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Areas Protegidas y Conservación de Biodiversidad en el Trópico
Author(s) -
SánchezAzofeifa G. Arturo,
QuesadaMateo Carlos,
GonzalezQuesada Pablo,
Dayanandan S.,
Bawa Kamaljit S.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
conservation biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.2
H-Index - 222
eISSN - 1523-1739
pISSN - 0888-8892
DOI - 10.1046/j.1523-1739.1999.013002407.x
Subject(s) - deforestation (computer science) , fragmentation (computing) , biodiversity , geography , forest fragmentation , tropics , georeference , forestry , protected area , tropical forest , agroforestry , environmental protection , physical geography , environmental science , ecology , biology , archaeology , computer science , programming language
We compared deforestation rates and the extent of fragmentation inside and outside protected areas in the Sarapiquí region of Costa Rica. We determined deforestation rates using remotely sensed images with supervised classification. We georeferenced the processed images and then transformed them to vector format for final mapping and parameter quantification. The deforestation rate in protected areas was low and declined sharply from 0.56% annually between 1976 and 1986 to 0.16% from 1991 to 1995. Outside the protected areas, the rate decreased from 3.6% in 1976–1986 to 2.8% in 1986–1991, but it increased again to 3.2% in 1991–1995. Fragmentation outside the protected areas increased considerably: the number of patches increased from 537 in 1976 to 1231 in 1996, while during the same period the average size of patches decreased from 0.95 to 0.25 km 2 . Forest landscapes in the Sarapiquí region are likely to lose considerable biodiversity because of the past forest loss and fragmentation even without further increases in deforestation and fragmentation.