About  |  Issues  |  Current issue  |  Submissions  |   Instructions for reviewers  |   Subscriptions  |   Partners  |  News  |  Academic indexing  |  Contact

Conservation Letter

Integrating landscapes that have experienced rural depopulation and ecological homogenization into tropical conservation planning [ pages 307-320 ]

Aerin L. Jacob1, Ismael Vaccaro2, Raja Sengupta3, Joel Hartter4 and Colin A. Chapman5
    1Dept. of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1B1, Canada; 2Dept. of Anthropology & McGill School of Environment, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; 3Dept. of Geography & McGill School of Environment, 805 Sherbrooke St W., McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2K6, Canada; 4Dept. of Geography, University of New Hampshire, 127 James Hall, Durham, NH 03824, USA; 5Dept. of Anthropology & McGill School of Environment, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Wildlife Conservation Society, 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY 10460, USA

Abstract
If current trends of declining fertility rates and increasing abandonment of rural land as a result of urbanization continue, this will signal a globally significant transformation with important consequences for policy makers interested in conservation planning. This transformation is presently evident in a number of countries and projections suggest it may occur in the future in many developing countries. We use rates of population growth and urbanization to project population trends in rural areas for 25 example countries. Our projections indicate a general decline in population density that has either occurred already (e.g., Mexico) or may occur in the future if current trends continue (e.g., Uganda). Using both temperate and tropical examples we present evidence that this process will lead to ecological homogenization as a dominant habitat (e.g., forest replaces a mosaic of human-maintained landscapes), resulting in declines in biodiversity at the local scale. Building on this information, we consider research programs that need to be conducted so that policy makers are prepared to effectively manage depopulated rural areas.


Full Text PDF
 General interest news article


Reader comments are generally moderated. If you find something inappropriate, please contact Tropical Conservation Science.

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other authors or Tropical Conservation Science.




   Tropical Conservation Science is an open-access e-journal that publishes research relating to conservation of tropical forests and other tropical ecosystems.

Volume 1: Issue 3
Table of Contents

Articles
PDF
News article

All issues
Mar 2008
Jun 2008
Sep 2008
Dec 2008

Mar 2009
Jun 2009
Sep 2009
Dec 2009

Mar 2010
Jun 2010
Sep 2010
Dec 2010

Mar 2011
Jun 2011
Sep 2011
Dec 2011

Mar 2012
Jun 2012
Sep 2012
Dec 2012

Mar 2013
Jun 2013
Aug 2013
Sep 2013
Nov 2013
Dec 2013

Mar 2014
Jun 2014
Sep 2014
Dec 2014

Mar 2015
Jun 2015
Sep 2015
Dec 2015

Mar 2016
Jun 2016


Most downloaded
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
All time


ADVERTISEMENT


SEARCH



Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.



About | Privacy
Copyright mongabay.com 2008-2014