Assessing protected area effectiveness within the Caribbean under changing climate conditions: A case study of the small island, Trinidad

Shobha S. Maharaj, Hamish Asmath, Safraz Ali, John Agard, Stephen A. Harris and Mark New

Land Use Policy, 2019, vol. 81, issue C, 185-193

Abstract: Habitat loss and more recently, climate change are primary challenges to the effectiveness of protected area networks (PANs) in species conservation within many archipelagic biodiversity hotspots across the globe. An environmental niche model (ENM) of 11 high-conservation-value tree species was used to assess the effectiveness of the PAN within the Caribbean island of Trinidad under future (2050s) climate conditions. Overlay analyses were conducted inside and outside of existing PANs to determine the proportions of natural and plantation (monoculture) forests. Proportions of this species group’s climate space projected to be critical for conservation (combination of stable and expanding zones or ‘Z4’) that are under forest cover were also calculated. Approximately 63% of Trinidad is forested, with the majority of plantation forests located within the PAN, producing noticeable areas of cleared forest when harvested. The ENM projected a drastic reduction in climate space for this group of high-conservation-value tree species across the island. However, approximately 54% of the Z4 space was projected to occur within the PAN; and 61% of the Z4 falling outside the PAN was under forest cover. Consequently, conservation of this species group could be greatly enhanced by increasing the proportion of its Z4 climate space outside the PAN under maintained forest/secondary vegetation cover. Given the small size of small island states (SIS) (such as those in the Caribbean) relative to the macro-scale of climate change, a more effective means of managing climate-induced species loss could involve the development of regional-scale PANs rather than separate efforts of individual SIS.

Keywords: Small island; climate change; protected areas; biodiversity; environmental niche modelling; Caribbean (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718301224
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:81:y:2019:i:c:p:185-193

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.09.030

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().