3) reveals a landscape that is
34.14% forested under this study’s broad definition of forest, with Tonosí district containing the highest percentage of forest (51.67%) and Los Santos district containing the lowest percentage of forest (13.33%).
26
Figure 3: Composited classification of 2009 land cover in Los Santos province, Panama (3-12-2009, with replacements from 4-26-2008), “No data” category includes unclassified stripes, cloud and cloud shadow classes
According to the numerical district level data, Los Santos province experienced a slight
4.40% increase in forest over from 1990-2009, but when this increase is disaggregated to the district level, we see that the smaller coastal, flatter districts like Guararé, Los Santos and Pocrí experienced an initial decrease in forest cover from 1990-2001, and then
27 increased in forest cover from 2001 to 2009 to achieve a net reforestation over the past two decades (Figure 4). During the study period, Los Santos district consistently had the lowest percentage of forest cover, while Tonosí had the highest. All districts had more forest cover in 2009 than they did in 1990. For 1990, 2001, and 2009 composited classified images and a full breakdown of the percentage of the images classified in each land cover class for each year, see Appendix I.
Figure 4: Forest cover change from 1990-2009 in Los Santos by district using composited image data The land cover map for Los Santos province shows changes in forest cover from
1990 to 2009 (Figure 5). Most of Los Santos province was deforested in 1990 and remained in agricultural use (shown in yellow) throughout the study period. A large part of the deforestation (red) in the province occurred in the southwestern part of the province (Tonosi district), near Cerro Hoya National Park and the La Tronosa Forest
28 Reserve, with smaller deforested patches dispersed across the central region of the province. Reforestation occurred along the eastern edge of the La Tronosa Reserve, in small patches dispersed across the province interior and in riparian zones in the
Southeastern Pedasí district. For 1990-2001 and 2001-2009 land cover change maps, see
Appendix I.
Figure 5: 1990-2009 Land cover change map for Los Santos province, Panama
29 Discussion
Comparison of Results with Past Forest Cover Classifications
The total forest cover in this analysis of Los Santos province is more than five times the amount officially estimated by ANAM, the Panamanian environmental agency.
Whereas ANAM identified 6.76% of Los Santos province as forested in 2008 (using
2005 and 2006 images), I estimate that Los Santos has 34.14% forest cover in 2009
(using 2008 and 2009 images). This five-fold difference is due to differences in our classification methods and definitions of forest cover. ANAM performed an unsupervised classification, after which their analysis filtered out all areas less than 45000 m2 (less than
200 15 m x 15 m ASTER pixels; ANAM, CATHALAC 2009). Thus, all forest patches with less than 4.5 ha of contiguous tree cover were disregarded from the ANAM analysis, thereby eliminating most riparian corridors, expanded live fences, and small forest patches in rotating agricultural systems (Figure 6). The ANAM definition of forest cover in Los Santos includes mature forest, mature secondary forest, mangrove and forestry plantations larger than 50 ha, but does not include intervened forest, “rastrojo” (young regrowth), or small forestry plantations (ANAM, CATHALAC 2009).
30
Figure 6: ANAM Classification of 2008 forest cover in Los Santos province, Panama, Source: ANAM, 2009
31 In contrast to the official ANAM analysis, this thesis defines “forest cover” as any patch of tree cover with a minimum age estimate of 5 years that is larger than 30 m by 30 m, or 0.09 ha, in surface area. This broad definition does not in any way signify a healthy or un-fragmented ecosystem, and encompasses small forestry plantations, riparian corridors, and large isolated tree stands. Much of what I consider “forest cover” ANAM classifies as rastrojo, intervened forest or part of their subsistence agriculture category, and thus does not count toward their total forest cover. However, these small patches of tree cover clearly contribute much to Los Santos’ total forest cover, and are arguably of more interest than contiguous forest to policymakers and nonprofits looking to expand and connect larger existing forest fragments. Together, the ANAM analysis and this thesis provide two different degrees of detail that can be used alternately depending on the user’s priorities. ANAM’s analysis provides a better sense of the large intact remnants of forest ecosystem on the peninsula, while this thesis provides an estimate of tree and forest cover patches that one might prioritize for expansion within this deforested landscape.
Forest Cover Trends in Los Santos
Even though these results are preliminary and require more research, they highlight some hot spots within the province to monitor closely for forest cover change.
The 1990-2009 land cover change classification map highlights areas of concentrated reforestation and deforestation. Small-scale rotating subsistence agriculture, often called slash-and-burn, or “roza,” may explain many of the smaller patches of forest cover change in the interior of the peninsula. These patches of small-scale deforestation and
32 afforestation may appear to be long-term forest cover change when they are actually constantly being rotated through a series of different land uses. In Los Santos, farmers using the “roza” method attempt to overcome the low soil quality of the region by cycling their land through forest, agriculture, pasture, and then “rastrojo,” or young regrowth, phases (Heckadon-Moreno 1983). Through this process a land manager can simultaneously clear primary or secondary forest on one part of his land, often through burning, and regenerate young forest on another part that is torn down 10-20 years later to plant crops and then raise cattle as the soil nutrient levels decrease.
A large part of the reforestation throughout the province seems to be located in riparian zones. This can perhaps be seen most clearly in the watersheds along the southern coast, where many smaller water sources have been reforested. However, small riparian forest patches are also extremely vulnerable as some of the last remaining timber resources in the heavily agricultural areas of the peninsula. Two of the three watersheds in Los Santos rank in the top three most deforested watersheds in the nation, with less than 4% forest cover (ANAM 2009b; ANAM, CATHALAC 2009). Thus, streams and rivers serve as key areas for determining total regional forest cover because they are simultaneously a conservation priority and a resource under constant pressure for exploitation.
Key areas of large –scale reforestation include Cerro Canajagua and Cerro
Quema, two large hills in the center of the peninsula that contain large forest patches.
Forest regrowth near Cerro Canajagua may be due to the fact that Las Tablas’ municipal government declared the area a national forest reserve in 1990. A large 14,900 ha property owned by an inactive open pit gold mine near Cerro Quema may be the site of
33 some of the regeneration in this area (Bellhaven 2009), yet mine employees did not respond to the author’s request for information, and so this hypothesis remains unconfirmed by the property owner. Land cover in this region may change substantially, as Bellhaven mining company, which recently acquired the Cerro Quema property on
January 4, 2010, plans to begin construction of an active mining operation this year
(Bellhaven 2010; Bellhaven 2009; Benedetti 2010). A feasibility study conducted in 2009 projected that the mine would have an estimated life of 8 years during which 28,000 oz in gold and $71 million dollars in cash flow would be extracted annually from the property
(Benedetti 2010).
Tonosí district appears to have experienced the greatest contiguous reforestation and deforestation of any district in the province. As the outer fringes of the La Tronosa
Forest Reserve increase in forest cover, the interior parts near Cerro Hoya, which are often unreachable by road and require several days’ travel by horse and boat, appear to be deforesting. This alarming trend suggests that subsistence farmers, who farm the greatest percentage of surface area of Tonosí district compared to the other districts in Los Santos
(ANAM, CATHALAC 2009), may be leaving behind old locations to regenerate secondary forest at the fringes of these two conserved areas only to push westward and clear large portions of the single large contiguous segment of primary forest left on the
Azuero peninsula. In this case, clearing of the interior of Cerro Hoya may be due to small-scale farmers rather than large-scale agriculture because of the lack of transportation infrastructure to export crops from this area of the province to a larger market. The evidence of deforestation in Cerro Hoya National Park calls for more research into land use dynamics in Tonosí district and the factors contributing to within-
34 district migration of farmers, a demographic shift that the 2010 Panamanian census may clarify.
The Los Santos Forest Transition
The numerical data show that all districts in Los Santos grew in net forest cover from 1990 to 2009, suggesting that a forest transition is occurring in the province.
However, although every district in Los Santos experienced a net reforestation from 1990 to 2009, districts did not all grow in the same way. The coastal provinces (Guararé, Los
Santos, and Pocrí) and the provinces that cover large expanses in the interior (Macaracas,
Tonosí, and Las Tablas) exhibit strikingly different patterns of forest regrowth. Along the coast, forest cover decreased from 1990 to 2001, and then jumped up during the 2001-
2009 period to recoup that loss. In provinces that extend into the interior, forest cover increased steadily, but with more regrowth during the 2001-2009 period. Pedasí is the only district in the province that experienced a slight decrease in forest cover from 2000 to 2009.
A Preliminary Analysis
The results of this study suggest that Los Santos province is slightly increasing in forest cover and is undergoing a forest transition. However, several sources of error in this analysis complicate the discussion of my results. First, because of the Landsat 7
ETM+ sensor malfunction and cloud cover, I had to replace part of my primary images with other images. Ideally, a classification would be performed on a set of non- composited, clear, un-striped images. Secondly, I used a much smaller set of points to
35 classify past images. Ideally, histogram matching and linear regression would allow translation of the present category signatures obtained from ground test points in the 2009 image into signatures used to classify all past images. I attempted this method, but failed to produce results, thus necessitating classification of past images based on a smaller static land cover points list. Thirdly, the low percentage of forest increase in the early stages of forest transition is difficult to detect. Documentation of a larger and consistent increase in forest cover than the 4.40% indicated in these results is necessary to provide robust evidence for a forest transition above classification error. Despite these potential sources of error, the results’ indication that Los Santos is reforesting has important implications for the province. However, future studies should monitor forest cover in the province to determine if a significant and long-term reforestation period is occurring.
36 Chapter III: Understanding the Factors Behind Small‐Scale Forest Cover Change – A Survey at the Individual Level
Given the results of the Chapter II large-scale forest cover classification, forest cover in Los Santos may be increasing at a provincial level, but understanding how individual land managers make decisions regarding whether to maintain forest is critical to analyzing forest cover change. In order to understand the social and economic factors that are correlated with Santeño land managers’ decisions about whether to maintain forest on their land, I conducted a socioeconomic survey in two districts of the province. I chose Macaracas and Pedasí districts as survey sites because of their very different topographies, geographies and social influences. Pedasí is flat, coastal, and relatively socially diverse due to its recent foreign immigration, while the Macaracas terrain is hilly, entirely landlocked, and home to a more homogeneous segment of Santeño society.
The patterns of forest cover change observed from 1990 to 2009 are also different in these two provinces: in Macaracas, forest cover has steadily increased throughout the past two decades, while Pedasi was the only province to decrease in net forest cover from
2001 to 2009. Understanding the factors that influence the decision to maintain forest patches in these two provinces can help determine the extent to which policies and initiatives implemented in one district will be successful in another part of Los Santos.
Methods
Survey Development
37 To determine factors related to individual farm manager decisions to maintain forest, I developed and revised a 46-item Spanish-language questionnaire. Three
Panamanian Spanish-speakers edited the questionnaire, and then I tested it with four land managers from the Pedasí area for communication errors and misunderstandings. The survey consisted of questions in the following four categories:
1) Family history and personal characteristics (education levels, origins and
occupations of the land manager and his/her children, parents and grandparents);
2) Land management practices (clearing techniques, land dedicated to varied uses,
tree species left or planted, live fence maintenance);
3) Farm or land holding costs and gains;
4) Questions about wildlife and local culture (endangered species, land sales,
foreigners, cultural change; See Appendix II for the complete questionnaire).
Survey Administration
I administered the survey orally to 88 land managers from Macaracas and Pedasí districts during two seasons: August-September 2009 and January 2010. Survey participants are called “land managers,” a term that encompasses owners, paid administrators, and family members most actively responsible for managing the land because these individuals know the details and make most of the decisions regarding land management. During a property visit following each of the Pedasí surveys, I took GPS points to locate each property and identify areas of land use change (Figure 7). Due to time constraints, I did not conduct property visits following the Macaracas surveys, but instead noted the general locations of land holdings. Participants answered the same
38 questionnaire in each district, with a few questions omitted in Macaracas because the questions were too vague and confusing to participants for answers to be consistently reliable (see italics in Appendix II).
In Pedasí, I selected survey participants first by convenience (surveying the first 5-8 land managers present at the time of the community visit [3-9 PM]), and then from a list of landowners provided by technicians at MIDA, Panama’s agricultural development agency. Macaracan survey participants were interviewed at the same time of day as those in Pedasí and selected from a list of landowners provided by MIDA. Farmers Figure 7: Approximate land holding locations of survey participants in two districts in Los Santos – and ranchers generally work in the field from 7 Macaracas (top left, locations approximate) and Pedasí (bottom right, 41/44 locations taken with GPS), AM to 4 PM in Los Santos, making the survey numbers correspond to multiple survey participants in the same general location hours above the most opportune time to find land managers willing to participate. During farm consultations and technical seminars, each district MIDA office compiles district-wide lists of agriculturalists and ranchers, which they made available for study purposes. Interviews varied in duration from ~40 minutes to 2 hours and were conducted by the author and a Spanish-speaking university student from Los Santos province in Spanish (except for two interviews with foreign land managers conducted in English) at the home of each survey participant.
39 Before analyzing the survey results, I removed the foreign-born participants’ responses (one in Macaracas and two in Pedasí) from the analysis pool, leaving a pool of
Panamanian land managers (Table 3). Many characteristics of participants are similar across the two districts, although more participants in Macaracas maintain forest and more participants in Pedasí inherited their land and hold a secondary occupation.
Foreign-born participants were too few (3) to be a separate study group, and were too uncharacteristic of the rest of the survey population to be considered appropriately with the rest of the survey sample.
Table 3: Characteristics of survey participants, independent variables in the logistic model of the decision to maintain forest are in bold, n = number of individuals Characteristic Macaracas Pedasí (M; n=43) (P; n=42) Have Forest (% [n]) 62.5 (25) 42.9 (18) Have Cropland (% [n]) 86.05 (37) 69.05 (29) Have Pasture (% [n]) 100 (43) 88.10 (37) Have Forestry Plantations (% [n]) 25.58 (11) 21.43 (9) Mean Age (years) 57.91 63.91 Mean Land Holding Size (ha) 119.16 112.89 Mean Education (years) 7.09 7.02 Attended all/part of Secondary School (% [n]) 32.55 (14) 26.19 (11) Mean Time Administering Land (years) 26.72 27.57 Mean Time spent on Farm (hours/week) 30.80 28.49 Inherited Land (% [n]) 34.9 (15) 45.2 (19) Hold Secondary Occupation (% [n]) 30.2 (13) 45.2 (19) Mean Family Size (% [n]) 2.6 2.7 Mean Grown Children in Agriculture (#) 0.60 0.52 Mean Grown Children in Los Santos (#) 1.58 1.29 Mean grown children who have completed high 1.35 1.33 school (#)
Logistic Regression Analysis of Survey Data
Model regression was the primary tool used in a two-tiered analysis to determine:
40 A. Which characteristics are associated with land managers’ decisions about whether
to maintain forest on their land?
B. Of those land managers who do maintain forest, which characteristics are
associated with the fraction of forest they maintain on their land?
To answer the first question of why land managers decide to maintain forest, a logistic regression analysis in R compared the relative contribution of the characteristics listed in bold in Table 3 to the decision to maintain forest. I chose to use a logistic regression over linear discriminant analysis because in my two-tiered analysis the dependent variable was a dichotomous decision about whether to maintain forest cover, the independent variables were both categorical and numerical, and not all of the variables can be assumed to be of a normal distribution. Land holding size data was incorporated as the logarithm of holding size because the size data were heteroskedastic
(Press and Wilson 1978). The logistic regression function can be expressed as the following equation:
p log = β0 + β1X1 + β2 X 2 + ...+ βn X n 1− p
where p is the probability of a land manager maintaining forest on their land, β0 is the € axis intercept, βn are regression coefficients, and X n are the variables chosen through model selection from the list of characteristics in the table above (Overmars€ and Verburg
2005;€ Hilbe 2009). I compared the various€ models first by using a table of independent correlations to determine which variables were most related to the decision to maintain forest cover and second, by fitting the model to the data by dropping variables in a stepwise fashion until finding the best-fit model with the lowest Akaike information criterion (AIC). The AIC uses the estimated Kullback-Leibler distance between models
41 and the unknown true distribution of values and the maximum log-likelihood of the
model to estimate the fit of a given model out of the set of models presented. The AIC
formula can be expressed as:
−2(L − k) AIC = n
where L is the maximum log-likelihood, k is the number of variables in the model, and n
represents the number of observations€ in the data set (Burnham and Anderson 2002;
Hilbe 2009, 259). According to this model, the best-fit model will have a smaller relative
AIC, which can be used for models that contain both categorical and continuous variables
(Hilbe 2009).
Among the survey participants that did maintain forest on their land in Macaracas
and Pedasí, a second, multiple linear regression compared the relative relationship of the
same list of variables with the fraction of forest survey participants maintained in each
location (Y). This linear regression function can be expressed as the following general
equation:
Y = β0 + β1X1 + β2 X 2 + ...+ βn X n
where β0 is the axis intercept, βn are regression coefficients and X n are variables chosen
from the above characteristics.€ I fit the model to the data by dropping variables in a
€ stepwise fashion using€ the F ratio and the coefficient of€ determination ( R2) to determine
the model that best fit the data (Faraway 2006; Hocking 2003).
€
Categorization of reasons for planting forest
After asking survey participants with forest the open-ended question of why they
maintained forest on their land, I placed the answers to this question into 15 categories:
42 • water protection/retention • aesthetic value
• cattle shade/summering spot • tradition/lack of labor
• rotating agriculture • erosion
• for birds/wild animals • animal fodder
• medicinal products • government mandate
• construction/timber • too steep/unusable for other uses
• firewood and other wood uses • other environmental reasons
• fruit
For more information about the categorization of survey answers see Chapter IV.
Results
Characteristics Affecting the Decision to Maintain Forest
Across Macaracas and Pedasí survey sites, greater land holding size (Figure 8.A), possession of a secondary occupation (Figure 8.B), and inheritance of all of land (Figure
8.C) correlate significantly and positively with the decision to maintain forest on land
(Table 4).
43
Figure 8: Differences in Land holding size (A; p = 0.000146) between survey participants and in percentage of survey participants that maintain forest according to secondary occupation (B; p = 0.004138) and inheritance (C; p = 0.041456) status in Macaracas and Pedasí districts, when pooled together (n = 85)
44
Figure 9: Percentage of survey participants that maintain forest according to completion of some secondary schooling (> 6 years vs. ≤ 6 years schooling) in Macaracas (n=43; p = 0.003078) and Pedasí (n = 42) districts
In Macaracas, a significantly greater proportion of participants who had completed more years of schooling past primary school maintained forest on their land, whereas the Pedasí data exhibited no correlation of schooling with forest maintenance
(Figure 9). The number of grown children who graduated from high school was negatively correlated with whether or not landowners maintained forest, even when family size was incorporated into the model. I did not observe any relationship between age, years of administering land, the total hours spent weekly on land, or number of grown children in Los Santos or in agriculture and the decision to maintain forest.
45 Table 4: Results of a logistic regression analysis relating characteristics of survey participants to their decision of whether to maintain forest on their land, AIC = 95.193 Characteristic Coefficient Standard z Pr(>|z|) estimate error value p-value Intercept -9.9820 2.8021 -3.562 0.000368 Log (Land holding size) 1.3662 0.3597 3.798 0.000146 Secondary occupation 2.3812 0.8304 2.867 0.004138 Family size (number of children) 0.4325 0.1985 2.179 0.029310 Macaracas: Has completed past primary 3.4774 1.5756 2.207 0.027314 school Macaracas: Inheritance 1.9538 0.9583 2.039 0.041456 Pedasí: Inheritance 2.3988 1.0698 2.242 0.024939 Macaracas: Number of grown children who -1.1562 0.3906 -2.960 0.003078 have completed high school Pedasí: Number of grown children who -0.4973 0.2771 -1.794 0.072749 have completed high school
Characteristics Associated with the Fraction of Land Forested
Next, I compared the relative contribution of these characteristics to the fraction of land forested by those participants who do maintain forest by analyzing each of the two sites individually through a linear regression. Among participants who maintain forest in Macaracas, farmers with less land (p=0.005), more education (p=0.03), and who did not have children working in agriculture (not significant at the p< 0.05 level, p =
0.061) left a greater fraction of forest on their land than those who did not have these characteristics (Table 5). In Pedasí, however, none of these characteristics exhibited a significant effect on the fraction of land forested among survey participants who maintained forest.
46 Table 5: Results of a linear regression analysis relating characteristics of survey participants in Macaracas that maintain forest to the fraction of forest maintained on their land Characteristic Coefficient Standard t value Pr(>|t|) estimate error p-value Intercept 0.288378 0.078363 3.68 0.00139 log (Land holding size) -0.050553 0.016002 -3.159 0.00473 Education level (in 0.007885 0.003307 2.384 0.02663 years) Have grown children -0.060896 0.030815 -1.976 0.06141 that work in agriculture Multiple R-squared: 0.4515,Adjusted R-squared: 0.3731 F statistic = 5.761 on 3 and 21 DF, p = 0.00488
Stated Reasons for Leaving Forest on Land
When I asked survey participants why they maintained forest on their land, water protection and retention (reported by 38.5% of forest owners) was the most commonly stated reason, followed by providing a “cattle shade/summering spot” during the dry season (23.1%; Figure 10).
47
Figure 10: Reasons for leaving forest on land among proportion of survey participants in Macaracas and Pedasí that leave forest (n = 39)
Discussion
The survey results suggest a collection of factors that are associated with the decision to maintain forest at the individual level and the fraction of land forested among those participants that do decide to leave forest on their land.
Land and Labor Relationships with Forest Cover
Of all the characteristics considered in this analysis, land holding size most significantly correlates with land managers’ decisions about whether and how much forest to maintain on their land. Large landowners are more likely to choose to maintain some forest than small landowners. However, as land-holding size increases, the results
48 of the linear regression in Macaracas indicate that the proportion of forest that land managers maintain decreases, even though the actual hectarage of forest may remain the same or actually increase. Therefore, although forest patches on the properties of large landowners may cover more total surface area, they may make up a smaller proportion of the landscape. Such findings have serious implications for environmental decision- makers, because they suggest that reforestation programs targeting the few large landowners on the peninsula may increase the total forest cover by a greater amount, but these patches will be more isolated within the landscape. By contrast, programs focusing on many small-scale landowners in a particular geographic area may be less effective at increasing total forest cover on the peninsula but more effective at reforesting a higher proportion of the landscape in that area. Neighborly cooperation to reforest adjacent forest patches can decrease the isolation of forest fragments within larger individual land holdings.
During the course of my interviews, participants would sometimes lament the fact that parts of their land had reverted to rastrojo or forest due to their inability or lack of time to work on their farms. Indeed, much of forest regrowth in Los Santos may be the byproduct of other social processes rather than intentional decisions, and therefore may not necessarily affirm that forest regrowth is important to land managers. The reason survey participants with a secondary occupation are more likely to maintain forest may be because farming is no longer their primary source of income or because they have less time to work all areas of their land intensively.
Inheritance and secondary occupation status are two characteristics that exhibit a strong relationship with the decision to maintain forest, possibly because they affect how
49 much labor land managers put into the land. According to the results, land managers who have inherited all of their land are also more likely to maintain some forest on their land.
This may be because they did not expend the effort to clear or buy the land, and so may therefore feel less need to derive maximum economic profit from it. In Macaracas, my results suggest that among land managers who maintain forest on their farms, the more children land managers have working in the agricultural sector, the smaller the fraction of forest on their land. Since in Los Santos, land managers traditionally divide their land among all of their children, if a land manager has more children that rely upon agriculture and land as their primary source of income, these children may manage the land more intensively for economic gain, thus leaving less room for forest regrowth.
Educational Effects? An Area for Further Research
In Macaracas, education is both related to the decision to maintain forest and the fraction of forest maintained by those land managers that do have forest. Survey participants who had completed at least some secondary school (more than 6 years of education) were significantly more likely to maintain forest than those who had not studied past primary school. These results are supported by studies in other parts of Latin
America. Honduran Tawakha Amerindians with more than four years of education were less likely to cut down old growth forest (Godoy et al. 1998). Among Bolivian
Amerindians, one year of increased schooling decreased area of old growth forest cut each year by approximately 15% (Godoy and Contreras 2001).
The majority of secondary schools in Los Santos are located in urban centers, with 45% located in Las Tablas and Macaracas alone (Contraloria 2006), and so for many
50 students who live in smaller towns, attending secondary school entails a large change that involves more than simply switching schools. Finishing some years of secondary school implies an exposure to town life, an increased breadth of knowledge, and the possession of the resources to commute daily or live near the secondary school. Even though fraction of land maintained as forest increases with increasing education level in Macaracas, the relationship between formal education and forest cover is tenuous. Given that today, more than one quarter of high-school aged Santeños do not attend or finish secondary school (74.3% enrollment rate; Contraloria 2003), increased emphasis on environmental education and programs for adults and elementary school students, particularly in rural areas, may increase environmental knowledge among populations that do not enroll in or graduate from secondary school.
The relationship between increased education level and increased fraction of forest maintained on land is not observed among Pedasí survey participants. This may be because recent reforestation and agroforestry initiatives have focused on landowners in
Pedasí, many of whom may not have attended secondary school. In one of these initiatives, PRORENA, more than half of the participants did not have a secondary education (Garen et al. 2009). Initiatives that involve some land managers in a community can increase education about reforestation issues in the community at large, thus providing one hypothesis for why traditional schooling does not exhibit as strong a relationship with fraction of forest left on Pedasí participants’ land as it does in
Macaracas. The relationship of education and forest conservation merits further study, as a greater number of grown children graduated from high school was correlated with decreased forest cover even when family size was also incorporated into the model, a
51 result that invites further research. According to the logistic model, larger family size correlates positively with the decision to maintain forest, which is itself an unexpected result.
Water and Cattle: Stated Reasons for Reforestation
Survey participants stated water protection and cattle shade as reasons for leaving forest on their land. This echoes the results of previous studies. A survey of Santeño participants in the PRORENA initiative reported water protection and shade/water for cattle as their two primary reasons for leaving trees along streams (Garen et al. 2009).
Throughout my survey, participants mentioned the increasing scarcity of water, and directly connected the presence or absence of trees near water sources to local water scarcity problems. The connection of forests and water is well known in Los Santos, and although past authors have cited the idea that trees “suck up” water and compete for humidity of the soil as one reason why Santeños initially deforested their landscape
(Heckadon-Moreno 1983), this study indicates that water preservation is one of the key reasons land managers in Los Santos maintain forest on their land.
The second most frequently mentioned reason for leaving forest on land, as a cattle shade/summering spot, illustrates the centrality of livestock ranching in the Santeño agricultural system. Even forest, a land use traditionally seen as competing with pasture for cattle (Hecht 1993), is evaluated based on its value to cattle ranching. Only two out of
45 survey participants who answered regarding whether they fenced off their forest from their pasture kept forests fenced off year round, and in one of these cases the owner mentioned that the forested hill was so steep that it was dangerous to his livestock. This
52 finding suggests that forests are widely used as grazing grounds for livestock, and thus has important implications for forest regrowth. The introduction of cattle affects forest ecosystems by compacting the soil, damaging seedlings, decreasing grass biomass, and decreasing species richness and diversity (Griscom et al. 2005; Posada et al. 2000). The wide use of forest patches for cattle grazing in Los Santos suggests that Santeño land managers will be less likely to accept reforestation initiatives that exclude cattle grazing.
53 Chapter IV: Thinking Beyond the Forest Use and Incorporation of Trees in the Agricultural Landscape
Land managers contribute to tree cover in more ways than simply through the small patches of forest that some maintain on their land. My satellite image analysis indicates that land managers incorporate trees into land dedicated primarily to other uses in ways that may not be considered forest patches, but that still contribute to total forest cover on the peninsula. To study the factors that influence the choice of trees left or planted on land designated for other purposes like cattle ranching or crop cultivation, I analyzed survey participants’ responses regarding their tree species preferences, along with answers revealing why and where land managers leave or plant these tree species on their land.
Methods
Using data on tree leaving and planting preferences of land managers from the socioeconomic survey described in Chapter III, I divided participants into two groups based on whether or not they left a patch of forest on their land and asked them to specify which tree species they left and planted on their land. Whereas leaving trees implies a recognized value for a particular species on the land, planting exacts a laboral and/or monetary cost from the land manager. Thus land managers may be willing to leave or maintain certain species on their land that they are not willing expend the money or labor needed to plant. The survey contained separate questions on leaving versus planting trees as a way to distinguish between these two levels of commitment. Identifying these
54 species is key to understanding how to most efficiently subsidize or encourage tree planting in communities on the peninsula. Because my survey used home interviews, it forced participants’ memory-based naming of tree species and recall of their uses without visual cues. The species named through this survey technique are thought to correspond with those species of greatest importance and interest to survey participants, but may not represent the total number of tree species present on the participant’s land (Love and
Spaner 2005, 43). Although I ask whether or not survey participants leave or plant trees and the characteristics of those trees, there are no data about the quantity of trees left on land presented in this chapter.
After identifying tree species left and planted, I compared the reasons for leaving or planting trees on land according to how frequently these reasons were mentioned by survey participants when asked why they left tree species on their land. In my analysis, I categorized participants’ responses to this open-ended question into 11 categories of reasons for leaving or planting trees:
1. Fruit (for humans),
2. Construction/timber,
3. Water protection/retention – Answers placed in this category include “to shade
water,” to “increase humidity,” and stating that trees were planted near streams.
4. Shade (for livestock, fences, or humans),
5. Fodder (for livestock) – Tree species commonly used for fodder include Guazuma
ulmifolia [guácimo], Enterolobium cyclocarpum [corotú], and Pseudosamanea
guachapele [guachapalí].
6. Firewood and other wood uses,
55 7. Biodiversity and Environmental Reasons – Answers include the need to leave
trees perceived as important for birds and wild animals, the need “to produce
oxygen,” and the wish to leave trees so that children/grandchildren will recognize
tree species.
8. Government mandate/suggestion – Answers include remarks about ANAM
restrictions on felling trees and suggestions or plantings provided by government
agencies (MIDA and ANAM) through reforestation programs.
9. Medicinal Products – In the traditional, communal agricultural system in Los
Santos, medicinal and fruit trees were generally left in the commons for the
benefit of the whole community (Heckadon-Moreno 2009, 51).
10. Aesthetic values – Answers include observations on beauty or patriotism
(Sterculia apetala [Palo de Panamá]) as reasons for leaving species on land.
11. Erosion – This was an anticipated response given the hilly Los Santos terrain but
was never mentioned by survey participants.
The reasons mentioned above are categories delineated based on answers given and anticipated by survey participants and are thus descriptive of survey participants’ decisions and perspectives. Live fences and fence stakes are not included in the reason categories listed here because participants were asked a separate series of questions about live fence species choice and management.
After considering the reasons survey participants leave or plant trees, I grouped responses to the open-ended question of “Where do you leave trees?” into 11 categories:
• Along a water source • Along the road
• Along a fence • By the house
56 • In the corners of pasture/land • On hills or slopes
• In the most accessible areas • Dispersed in pasture/wherever
• Near crops • Other
• On flat parts of land
I also created a “no response” category because many participants in Pedasí did not answer this survey question. “Dispersed in pasture/Wherever” encompasses answers that participants gave when they did not have a set location or said that location was not a dominant factor in their decision to leave or fell trees. When analyzing the reasons and locations participants leave or plant trees, reported percentages represent the number of participants mentioning a reason or location out of the number of participants that stated that they leave or plant trees, not the total number of participants surveyed.
Landowners use live fence posts throughout Central America for their durability, and the ease and low cost with which they can be harvested to construct more fence.
Farmers prize these species for their ability to form calluses over the entry point of barbed wire and their ability to grow from a shoot produced by pruning another tree of the same species. In cattle-production areas of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, tree crowns in live fences covered 3.2-12% of total pasture area (Harvey et al. 2003). Although these trees are used in much of Central America to prevent livestock movement, to divide land parcels, and for secondary uses like fodder, firewood, timber and fruit (Schroth 2004), the extent to which live fences add to total tree cover and foster biodiversity is less well known. In my survey, I asked participants questions about the tree species they used in the live fences themselves (attached to the wire), and if they left trees bordering the live fence, which species were left.
57 Results
Trees Left on Land
Survey participants with forest are not significantly more likely to leave trees on other parts of their land than those without forest patches (Two-tailed Fisher exact test, p=1). All survey participants except two (83 out of 85) reported leaving trees on land.
When I compared the species left by survey participants with and without forest, priorities were similar among participants with and without forest patches and among participants from Pedasí and Macaracas. Across all survey groups, survey participants mentioned Guazuma ulmifolia (guácimo; cattle fodder), Cedrela odorata (cedro amargo; timber), and Manglifera indica (mango; fruit) among the top five species left on land
(Appendix III: Figure 1).
The top five reasons for leaving trees on land were animal fodder, fruit, water protection/retention, construction/timber, and shade (Appendix III: Figure 2). Participants consistently mentioned these as the top five reasons for leaving trees across all survey groups. Only survey participants with forest mentioned biodiversity/environmental reasons for leaving trees (13% and 24% at Macaracas and Pedasí sites, respectively). No participants mentioned medicinal uses or erosion. Of the locations specified for leaving trees, “dispersed in pasture/wherever” and “by water source” ranked highest among participants’ answers (Appendix III: Figure 3). For more information on live fences and fence stakes, not included in this section, see Live Fence Species and Management below.
58 Trees Planted on Land
The percentage of survey participants that plant trees on their land (71.8%) is significantly lower than the number that leave trees (97.6%; z-test, p < 0.0001).
Significantly more land managers with forest plant trees on the rest of their land than land managers without forest (Two-tailed Fisher Exact test, p = 0.05 (M), p = 0.005 (P)). The five tree species that survey participants most frequently mentioned planting consisted exclusively of fruit and timber species: Citrus sinensis (orange/naranjo), Mangifera indica (mango), Tectona grandis (teak/teca), Cedrela odorata (cedro amargo), and
Swietenia macrophylla (caoba; Appendix III: Figure 4).
The reasons survey participants reported for planting trees also reflect these two priorities; in every survey group, construction/timber and fruit uses topped the list of reasons for planting (Appendix III: Figure 5). Construction/timber ranked first in the
Macaracas survey groups, while fruit ranked first in Pedasí. Participants mentioned water protection/retention as a reason for planting trees at three out of the four sites.
“Government mandate/suggestion” was mentioned as a reason for planting in Macaracas but not in Pedasí. Although survey participants with forest mentioned biodiversity/environmental reasons for leaving trees, no participants mentioned biodiversity/environmental reasons for planting trees. In terms of location, all survey participants in Macaracas most frequently mentioned planting trees by fences, water sources, and houses (Appendix III: Figure 6). Some survey participants mentioned anecdotally that they prefer to plant timber species by fences and fruit species by houses.
Too few survey participants in Pedasí specified a planting location to be conclusive.
59 Live Fence Species and Management
When I asked participants which tree species they used in their live fences,
Bursera simaruba (carate) and Astrocaryum alatum (coquillo) ranked in the top three species used across all four survey groups (Appendix III: Figure 7). Participants in all four groups also used Gliricidia sepium (balo) and Spondias mombin (jobo). In
Macaracas, approximately half of participants used Bursera tomentosa (caratillo; used by
44% and 50% of participants with and without forest, respectively), whereas no participant in Pedasí mentioned using B. tomentosa in live fence construction. Around three quarters of participants in Pedasí mentioned using Spondias purpurea (ciruelo) in their live fences (ranked 2nd in use by forest and non-forest land managers), while it was mentioned by approximately one quarter of Macaracas participants. Macaracas survey participants explained that they did not use S. purpurea because it dried out, rusted and damaged the fence wire, was acidic, and/or fell down often. In Macaracas and Pedasí, the mean number of tree species planted in live fences was not significantly different between survey participants with and without forest (3.84 and 3.72 (M), and 3.65 and 3.4
(P), respectively; Welch t-test, p= 0.80 (M) and p = 0.63(P)).
Land managers with forest are not significantly more likely to leave trees along live fences than those without forest patches (Two-tailed Fisher exact test, p= 0.67 (M) and 0.51(P)). Tree species reported as left along live fences by more than 25% of survey participants consist exclusively of timber and fodder species (Appendix III: Figure 8).
Four timber species - C. odorata (cedro amargo), P. quinata (cedro espino), Cordia alliodora (laurel), and Tabebuia rosea (roble) – and one fodder species, G. ulmifolia
(guácimo), were the most common species planted along live fences.
60 Discussion
Although land management practices are generally similar among survey participants with and without forest, these two groups differ with respect to the tree species left and planted on their land. A higher percentage of survey participants with forest plant trees on their non-forested land than participants without forest, and only survey participants with forest state “biodiversity/environmental reasons” as reasons for leaving trees on their land. The finding that survey participants with forest also plant trees on the other parts of their land is important because these trees may increase the connectivity of the landscape, and thus the species diversity of the forest patches maintained by these individuals (Pardini et al. 2005; Fahrig and Merriam 1985).
Fewer survey participants plant trees than leave trees on their farms, and they plant for fewer reasons. Whereas land managers will leave trees for a diverse set of reasons (fodder, fruit, water protection/retention, construction/timber, and shade), they plant them primarily for two tangible economic reasons: timber that can be sold or fruit that can be eaten. Another survey in Los Santos similarly found that wood and fruit rank first and second in tree uses reported by plantation owners, and a survey in neighboring
Herrera province indicated that 80-85% of pasture owners also retain trees for wood and fruit (Love and Spaner 2005; Garen et al. 2009). A survey conducted at five sites in
Panama found that fruit, fuelwood, and wood were the three benefits of trees most commonly mentioned by farmers (Fischer and Vasseur 2002). These results indicate that land managers often plant primarily for reasons that produce a tangible economic benefit.
Thus, reforestation initiatives that encourage planting trees rather than simply leaving them must demonstrate the economic benefits derived from these trees.
61 Survey participants also plant trees in a more diverse and specified set of places
(“by fence,” “by water source” and “by house”) than those in which they leave them
(“along a water source” and “dispersed in pasture/wherever”). Anecdotal evidence suggests that survey participants plant timber species along fences and fruit species near houses, so depending on where reforestation efforts occur, different species may be more or less popular. The finding that survey participants primarily leave trees along water sources supports the image classification analysis that shows large-scale reforestation in riparian areas throughout the province.
In Los Santos, some of the most noticeable tree species to the casual observer are the live fence tree species that line the landscape (Figure 11). Live fences serve as wildlife corridors and contribute to increased landscape connectivity (Harvey et al. 2004;
León and Harvey 2006). Of 1195 live fences studied across four other Central American sites, 17% directly connected to forest patches or forested riparian zones (Harvey et al.
2003). In general, a small proportion of potential live fence species account for a large percentage of live fence posts ( Harvey et al. 2004). My survey highlights six species that are commonly used in live fences within Los Santos province – B. simaruba, A. alatum,
B. tomentosa, S. purpurea, G. sepium, and S. mombin – and shows that on average, each participant uses 3-4 live fence tree species. A study of live fences in Costa Rica found that only eight species accounted for 95% of live fence posts (Budowski and Russo
1993). The results of this thesis also reflect this low diversity of live fence species characteristic of other parts of Central America. During my survey, when I asked why they did or did not use a certain live fence species, land managers would often cite availability as a main reason for using tree species.
62 Figure 11: Live fence in Los Santos, August 2009, photograph by author
Although live fences may originally consist of only one or a few planted species, natural dispersal leads other plant species to colonize the fence understory. A Colombian study found 247 tree species in 19 live fences, the majority of which were bird-dispersed
(Molano et al. 2002). Trees experimentally planted into live fences were shown in one study to have more than double the chance of survival as those planted in the surrounding pasture (Love et al. 2009). Live fences are also home to a diverse fauna, including birds, bats, butterflies, dung and carrion beetles, lizards and non-flying mammals (Estrada et al.
1994; Molano et al. 2002; Harvey et al. 2004; Medina et al. 2007; Tobar and Ibrahim
2010). Although live fence corridors are most likely used primarily by smaller mammals, large mammals, including howler monkeys, have been shown to supplement their diet substantially by feeding from live fences (Asensio et al. 2009; Harvey et al. 2004).
A live fence that was planted as a monoculture can evolve into a habitat for a wide variety of tree and animal species if the fence owner allows natural regeneration to
63 proceed. The results of my survey indicate that many live fence owners in Los Santos may be open to allowing this type of live fence regeneration, particularly if the tree species that colonize the live fence can be used for timber or animal fodder, which are the uses of the species survey participants most frequently leave alongside live fences. When examined jointly, the value of live fences, managed regeneration (“left trees”) and planted trees as a resource for conservation should not be underestimated. Although past reforestation initiatives on the part of the Panamanian government have focused on tax incentives for forestry plantations, focusing on agroforestry strategies to incorporate increased forest cover and native species richness within the agricultural landscape may prove more successful for promoting ecosystem health than past efforts using exotic timber plantations.
64 Chapter V. Blurring the Line Between “Finca” 4 and Forest: Agroforestry Initiatives and Reforestation Policy Suggestions
The results of this study indicate that forest cover is increasing in Los Santos, illustrate the socioeconomic factors that determine individual decisions to maintain forest, and highlight how land managers prioritize trees and forest within the majority deforested agricultural landscape. According to these results Los Santos is in the beginning stages of a forest transition. However, government policies and nonprofit initiatives may either tip the balance in favor of continued afforestation or reverse this trend.
Forest transitions in other Latin American regions show that more forest does not necessarily translate into a more biodiverse or intact forest ecosystem. Studies in
Argentina raise questions about the ecological integrity of the regenerated forest cover, showing that cutting of continuous, biodiverse forests may continue as monoculture forest plantations technically increase forest cover but with a much lower ecological value (Grau et al. 2008; Izquierdo et al. 2008). Although forest transitions may do much to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and improve soil quality, the extent to which they foster other ecosystem services, like biodiversity, is largely situation dependent
(Rudel et al. 2005).
Effective policy should prioritize different reforestation strategies based on the ecosystem services they provide — erosion management, biodiversity, carbon storage, economic timber profit, water protection, fruit, aesthetic value. Do we promote establishment of large contiguous monoculture exotic species plantations or agroforestry
4 “farm” in spanish
65 strategies dispersed across the landscape? While forest transition theory identifies a point at which more trees will grow within a region, the theory does not evaluate the ecological integrity of this new forest cover, which may be an entirely different ecosystem from that which was destroyed before it.
The nature of the forest regrown after the forest transition depends largely on the processes that led up to the forest transition point. Grainger identified the intensification of agriculture and demand for forest resources like timber as two separate forces that can lead to the forest transition (Grainger 1995). These forces later evolved into the
“economic development” and “forest scarcity” paths of forest change (Barbier et al.
2010). The economic development path leads to the forest transition through the intensification of agriculture, the creation of off-farm jobs and the abandonment of marginal lands, while the forest scarcity path leads to forest transition through price signals and political pressures responding to the scarcity of forest resources like timber in the market (Barbier et al. 2010). While the former leads to naturally regenerating forest on abandoned land, the latter leads to managed secondary forests and plantations to produce commercial products no longer extractable from natural forest ecosystems.
My results suggest that both the “economic development” and “forest scarcity” processes are occurring in Los Santos. Yet Panamanian government policies have almost exclusively responded to the “forest scarcity” path. Reforestation policy in Los Santos to date has focused mainly on encouraging timber plantations and reforestation of riparian corridors. Land managers are indeed responding to the scarcity of forest resources, evidenced by my findings indicating that tree species planted by land managers are almost exclusively those that provide a scarce resource like timber or fruit (“forest
66 scarcity”). However, my results also show that the decision of whether or not to maintain forest is also influenced by economic factors like labor and land availability (“economic development”). Future reforestation policies in Panama should strengthen the current afforesting trend and guide the upcoming afforestation period to ensure that it prioritizes ecosystem services like biodiversity, soil, air, and water protections that are currently economic externalities and unregulated by the market (Costanza et al. 1997; Barbier et al.
2010).
The Race Toward Exotic Timber: Panamanian Reforestation Policy in the 1990s
The Panamanian government, like many others in Latin America, has historically encouraged deforestation through government policies by providing agricultural subsidies and legal incentives for land managers (Kaimowitz 1996; Simmons et al. 2002). Article 3 of the Panamanian agrarian code, written in 1962, states that land is a force for production, and every landowner should comply with the land’s “social function.” Article
30 describes land compliant with its social function in detail as either pasture occupied by at least one head of cattle for every two hectares, land that is two thirds cropland or timber plantation, or urban spaces. In defining social function this way, the Panamanian government has since 1962 effectively restricted forest cover to at most one third of any given landowner’s land. Small-scale landowners can obtain a free title (“título gratuito”) if and only if they can prove that they are working the land in accordance with this social function (Article 80).
67 The Panamanian government first began to promote reforestation actively in the
1990s. In 1992, Panama’s first Reforestation Law gave tax incentives to landowners who planted forest plantations on land without vegetative cover. Although the Reforestation
Law of 1992 encouraged Panamanians to reforest for the first time in national history, the law did not specify tree species, soil or management type. As a result, much of the reforestation in the 1990s was due to forest plantations of non-native tree species like pine (Pinus caribaea), teak (Tectona grandis) and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.; Hughes et al. 2003; De Camino et al. 2002). Plantation owners were exempted from property taxes (Article 4) and 100% of plantation inversion costs were made tax deductible. Teak plantations comprised 76% of plantations established in the Republic of Panama from
1990-2000, and more than half of all reforestation initiatives (Kraenzel et al. 2003;
Wishnie et al. 2007). Of the forestry plantations registered by ANAM in Los Santos from
1990 to 2009, 81.1% contained teak (ANAM 2009a). While teak plantations may be useful for carbon storage (Kraenzel et al. 2003), they are ecologically very different from a regenerated forest ecosystem (Figure 12). Teak plantations harbor fewer numbers and fewer species of native trees, and tree species that do recruit in plantations are more likely to be shorter, shrubby growth forms than species recruited to abandoned pasture (Healey and Gara 2003).
68
Figure 12: Understory of teak (T. grandis) plantation in Pedasí, August 2009, Los Santos, photograph by author In the past decade, Panamanian nonprofit initiatives have begun to reforest with native tree species, but many of these focus on the Panama Canal watershed (STRI 2010).
One exception is the Proyecto de Reforestación con Especies Nativas (PRORENA) program that established experimental plantations testing characteristics of native species in Los Santos and its accompanying smallholder native species plantations trials conducted with a group of small-scale landholders from Pedasí district (Garen et al.
2009). Although these programs have met with some success, my survey results show that convincing individual landowners to reforest greater proportions of their land will be more difficult. Agroforestry initiatives may be successful reforestation strategies in cases like Los Santos where conversion of large parts of property into forest is unfeasible.
69 Policy Suggestions for Los Santos
The results of my study suggest four strategies for reforesting Los Santos while restoring some of the biodiversity and wildlife habitat that once existed in the province:
1. Panamanian forestry law should incentivize establishment of carbon offset timber plantations that incorporate a diverse mix of native Panamanian tree species.
Panama has the institutional capacity and friendly investing environment necessary to jump into the carbon offset market (Jung 2006; Block 1998; Argüello et al.), either through voluntary markets or through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) program. The REDD program invests $20 billion dollars per year in countries that retain forests with the goal of halting
90% of global deforestation (Parker et al. 2009; Metzel 2010). In October 2009, the
World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) approved Panama’s REDD readiness plan, the first step to qualify for payments, making it one of five countries in
Latin America and 14 countries worldwide that have received funding to implement
REDD programs (UN-REDD 2009; Metzel 2010). This program could be a valuable economic opportunity and a growing sector within Panama. The approved U.S. $5.3 million REDD budget will be spent over the coming three years (Jan. 2010- Nov. 2012) in partnership with Panamanian communities to establish the institutional capacity to implement REDD in Panama and improve the “technical capacity to monitor, measure, report and verify the reduction in emissions from deforestation and forest degradation”
(Eguren 2009; Metzel 2010).
70 The results of this study show that timber is one of the most important reasons land managers in Los Santos leave and plant trees on land (Chapter IV), but switching pasture over to a timber plantation entails a much larger financial risk than planting or leaving select timber species on land for individual harvest years later. Only 10.3% of land managers in Los Santos reported leaving forests for timber. This is partly due to the very different economic structures of payments for cattle versus timber harvest. Whereas cattle can be kept as insurance and sold immediately in case of emergency, there is a decades-long gap between planting trees and harvesting them during which the land manager receives no payments and cannot sell trees for emergency cash income. A marriage of these two timber and carbon storage reforestation compensation schemes may encourage more land managers to plant tree plantations: an ideal scheme would involve a carbon payment structure that provides income to land managers on a periodic basis to fill the payment trough that discourages land managers from considering timber harvest as an economically viable and convenient land use option. For example,
Anacardium excelsum (espavé/jabillo), a timber species commonly used for furniture, veneer and plywood, was left by over 50% of Macaracas study participants, and was ranked first in terms of carbon storage per hectare in a forest environment out of a list of
Panamanian tree species (Chudnoff 1984; Kirby and Potvin 2007). Planting species in a mixed plantation rather than a monoculture will promote biodiversity while increasing tree growth (Potvin and Dutilleul 2009). More research is needed to develop an economic framework for how monetary payments would be distributed to land managers under this combined system, but this reforestation strategy may be one of the few that will
71 successfully make reforestation with native species profitable for local land managers, while prioritizing carbon storage and biodiversity.
I recommend that Panamanian national forestry policy and nonprofit initiatives refocus their efforts from monoculture plantations of exotic species to incentivizing the establishment of plantations with a diverse mix of native timber species that, like A. excelsum, rank high in carbon storage potential. A dual compensation scheme would pay land managers for the carbon stored in an upfront and yearly basis, while also enabling land managers to gain a large profit from timber sales at the harvest period. Thirdly, these diverse native species plantations promote biodiversity and may provide other important ecosystem services to a greater extent than do existing monoculture exotic species plantations.
2. Panama’s environmental agency (ANAM) and environmental non-profits working in Los Santos should encourage the establishment of “Friendly Fences”/ “Cercas
Cooperativas,” wildlife corridors that incorporate native timber species and expand upon the pre-existing live fence network.
Live fences already generally serve as wildlife corridors for some species, but through the cooperation of neighbors, live fences in Los Santos can expand provincial forest cover significantly and provide extensive habitat for animal species to migrate between the few large isolated forest patches that remain in Los Santos. For example, if two neighboring land managers make a joint commitment to plant three rows of trees, each on his/her side of the live fence, together they make a corridor seven trees wide, more than double that width. Live fences add significantly to forest cover in a landscape
72 (Figure 13); estimates of live fence coverage in Central America range from 140 to 190 m per ha at sites in Costa Rica and Nicaragua (Harvey et al. 2005; Souza de Abreu et al.
2000)
Figure 13: Pastureland in Los Santos with live fences; live fences create tree corridors that greatly increase the interconnectivity of a landscape, January 2010, photograph by author The results of my study show that land managers leave trees along their fences, and almost exclusively plant timber and fruit species on their land. Thus, the live fence corridor species mix would consist mainly of native timber species of high ecosystem and economic value, interspersed with fruit trees and rare species important to ecosystem function. During the survey, participants mentioned anecdotally that they plant timber species along fences so that they can be easily extracted for sale or home use. Research indicates that Costa Rican farmers similarly allow timber species to grow within their live fences (Budowski and Russo 1993). Land managers would be able to harvest select
73 timber trees from fence corridors, while fruit and rare tree species would remain to provide a permanent corridor for wildlife such as birds, bats, butterflies, beetles, lizards and monkeys (Estrada et al.1994; Molano et al. 2002; Harvey et al. 2004; Medina et al.
2007; Tobar and Ibrahim 2010).
In addition to planting a diverse mix of native species along fences, the
Panamanian government could diversify the tree species present in the fence itself by developing a fence stake trading system and subsidies for native stake species currently overlooked by land managers, thus strengthening fences to species-specific blights and increasing tree species diversity on the peninsula. My survey results indicate that Santeño land managers use six main live fence species, even though there may be many more potential native live fence species. In live fences studied in Costa Rica, only eight species accounted for 95% of live fence posts (Budowski and Russo 1993). During my survey, when I asked why they did or did not use a certain live fence species, land managers would often cite availability as a main reason for using tree species. Making research on the largely untapped diversity of viable live fence species accessible to land managers could substantially increase the mean of 3 to 4 live fence stake species currently used by each land manager. Since many live fence species are propagated by cuttings that can be obtained without destroying the source fences (Budowski 1987), implementation of this program would be relatively inexpensive.
Expanding live fence corridors has many advantages within the Santeño context.
First of all, due to the prevalence of cattle ranching and agriculture as main sources of income on the peninsula, unless reforested patches have a tangible economic value to the land managers it is unlikely that many land managers will intentionally reforest large
74 contiguous patches of forest at the expense of pasture or cropland. Furthermore, continued reforestation with large exotic timber plantations will not promote increased biodiversity (Healey and Gara 2003). Expanding live fences into wildlife corridors allows each land manager to maintain pasture and splits reforestation costs between neighbors.
Joint implementation reinforces the commitment of both land managers to the project.
Expanding live fences into wildlife corridors has the potential to create a massive connections network while also providing tangible economic benefits to land managers because according to answers given by survey participants, planting trees along live fences protects the live fence from moisture and wind, thereby reducing damage costs, and after a few years, reduces the need to clear area around the fence for fire breaks. This strategy builds on the existing tendency among land managers to plant timber species and leave trees along fences, and may make extraction of timber using machinery relatively easy.
Challenges for this “Friendly Fences” strategy include the potential for tree plantings to disrupt firebreaks in initial years if not implemented carefully and the necessity of incorporating cattle grazing beneath these trees, thereby affecting the tree growth structure of corridor. To ensure effectiveness at promoting biodiversity, more research remains to be conducted on the width and the species mix of the fence corridor necessary to provide sufficient habitat to the species most prioritized for conservation in
Los Santos.
75 3. The Panamanian government should enforce protection of existent riparian corridors and promote their expansion through ANAM programs and non-profit initiatives.
Panama’s Forestry law of 1994 further expanded upon the nation’s 1992 reforestation law by prohibiting the destruction of trees and shrubs near water resources, requiring forestry permits for cutting down trees, prohibiting burning without a license, and mandating environmental impact assessments (Metzel 2010). The law mandated 100-
200 meter logging prohibition buffer zones around river sources, lakes and natural aquifers, and 10-meter buffers in riparian zones (Articles 23-24). Because of these legal restrictions and a long history of droughts on the Azuero peninsula, land managers in Los
Santos are informed and highly concerned about water protection on their land. The results of my socioeconomic survey reflect these water concerns: among survey participants, water protection is the most frequently mentioned reason for leaving forests on land and trees are most commonly left along a water source.
Panama’s governmental and nonprofit reforestation initiatives should capitalize on land managers’ water concerns to expand riparian corridors and explain why diversity is important to their maintenance and function. Government programs currently focusing on riparian corridors should diversify tree species in riparian zones and educate the public about the ecological processes through which riparian reforestation influences water quality (Sweeney et al. 2004) and evapotranspiration (Jipp et al. 1998; Nepstad et al.
1994) on abandoned pastureland. ANAM, Panama’s environmental agency, should strictly enforce compliance with governmental regulations mandating a buffer around all water sources, as my forest cover change map shows that deforestation along water
76 sources occurred during the 1990-2009 period, suggesting that this deforestation occurred after the 1994 ban on logging in riparian zones. According to ANAM data, two of the three watersheds in Los Santos rank in the top three most deforested watersheds in the nation, with less than 4% forest cover (ANAM 2009b; ANAM, CATHALAC 2009). One of these watersheds decreased in forest cover from 2000 to 2008 despite government restrictions on felling trees near water sources (ANAM, CATHALAC 2009). Continued deforestation in riparian zones calls for more governmental enforcement of the existing environmental laws.
4. The Panamanian government (ANAM) and non-profits should educate land managers and agricultural engineering students about erosion, soil degradation, and deforestation.
Erosion and soil degradation are serious but largely unaddressed problems in Los
Santos. Roughly one third to a half of Los Santos’ soils are classified as non-arable, severely limited, and unfit for agriculture (CONALSED 2008). Yet, when asked the open-ended question of why they left or planted trees, not one land manager at either site said that they left forest, or left or planted trees to prevent erosion or increase soil quality.
Given Los Santos’ hilly topography and the established link between reforestation on extensively cultivated landscapes and erosion prevention (Kaimowitz 2004; Lin et al.
2008; Olson et al. 2002), there seems to be surprisingly little public consciousness surrounding this issue, especially when compared to water protection concerns. More education is needed on reforestation as a tool for erosion and soil degradation control and
77 prevention, both through seminars and farm consultations for existing land managers and programs in the agricultural institutes at local universities and technical schools.
Conclusions
Forest cover increased in Los Santos from 1990 to 2009, indicating that this highly deforested province in the wealthiest Central American nation is experiencing a forest transition. Multiple factors relate to individual decisions to maintain forest on land in Los Santos. The factor most associated with individual decisions about forest conservation is land-holding size, suggesting that large landowners may be more likely to maintain forest, but maintain a smaller fraction of their land in forest. Forest conservation also may be more likely when less labor or capital is invested in the land: land managers who have inherited their land or hold a secondary occupation are more likely to maintain forest, perhaps because they did not work to gain the capital necessary to invest in obtaining their land. Similarly, fewer children working in agriculture may translate into less labor working the land, and thus more forest.
This study indicates that land managers in Los Santos leave forest, leave trees, and plant trees for different reasons. Land managers leave forest mainly for water protection and cattle shade/summering, and while they leave trees for a wide range of reasons (animal fodder, fruit, water protection/retention, construction/timber, and shade), they plant them primarily for timber and fruit, both uses that produce a tangible economic benefit. Santeño land managers also plant trees in a more diverse and specified set of places than those in which they leave them. Six tree species are commonly used for live
78 fences in Los Santos, and many live fence owners in Los Santos allow trees useful for timber or animal fodder to grow alongside the fence.
Policy suggestions rooted in the results of this thesis can inform future reforestation policies in Panama to strengthen the current afforesting trend and ensure that it prioritizes ecosystem services like biodiversity, soil, air, and water protection. I suggest four reforestation strategies to implement in Los Santos:
1. Panamanian forestry law should incentivize establishment of carbon offset timber
plantations that incorporate a diverse mix of native Panamanian tree species.
2. Panama’s environmental agency (ANAM) and environmental non-profits working
in Los Santos should encourage the establishment of “Friendly Fences”/ “Cercas
Cooperativas,” wildlife corridors that incorporate native timber species and
expand upon the pre-existing live fence network.
3. The Panamanian government should enforce protection of existent riparian
corridors and promote their expansion through ANAM programs and non-profit
initiatives.
4. The Panamanian government (ANAM) and non-profits should educate land
managers and agricultural engineering students about erosion, soil degradation,
and deforestation.
While this study determines that Los Santos’ forest cover is increasing and uncovers many of the factors leading to this change at the individual decision-maker level in Los Santos, more research is needed to evaluate the connection between economic development, rural population density and forest cover in developing nations. Many small-scale landowners and farmers in developing countries do not keep financial
79 records, complicating estimation of incomes and attempts to understand the economic tradeoffs between different land uses at the individual decision-maker level. A method of estimating income level of small-scale landowners would allow researchers to empirically evaluate the various income thresholds at which the forest transition is estimated to occur by economic models. More information about family-level income and money management in rural landowning households would also allow the development of an economic framework for how monetary payments should be distributed to owners of joint timber-carbon offset plantations.
Forest cover regrowth can occur through reforestation processes at a much smaller scale than that of entire properties; by streams, fences and houses, or in small reforesting patches as a part of the “roza” rotating agricultural system. The low ecosystem integrity of forest cover at these small scales may matter little for some ecosystem services, like timber, fruit, and carbon storage, but much more for others, like biodiversity. This thesis explores the forest transition, its underlying factors, and strategies for promoting biodiversity in the transition to more forest cover. However, more research remains to be conducted into methods for reforesting a landscape by creating viable and biodiverse habitats in these marginal areas of forest cover that blur the line between “finca”5 and forest.
5 “farm” in spanish
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87 Tobar, D. E, and M. Ibrahim. 2010. ¿Las cercas vivas ayudan a la conservación de la diversidad de mariposas en paisajes agropecuarios? Rev. Biol. Trop 58, no. 1: 447–463. UN-REDD. 2009. UN-REDD Programme Newsletter, October. Vignoli, J. R. 2004. Migración interna en América Latina y el Caribe: estudio regional del periodo 1980-2000. United Nations Publications. WDI. 2008. World Development Indicators: Latin America. World Bank. Williams, Darrel. 2009. Chapter 11: Data Products. In Landsat 7: Science Data Users Handbook. NASA, August 4. Wishnie, M. H., D. H. Dent, E. Mariscal, J. Deago, N. Cedeno, D. Ibarra, R. Condit, and P. M. S. Ashton. 2007. Initial performance and reforestation potential of 24 tropical tree species planted across a precipitation gradient in the Republic of Panama. Forest Ecology and Management 243, no. 1: 39–49. Wright, S. J, and M. J Samaniego. 2008. Historical, Demographic, and Economic Correlates of Land-Use Change in the Republic of Panama. Ecology and Society 13, no. 2: 17. Yandle, B., M. Bhattarai, and M. Vijayaraghavan. 2004. Environmental Kuznets curves: a review of findings, methods, and policy implications. Research study 2: 1–16.
88
Appendix I: District Level Forest Cover Data and Intermediate Satellite Images
Figure I.1: Percentage forest cover in all images considered in this analysis, the composited images Con 2009, Con 2001 and Con 1990 contain the values and 5% error bars
89 Table I.1: Land Cover classes extracted from district subsets of each image year, percentages exclude unclassified, cloud and cloud cover areas, the percentage of the image covered by these classes is subtracted from the total image surface area to get the UIC (Usable Image Cover) reported in the last row of each section 2009: % Forest Cover in Los Santos districts for 3/12/2009 classification with 4/26/2008 replacements
Provinc Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi e Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 62.45% 60.76% 71.11% 80.29% 68.02% 81.69% 79.86% 43.71% Forest 34.14% 36.37% 25.62% 17.17% 30.15% 13.33% 18.89% 51.67% Water 1.65% 1.05% 2.30% 0.70% 0.46% 1.35% 0.59% 2.84% Urban 1.76% 1.81% 0.97% 1.84% 1.37% 3.62% 0.65% 1.79% % UIC 97.57% 96.00% 99.96% 99.87% 99.93% 99.36% 99.93% 94.75% 3‐12‐2009 striped classification (percentages reported exclude unclassified stripe, cloud and cloud shadow categories) Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 65.06% 59.56% 71.57% 79.48% 69.10% 79.95% 79.94% 49.33% Forest 31.45% 37.74% 25.19% 18.05% 29.35% 14.63% 18.95% 45.28% Water 1.74% 1.18% 2.30% 0.62% 0.37% 1.59% 0.53% 3.24% Urban 1.76% 1.52% 0.93% 1.85% 1.17% 3.83% 0.58% 2.15% % UIC 74.15% 62.26% 94.30% 77.43% 81.13% 71.93% 88.34% 66.16% 4‐26‐2008 striped classification (percentages reported exclude unclassified stripe, cloud and cloud shadow categories) Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 60.96% 65.95% 67.72% 83.19% 65.40% 85.23% 78.97% 36.78% Forest 35.23% 31.57% 27.93% 13.40% 30.90% 10.07% 17.97% 59.07% Water 1.58% 0.63% 2.35% 0.90% 0.90% 0.81% 1.03% 2.58% Urban 2.23% 1.84% 2.00% 2.51% 2.80% 3.89% 2.04% 1.57% % UIC 80.69% 73.68% 97.48% 81.68% 84.92% 76.99% 92.96% 74.58% 2001: % Forest Cover in Los Santos districts for 2/10/2001 classification with 1/17/2001 replacements Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 61.87% 58.61% 67.97% 73.42% 64.98% 78.82% 77.70% 48.36% Forest 30.28% 34.72% 26.36% 10.04% 25.17% 8.45% 15.37% 46.69% Water 0.68% 0.00% 1.71% 0.10% 0.08% 0.28% 0.25% 1.30% Urban 7.17% 6.67% 3.96% 16.44% 9.77% 12.46% 6.69% 3.65% % UIC 98.18% 98.54% 99.58% 99.37% 99.06% 99.75% 99.75% 96.11% 2/1/2001 classification Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 61.78% 58.42% 68.11% 72.91% 64.20% 78.75% 77.51% 47.21% Forest 29.73% 33.83% 26.51% 8.43% 24.41% 8.46% 15.45% 47.58% Water 0.54% 0.00% 1.37% 0.08% 0.07% 0.23% 0.19% 1.02% Urban 7.94% 7.74% 4.01% 18.57% 11.33% 12.57% 6.85% 4.19% % UIC 88.61% 84.88% 98.52% 87.94% 85.43% 98.86% 97.36% 83.73% 1/17/2001 (no urban) classification Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi
90 Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 70.57% 66.84% 78.37% 86.81% 74.43% 89.79% 88.61% 54.84% Forest 22.44% 28.17% 16.51% 10.01% 20.89% 6.15% 9.67% 32.90% Water 0.69% 0.00% 2.05% 0.08% 0.09% 0.34% 0.29% 1.17% Urban n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a % UIC 93.70% 95.00% 96.93% 96.90% 95.41% 96.28% 98.57% 88.90% 1990: % Forest Cover in Los Santos districts for 3/08/1990 classification, with 12/15/1988 and 1/03/1987 replacements Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 63.02% 60.94% 71.51% 77.11% 68.28% 78.07% 77.28% 48.16% Forest 29.73% 32.09% 23.39% 13.43% 24.20% 11.52% 18.14% 44.83% Water 0.41% 0.00% 1.29% 0.01% 0.04% 0.02% 0.15% 0.76% Urban 6.83% 6.97% 3.82% 9.46% 7.48% 10.39% 4.43% 6.25% % UIC 99.29% 98.96% 99.85% 99.11% 99.21% 99.51% 99.83% 99.13% 3‐08‐1990 classification Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 61.14% 56.72% 71.83% 76.10% 67.95% 74.76% 77.37% 47.30% Forest 31.96% 35.12% 23.84% 13.91% 24.77% 13.93% 19.93% 46.25% Water 0.46% 0.00% 1.32% 0.01% 0.04% 0.02% 0.15% 0.80% Urban 6.44% 8.16% 3.02% 9.98% 7.24% 11.29% 2.55% 5.65% % UIC 86.53% 78.19% 97.18% 69.90% 85.17% 73.94% 89.17% 93.59% 12‐15‐1988 classification Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 69.98% 72.86% 69.62% 80.79% 75.11% 82.30% 78.06% 59.00% Forest 24.05% 24.13% 25.92% 9.03% 19.38% 8.49% 16.68% 34.67% Water 0.85% 0.00% 2.09% 0.14% 0.13% 0.47% 0.29% 1.45% Urban 5.12% 3.01% 2.37% 10.03% 5.38% 8.74% 4.97% 4.89% % UIC 84.19% 78.93% 98.43% 72.48% 79.74% 82.78% 96.35% 84.18% 1‐03‐1987 classification, without urban Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos Agriculture 65.45% 64.72% 66.61% 81.94% 62.50% 85.81% 79.41% 52.79% Forest 33.87% 35.28% 31.79% 17.98% 37.39% 13.83% 20.28% 45.93% Water 0.68% 0.00% 1.60% 0.08% 0.11% 0.36% 0.30% 1.28% Urban n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a % UIC 85.70% 77.71% 93.13% 94.85% 87.34% 92.83% 92.64% 80.41% Forest Cover Change Province Macaracas Pedasi Guarare Las Los Pocri Tonosi Total Tablas Santos 1990‐2001 0.54% 2.63% 2.97% ‐3.38% 0.97% ‐3.08% ‐2.77% 1.86% 2001‐2009 3.86% 1.65% ‐0.74% 7.13% 4.98% 4.88% 3.52% 4.98% 1990‐2009 4.40% 4.28% 2.24% 3.74% 5.95% 1.81% 0.76% 6.84%
91
Figure I.2: Composited classification of 2009 land cover in Los Santos province, Panama (3-12-2009, with replacements from a 4-26-2008 image)
92
Figure I.3: Composited classification of 2001 land cover in Los Santos province, Panama (2-10-2001, with replacements from 1-17-2001)
93
Figure I.4: Composited classification of 1990 land cover in Los Santos province, Panama (3-8-1990, with replacements from 12-15-1988 and 1-3-1987 images)
94
Figure I.5: 1990-2001 Land cover change map for Los Santos province, Panama
95
Figure I.6: 2001-2009 Land cover change map for Los Santos province, Panama
96 Appendix II: Survey – Original Spanish Version #: ______Encuesta sobre el Uso de Tierra en Los Santos Fecha: ______Investigadora: Ruth Metzel Región: ______
Preguntas sobre la Historia Familiar: 1. ¿Cuántos años tiene usted? ______2. ¿Ha vivido usted en la provincia de Los Santos toda su vida? si no Si no, ¿cuando se mudó a Los Santos? ______¿En cuales otras provincias o naciones ha vivido?
Si, ¿han vivido sus padres en la provincia de Los Santos todas sus vidas? si no Si no, ¿cuando se mudaron a Los Santos? ______¿En cuales otras provincias o naciones han vivido?
3. ¿Cuántos hijos e hijas tiene usted? ______hijos ______hijas
Y ¿nietos? ¿cuántos? ______
4. ¿Cual nivel educativo ha obtenido sus hijos? ¿Y los nietos
5. ¿Dónde viven los hijos? ¿Viven los hijos aquí en la provincia? ______
Si, ¿Hay gente en su familia que si se han ido de la provincia? ¿Para dónde y por qué?
6. Y ¿los nietos, dónde viven? ______# Hijo/Hija/Nieto Nivel Educativo Dónde Ocupación Ayuda en viven? la finca? 1…20
7. ¿Cual nivel educativo ha obtenido usted? no escuela escuela primaria, año: ______ escuela secundaria, año: ______ estudios de la Universidad, año: ______ estudios pos-graduados de la Universidad estudios de un instituto técnico pos-secundaria
Preguntas sobre la administración del terreno:
8. ¿Usted es dueño o administrador de la finca?
97 dueño administrador de tierras para un dueño ausente amigo pariente dueño de una parte otro, ¿cómo? ______
9. ¿Cuándo empezó usted a administrar la finca? ______10. ¿La compró o la heredó usted? ______a. Si la compró, ¿en cuánto? ______11. ¿Tenía otra ocupación usted antes de administrar la finca? ¿Cuál? ______12. ¿Cuál es el área de la finca que administra usted (en hectáreas)? ______13. ¿Cuántos días a la semana trabaja usted en la finca? ______y, en los días en que trabaja usted en la finca, ¿cuántas horas al día trabaja? ______a. Si usted no trabaja en la finca, ¿cuantos trabajadores/peones tiene? ______b. ¿Cuántos días a la semana trabajan ellos en la finca? ______y,¿cuántas horas al día trabajan? ______c. ¿Cuánto les paga usted? ______
14. Y además de trabajar en la finca, ¿tiene usted otra ocupación?
si, ¿Cuál(es)? ______ no, Si, ¿cual es su fuente principal de trabajo?
15. ¿Le ayudan sus hijos e hijas a administrar la finca? si, ¿Cuántos?______ no: ______16. Y además de trabajar en la finca, ¿tienen otras ocupaciones? si, ¿Cuál(es)? ______ no, Si, ¿cual ocupación consideran ellos su fuente principal de trabajo?
17. ¿Administraron sus padres la finca también? ¿Y sus abuelos? si, padres si, abuelos no, ninguno
a. Si, ¿Tuvieron ellos otra ocupación en adición a trabajar en la finca/el terreno? si, padres,¿cuál? ______ si, abuelos, ¿cuál? ______ no Si, ¿cual ocupación consideraron ellos como su ocupación principal?
98 18. ¿Que tipos de cambios ha notado usted en la tierra desde que empezó a administrarla?
a. ¿Hay más rastrojo o montaña? ¿o menos? ¿Desde cuándo?6 b. ¿Ha notado usted si se seca la quebrada, o si se mantiene todo el año con agua? ¿Desde cuándo? c. ¿Hay diferencia en los tipos de palos y plantas que están en la finca?
d. Y ¿quién usará el terreno/la finca después de usted?
19. ¿Cuál es el uso que le da a su finca? (vacas, agricultura, árboles, bosque) Y, ¿Cuál es el area de la finca/el terreno dedicado a cada uso?(en hectáreas, o la mitad? un cuarto?) A vacas? _____ A agricultura? _____ ¿Cuáles cultivos hay? ______A plantaciones de árboles? _____ Hay vivienda? ______A montaña? ______A rastrojo?______Si deja parte como montaña o rastrojo, ¿porqué? 20. ¿Dónde queda el monte en su finca? Y ¿el rastrojo?
6 Questions in italics omitted or modified in Macaracas version
99 a la orilla de una quebrada o a la orilla de una quebrada o fuente de fuente de agua agua en el borde de su terreno y el de en el borde de su terreno y el de un un vecino vecino en la parte que queda más lejos en la parte que queda más lejos del del camino principal camino principal cerca o al lado de la casa cerca o al lado de la casa otro lugar: ______ otro lugar: ______
21. ¿Se ha cambiado un parte de su terreno a un uso diferente (por ejemplo, de agricultura a pastura o a rastrojo) en los últimos…. 5 años? ______¿Cuándo? 5-10 años? 10-15 años? 15-20 años? 20-40 años? ______22. ¿Cuándo compró o heredó el terreno ya se había tumbado el monte o lo tenía que tumbar usted? 23. ¿Deja usted algunos árboles en su finca/terreno? si no ¿Cuáles especies? ¿por qué? ¿Dónde?
24. Y si usted ve un plantón creciendo [en el potrero], cuales los ayuda a crecer (lo limpia) o cuales corta? ¿Cuáles especies ? ¿por qué?
25. ¿Siembra árboles? si no ¿Cuáles especies? ¿Por qué? ¿Dónde?
26. ¿Cuáles especies usa en las cercas vivas? ¿Por qué decidió usar esas especies?
27. Y cuándo usted hace la limpieza de la cerca viva, hay algunos árboles que usted deja crecer al lado de la cerca? ¿Cuáles especies y por qué?
28. ¿Que métodos usa usted para limpiar la tierra? machete incendio/ se quema herbicida con alguna máquina, un motor otro: ______
29. ¿Después de tomar en cuenta los gastos de producción, cuanto se gana de beneficio de su finca cada año? ______en el invierno?
100 en el verano?
30. ¿Cuáles son los gastos más grandes que tiene usted que pagar en la administración de su finca cada……? Gasto: Verano? Invierno? labor
abono
vacuna/triple
semillas de cultivos
Semillas de pasto mejorado Herbicida
Alambre y grapas
Otro;
A los agricultores: 31. ¿Vende usted parte de sus cultivos? ¿Cuántos quintales vende al año? ¿En cuánto vende cada quintal? Cultivo ¿Cuántos vende al ¿En cuánto? año? Maíz
Arroz
Frijol:
Ñame
Yuca
Plátano
Otro:
Otro:
A los ganaderos:
101 32. Los reses suyos, ¿son para leche o para carne? leche: ______ carne: ______
• Si son para leche, en total, ¿cuántos litros de leche saca de las vacas cada quincena? y, ¿cuanto le están pagando el litro de leche? Litros de leche sacado ¿En cuánto lo vendió? Invierno Verano
33. ¿Cuántos reses vende usted al año en….? ¿Y en cuanto se venden? Vendido en ¿Cuántos? Tipo de Res ¿En cuánto? ¿Para que? Carnes Coclé/ el matadero La subasta
Al interno
34. ¿Sus reses entran al monte o tiene cerca que prevee su entrada? si no 35. ¿Usa usted pasto mejorado? si, ¿cuántas ha? ______¿desde cuándo? ______ no 36. ¿Su finca está dividido en cuantas parcelas? ______37. ¿Descansa al terreno? ¿Cada que tiempo está poniendo sus reses en cada parcela? si no Tiempo en cada parcela: ______38. Y, ¿Cuántos reses tiene ahora? Y, hace….? Ahora? 15 años? 5 años? 20 años? 10 años? 40 años?
A todos: 39. ¿Se veían animales silvestres en años pasados (10, 15, 20, 40) que ya no se ven hoy en día? si no ¿Cuáles? ¿Cuándo fue la última vez que los vió? 1..4
40. Y, ¿ahora se ven animales que en años pasados (10, 15, 20, 40) no se veía?
102 si no ¿Cuáles? ¿Cuándo empezó a verlos? 1…4
41. ¿Para usted, como cambia la presencia de animales silvestres el valor de su finca para otros usos (como vacas, agricultura, plantaciones)? dañe aumente no afecta ¿Por qué? 42. ¿Ha visto usted monos charros en su finca? si no a. Si, ¿con que frecuencia se ven? cada día 1 vez al mes 1 vez a la semana 2-3 veces al año 2-3 veces al mes es raro, la última vez fue ______
b. ¿Y cuándo los ve, cuántos se ven a la vez? 1, acaso 10-20 2-5 20-30 5-10 más que 30
43. ¿Cuáles instituciones o personas le han ayudado con el manejo de su finca? algún familiar: quién? un amigo: ______ el MIDA un ONG:______ el ANAM/INRENARE un instituto otro programa del gobierno:______técnico:______ el representante (del distrito) el vecino:______
44. ¿Conoce usted gente que hayan vendido sus terrenos? ¿Cuándo? ¿A quién? ¿El que vendió todavía vive aquí o se mudó a otro lugar?
45. ¿Han venido muchos extranjeros aquí? c si: ¿Desde cuándo?: ______c no ¿Qué piensa usted de la venida de extranjeros? 46. ¿Está cambiando la cultura de ______? ¿Cómo y desde cuándo?
Dato de referencia/GPS? Fecha: ______Hora: ______
103
Survey - English Version: #: ______Los Santos Land Use Survey Date: ______Investigator: Ruth Metzel Region: ______
Questions about Family History: 1. What is your age? ______2. Have you lived in Los Santos province your entire life? yes no If not, ¿when did you move to Los Santos? ______In which other provinces or nations have you lived?
If yes, have your parents lived their whole lives in Los Santos province? yes no If not, when did they move to Los Santos? ______In which other provinces or nations have they lived?
3. How many sons and daughters do you have? ______sons ______daughters (see table below) And, grandchildren? How many? ______
4. What level of education have your children obtained? And your grandchildren? 5. Where do your children live? Do they live here in the province? ______
If yes, do you have family members that have moved from Los Santos? To where, and for what reason?
6. And your grandchildren, where do they live? ______# Son/Daughter/ Education level Residence? Occupation Help with Grandchild the farm? 1…20
7. What education level have you obtained? no schooling primary school, year: ______ secondary school, year: ______ University-level studies, year: ______ Graduate-level studies Studies in a technical post-secondary institute
104
Questions about land administration:
8. ¿Are you owner or administrator of your farm/land7? owner land administrator for an absent owner friend relative part/co-owner other: ______
9. When did you begin to administer the farm/land? ______10. Did you buy or inherit it? ______a. If you bought it, for what amount? ______11. Did you have another occupation before administering the farm? What? __ 12. What is the size of the farm/land you administer (in hectares)? ______13. How many days a week do you work on the farm/land? ______and on those days, how many hours a day do you work? ______b. If you do not work on the farm/land, How many workers/ “peones” do you employ? ______c. How many days a week do they work on the farm? ______and, how many hours a day? ______d. How much do you pay them? ______e. 14. In addition to working on the farm, do you have another occupation?
yes: ______ no, If yes, what is your principal source of work/income?
15. Do your children help you to administer the farm? yes, How many?____[see table]______ no: ______16. In addition to working on the farm, do they have other occupations? yes: What? ______ no, If yes, which occupation do they consider their principal source of work/income?
7 The words farm and land were used alternately, depending on what land use the land manager indicated (if their land was dedicated principally to a teak plantation, land was used in lieu of farm, etc.)
105 17. Did your parents also administer this farm/land? And your grandparents? yes, parents yes, grandparents no, neither
b. If yes, ¿Did they have another occupation in addition to administering the farm? yes, parents, what? ______ yes, grandparents, what? ______ no If yes, which occupation do they consider their principal occupation?
18. What types of changes have you noted in the land since you began to administer it?
e. Is there more brush (“rastrojo”) or forest?8 Or less? Since when?9
f. Have you noted if the creek/water source dries out or if it maintains water the full year? If it dries out, since when?
g. Is there a difference in the tree and plant species that are present on the farm?
h. And, who do you think will use the farm/land after you do?
19. What is the use that you give to your land? (cattle, agriculture, trees, forest) And, What area of the land is dedicated to each use? (in hectares, or, half? a fourth?) To cattle? _____ To agriculture? _____ Which crops? ______To tree plantations? _____ Is there a residence? ______To “montaña”/forest? ______To “rastrojo”?______If you leave part as forest or “rastrojo,” why?
20. Where is the forest located on your farm? And, the “rastrojo”? beside a creek or water source at the border of land and a neighbor’s land the place furthest from the principal road near or beside the residence other: ______
8 “rastrojo” is a term used in the Azuero to refer to young overgrowth or brush, it can refer young trees and shrubs to 2-10 years in age. The Panama environmental agency, ANAM, uses “rastrojo” as one of the categories in its land classification scheme. 9 Questions in italics not included in Macaracas version
106 beside a creek or water source at the border of land and a neighbor’s land the place furthest from the principal road near or beside the residence other: ______21. Has a portion of your land changed from one use to another (for example, from agriculture to pasture or to “rastrojo”) in the last… 5 years? ______when? 5-10 years? 10-15 years? 15-20 years? 20-40 years? ____
22. When you bought or inherited this land, was the forest already cleared, or did you have to clear it yourself?
23. Do you leave some trees on the farm/land? yes no Which species? Why? Where?
24. If you see a sapling growing [in the pasture], which kinds do you assist in growing (by clearing around it, etc.) or which do you cut? Which species? Why?
25. Do you plant trees? yes no Which species? Why? Where?
26. Which species do you use in your live fences? For what reason did you decide to use those species?
27. And when you do the clearing of the live fence, are there some trees that you allow to grow alongside the fence? Which species and why?
28. Which methods do you use to clear the land? machete fire/burning herbicide with a machine, a motor other: ______
107 29. After taking into account production costs, how much do you profit from your farm each year?10 ______In the winter?11 In the summer?
30. What are the largest costs that you pay in the administration of your farm each… Cost: Summer? Winter? Labor
Fertilizer
Vaccines
Crop seeds
“pasto mejorado”12 seeds Herbicide
Wire and Staples
Other
To agriculturalists: 31. Do you sell part of your harvest? How many quintals do you sell a year? At what price do you sell each quintal?
Crop How many quintals At what price? sold per year? Corn
Rice
Beans
Ñame (yam)
Yuca (cassava, manioc,
10 This question was rarely asked, except to large landowners that kept a regular yearly documentation of their profit margins, see questions below for that question broken into parts 11 Panama’s winter/rainy season and summer/dry season extend from May-November and December-April, respectively – the questions here are asked of Panamanian seasons 12 “pasto mejorado” refers to species of improved exotic grass that are imported for cattle feed and planted in pastures across the Azuero peninsula
108 yucca) Plantains
Other:
Other:
To cattle ranchers: 32. Your cattle, are they for milk or meat? milk: ______ meat: ______
• If they are milk cows, in total, how many of litres of milk to you get from the cows each fortnight? And, what price are you paid for each litre of milk?
Litres of milk extracted Price received per litre? Winter Summer
33. How many heads of cattle do you sell yearly at...? At what price are they sold? Sold at Quantity Cattle type Price received Reason Carnes Coclé/the slaughterhouse La subasta/ the auctionhouse Internally/locally
34. Do your cattle enter your forest or is there a fence preventing their entry? yes no 35. Do you use “pasto mejorado”? yes, how much, in ha? ______since when? ______ no 36. In how many parcels do you divide your land? ______37. Do you rotate your cattle? How much time do your cattle spend in each parcel? yes no Time in each parcel: ______38. And, How many heads of cattle do you have now? And,….? Now: 15 years ago? 5 years ago? 20 years ago? 10 years ago? 40 years ago?
109
To all: 39. Did you see animals in the past (10, 15, 20, 40 years) that are not seen anymore? yes no Which ones? When was your last sighting? [1…4]
40. And, now do you see animals that in the past (10, 15, 20, 40 years) you did not see? yes no Which ones? When did you first start to see them? [1…4]
41. For you, how does the presence of wild animals change the value of your farm for other uses (like cattle, agriculture, tree plantations)? it decreases value it increases value it has no effect Why?
42. Have you seen spider monkeys on your farm? yes no f. If yes, how frequently are they seen? each day 1 time a month once a week 2-3 times a year 2-3 times a month rare, the last sighting was___ g. And when you see them, how many are there? 1, rare 10-20 2-5 20-30 5-10 more than 30
43. Which institutions or people have helped you with the management of your farm?
a relative, which? ______ an NGO:______ a technical institute:______ a neighbor:______ a friend: ______ MIDA ANAM/INRENARE another government program:______ a representative (district)
110 44. Do you know people who have sold their land? When? To whom – foreigners, local residents? Do those who sold still live here or have they moved?
45. Have many foreigners come here? c yes, since when?: ______c no What do you think of the arrival of the foreigners?
46. Is the culture of ______changing? If so, how and since when?
Reference point/GPS? Date: ______Hour: ______
111
Appendix III: Chapter IV Figures Figure 1: Tree species survey participants reported leaving in A. Macaracas (above) and B. Pedasí (below; ) listed in alphabetical order by common name
112
Figure 2: Reasons survey participants with and without forest reported for leaving trees in Macaracas and Pedasí, excluding live fences
Figure 3: Locations survey participants with and without forest reported leaving trees left in Macaracas and Pedasí, excluding live fences
113
Figure 4: Tree species survey participants reported planting in A. Macaracas (above) and B. Pedasí (below) listed in alphabetical order by common name
114
Figure 5: Reasons survey participants with and without forest reported for planting trees in Macaracas and Pedasí, excluding live fence stakes
Figure 6: Locations survey participants with and without forest reported planting trees in Macaracas and Pedasí, excluding live fences
115
Figure 7: Tree species survey participants reported using in live fences in Macaracas and Pedasí
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Figure 8: Tree Species survey participants reported leaving along live fences in Macaracas and Pedasí
117