Utility of landscape mosaics and boundaries in forest conservation decision making in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Utility of landscape mosaics and boundaries in forest conservation decision making in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil Elisa Hardt • Rozely F. dos Santos • Carlos L. de Pablo • Pilar Martı´n de Agar Erico F. L. Pereira-Silva
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Received: 28 February 2012 / Accepted: 3 January 2013 / Published online: 16 January 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract We evaluated changes in the Atlantic Forest landscape over the last 40 years based on changes in boundaries and mosaics, including the hypothetical landscape resulting from the application of Brazilian laws for forest protection. Mosaics were identified as sets of land-use patches with a similar pattern of boundaries. Landscapes of different years, therefore, can be distinguished by differences in mosaics. We developed a technique to identify boundaries between patches from land-use maps using ArcGisÒ and to build the patch x boundary matrix required for mosaic identification by means of a factorial and cluster analysis. The mosaics were characterized by some key uses as well as by their E. Hardt (&) R. F. dos Santos Laboratory of Environmental Planning, Campinas State University, av. Albert Einstein, 951, Caixa Postal 6021, Campinas 13083-852, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] R. F. dos Santos Department of Ecology, University of Sa˜o Paulo, rua do Mata˜o, 321, travessa 14, Sa˜o Paulo 05508-900, Brazil C. L. de Pablo P. M. de Agar Department of Ecology, Complutense University of Madrid, c/Jose´ Antonio Novais 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain E. F. L. Pereira-Silva Municipal Faculty ‘‘Professor Franco Montoro’’, rua dos Estudantes s/n, Caixa Postal 293, Mogi-Guac¸u 13843-971, Brazil
boundaries with other land uses. The mosaics were scored for forest conservation according to five issues: landscape permeability, cover, availability, quality, and fragmentation of forest. The values were based on land use and boundary patterns. Although Brazilian laws regarding forest protection have promoted conservation and the hypothetical legal landscape has presented the highest forest habitat availability, this expansion perpetuates a boundary pattern that complicates conservation and management, thus increasing the pressure on forest patches and favoring the further fragmentation of protected forest patches. These conclusions cannot be reached by simply recording changes in land uses. Keywords Landscape management Legal protection Change vector Landscape heterogeneity Landscape metrics
Introduction Establishing the conservation value of forest fragments depends on intrinsic natural characteristics as well as on the context in which these areas are inserted (Hersperger 2006). Understanding local landscape change, including its general geographical and ecological context and all its related dynamics, is crucial for appropriate decision-making, planning, and design of landscapes for the future (Antrop 2004), particularly for forest conservation.
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The patch–corridor–matrix approach (Forman 1995) describing the spatial structure of
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