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A Global Analysis of Deforestation in Moist Tropical Forest Protected Areas
Open accessAbstract
Protected areas (PAs) have been established to conserve tropical forests, but their effectiveness at reducing deforestation is uncertain. To explore this issue, we combined high resolution data of global forest loss over the period 2000-2012 with data on PAs. For each PA we quantified forest loss within the PA, in buffer zones 1, 5, 10 and 15 km outside the PA boundary as well as a 1 km buffer within the PA boundary. We analysed 3376 tropical and subtropical moist forest PAs in 56 countries over 4 continents. We found that 73% of PAs experienced substantial deforestation pressure, with >0.1% a(-1) forest loss in the outer 1 km buffer. Forest loss within PAs was greatest in Asia (0.25% a(-1)) compared to Africa (0.1% a(-1)), the Neotropics (0.1% a(-1)) and Australasia (Australia and Papua New Guinea; 0.03% a(-1)). We defined performance (P) of a PA as the ratio of forest loss in the inner 1 km buffer compared to the loss that would have occurred in the absence of the PA, calculated as the loss in the outer 1 km buffer corrected for any difference in deforestation pressure between the two buffers. To remove the potential bias due to terrain, we analysed a subset of PAs (n = 1804) where slope and elevation in inner and outer 1 km buffers were similar (within 1° and 100 m, respectively). We found 41% of PAs in this subset reduced forest loss in the inner buffer by at least 25% compared to the expected inner buffer forest loss (P<0.75). Median performance (P) of subset reserves was 0.87, meaning a reduction in forest loss within the PA of 13%. We found PAs were most effective in Australasia (P = 0.16), moderately successful in the Neotropics (P = 0.72) and Africa (p = 0.83), but ineffective in Asia (P = 1). We found many countries have PAs that give little or no protection to forest loss, particularly in parts of Asia, west Africa and central America. Across the tropics, the median effectiveness of PAs at the national level improved with gross domestic product per capita. Whilst tropical and subtropical moist forest PAs do reduce forest loss, widely varying performance suggests substantial opportunities for improved protection, particularly in Asia.
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“Despite some methodological differences, our results align with those of Spracklen et al. (2015), who found that Côte d'Ivoire had some of the highest rates of deforestation inside and within 10 km of protected areas (0.5% year -1 ) in West Africa between 2000 and 2012.”
From Forest loss during 2000–2019 in pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis) habitats was driven by shifting agriculture (2024) · cites this paper as Spracklen et al. (2015)
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Metadata
- Authors
- Spracklen, B. D., Kalamandeen, M., Galbraith, D., Gloor, E., & Spracklen, D. V.
- Affiliations
- University of Leeds (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Spracklen, B. D.
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2015-12-03
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- e0143886
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4669159
- OpenAlex
- W2183313292
- Cited by
- 141
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 7.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- United Bank of Carbon
- Natural Environment Research Council (NE/F005806/1, NE/G015015/1, NE/K01644X/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Forestry › Forest Management and Policy
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Oil Palm Production and Sustainability
- Keywords
- protected areas, deforestation, forest loss, tropical humid forest, subtropical forest, protected area effectiveness, buffer zones, forest conservation, GDP per capita, spatial autocorrelation, Neotropical region, Africa, Australasia, Central America, western Pacific, eastern North America, eastern South America, eastern Australia, East Antarctica
- MeSH terms
- Conservation of Natural Resources, Humans, Trees, Tropical Climate, Forests
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