Biodiversity and Land Systems
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ISSN 2316-3747 NEWSLETTER OF THE GLOBAL 12 LAND PROJECT GLP - A joint research project of IGBP & Future Earth ISSUE Nº 12 | NOVEMBER 2015 Biodiversity and Land Systems PERSPECTIVE A new focus for ecological restoration: management of degraded forest remnants in fragmented landscapes 1 NEWS | NOVEMBER 2015 NEWS | NOVEMBER GLP Land use and land cover change is the major driver of biodiversity loss in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, making the management and governance of land systems a key parameter in conserving and sustaining biodiversity. This issue gathers 16 contributions dealing with the relations between biodiversity and land systems from very diverse thematic and regional perspectives. Photo by: Fabiano M. Scarpa Fabiano by: Photo Scientific Steering Committee – SSC Peter Verburg (Chair of GLP, 2011-2016) Institute for Environmental Studies - VU University Amsterdam 12 De Boelelaan 1087 - 1081 HV Amsterdam - Netherlands Email: [email protected] Roy Rinku Chowdburry School of Geography Clark University Worcester, MA 01610-1477 Email: [email protected] Patrick Meyfroidt SST/ELI - Earth and Life Institute (ELI) - ELIC - Earth & Climate (ELIC) - Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) ELIC - Place Louis Pasteur 3 bte - L4.03.08 à 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve - Belgium Email: [email protected] Allison M. Thomson Joint Global Change Research Institute 5825 University Research Court, Suite 3500 College Park, MD 20740 Email: [email protected] Souleymane Konaté Research Pole on Environment and Sustainable Development. University of Nangui Abrogoua (Ex- Abobo-Adjamé), UFR-SN. 02 BP 801 Abidjan 02, Côte d’Ivoire Email: [email protected] | [email protected] Karlheinz Erb Coverpage Institute for Social Ecology - University of Klagenfurt Schottenfeldgasse 29/5t - A-1070 Vienna - Austria Vereda ecosystem in Email: [email protected] the Brazilian Cerrado - a biodiversity hotspot Nancy Golubiewski Photo by Fabiano M. Scarpa Land Use Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS) - Ministry for the Environment – Manatu Mo Te Taiao 23 Kate Sheppard Place, PO Box 10362, Wellington 6143 - New Zeland Email: [email protected] GLP News is a newsletter of the Global Land Project Jonathan Morgan Grove Northern Research Station - USDA Forest Service Editors: 5200 Westland Blvd. TRC 171 - MD 21227, Baltimore - United States of America Sébastien Boillat 2 Email: [email protected] Fabiano Micheletto Scarpa Andreas Heinimann Centre for Development and Environment - University of Berne Peter Verburg Hallerstrasse 10, 3012 Bern, Switzerland Jean Pierre Henry Email: [email protected] Balbaud Ometto Harini Nagendra Azim Premi University - PES Institute of Technology Campus International Project Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore - India Email: [email protected] Office - GLP IPO National Institute for Erle C. Ellis NEWS | NOVEMBER 2015 NEWS | NOVEMBER Space Research - INPE Dept. of Geography & Environmental Systems - University of Maryland GLP 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 - United States of America Earth System Science Centre - CCST Email: [email protected] Av. dos Astronautas, 1758 Lin Zhen CCST Building, 1st Floor, Room 22 Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese - Academy of Sciences Jd. Granja - 12227-010 Deputy Director of Research Unit for Resource Ecology and Biomass Resources São José dos Campos 11A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101- PR China São Paulo - Brazil Email: [email protected], [email protected] Office phone: +55 12 3208 7938 Neville D. Crossman www.globallandproject.org Senior Research Scientist, Team Leader, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Private Bag 2, Glen Osmond, SA, 5064 - Australia Email: [email protected] Dr. Jean Pierre Henry Balbaud Ometto Ole Mertz INPE Liason Researcher Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 10, 1350 Copenhagen K. - Denmark Office phone: +55 12 3208 7903 Email: [email protected] Patrick H. Hostert Dr. Sébastien Boillat Head of Geomatics Lab, Deputy Director of Geography Department Executive Officer Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Geography Department / Geomatics Lab Office phone: +55 12 3208 7931 Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin - Germany Email: [email protected] Dr. Fabiano Micheletto Scarpa Héctor Ricardo Grau Project Officer Instituto de Ecología Regional - Universidad Nacional de Tucumán-CONICET Office phone: +55 12 3208 7942 Casilla de Correo 34, (4107) Yerba Buena, Tucumán - Argentina Email: [email protected] EDITORIAL Biodiversity and Land Systems Nearly 30 years ago, the term biodiversity became and halt and reverse land degradation and halt widely used after a publication by Edward O. Wilson biodiversity loss” (ICSU, ISSC, 2015) is of particular in 1988 and was formally defined by the Convention interest to address the relationships between on Biological Diversity enacted 1992 in Rio de biodiversity and land systems. Another entry point Janeiro, Brazil. Despite many efforts performed to protect biodiversity is the soil conservation and since then by international organizations, management agenda, with 2015 declared the governments, civil society and the private sector International Year of Soils, and the observation to conserve biodiversity and manage it sustainably, that about 25% of the world´s arable land is the remaining challenges are huge. The process of degraded affecting food security and ecosystem massive and acute modification of the Earth system functioning (Ahukaemere et.al. 2012). In this started at the Industrial Revolution in the 18th issue, we present original contributions of the GLP Century is still under way. Human activities have community dealing with the relations between particularly intensified since the last 50 years, as biodiversity and land systems from very diverse population and consumption standards continue thematic and regional perspectives. Biodiversity to grow. These activities include urbanization and hotspots are natural environments that are conversion of natural ecosystems into agricultural crucial for conservation purposes as they host areas, pasture and industrial crops to supply human high levels of endemism and have been reduced needs for food, fuel and fiber, leading to habitat to at least 60% of their original area. Thirty-five destruction for many species (Haines-Young, biodiversity hotspots have been identified to date, 2009; Mantyka-Pringle, 2015). It is estimated that representing 2,3 % of the land surface (Marchese, biodiversity loss is currently happening at a rate that 2015). In this magazine four studies were ranges between 1000 and 10,000 times higher than conducted in such areas, the Atlantic rainforest, the natural extinction rate (Benn, 2010; De Vos et al. the Afromontane and Coastal forests of Eastern 2014, Mantyka-Pringle, 2015) and is already beyond Africa, Madagascar, and Western Australia. R. Viani 3 the safe limits (Rockstrom 2009). Consequences are and colleagues show their findings related to the serious as biodiversity is strongly linked to benefits restoration of a remnant of the Atlantic rainforest associated to ecosystems and human wellbeing in southeastern Brazil. C. Capitani and colleagues (ecosystem services) including preservation of stress on the effects of land use and climate water resources, provision of pollinators for crops, change in the forests of Kenya and Tanzania. pest control, discovery of new medicines, timber, J. C. Llopis, C. J. Gardner and X. Vincke focus on soil conservation, recycling of nutrients, and climate the problems regarding land-cover change in the regulation (Cardinale et.al. 2012). spiny forests of Madagascar. Finally, H. Lambers To address these urgent issues, biodiversity discusses the threats a megadiverse region - 2015 NEWS | NOVEMBER Southwest Australia - is facing. conservation and management has gradually GLP switched from a disciplinary approach centered on Several additional studies address the drivers the conservation of single species, to more systemic of land cover change and their implications and interdisciplinary approaches that address for biodiversity. P. Fearnside writes about the biodiversity as part of complex social-ecological expansion of soybean production in the Amazon systems. In this framework, land use and land cover- rainforest and its relationship with deforestation. change (LULCC) has been identified as the major The interaction between humans and ecosystems driver of biodiversity loss in terrestrial ecosystems in the Amboseli region, Kenya is discussed by C. worldwide (Nagendra et al. 2013), making the J. C. Mustaphi, A. C. Shoemaker and R. Marchant. management and governance of land systems a key A. Ovando, G. Tejada and J. Tomasella show parameter in conserving and sustaining biodiversity. the effects of land cover change on hydrology More holistic and integrative approaches to the of the Bolivian Amazon lowlands. The effects conservation and management of biodiversity of agriculture abandonment and fire on forest are reflected in recent international normative succession in Kaluzhskie Zaseki State Nature frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Reserve, Russia is shown by M. Bobrovsky and L. Goals launched this year by the United Nations, which Khanina. Land change affecting ecosystems and set up ambitious goals in terms of the achievement water resources was assessed by J. Helmschrot of sustainable development at global scale. The and colleagues. goal number 15 which aims