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Biodiversity Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use in Fragmented Forest Landscapes (BIOCORES)
This project is coordinated by the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, and involves collaboration with research partners in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Germany and Spain, as well as the UK. The project is funded by the INCO-DEV Programme of the European Commission. The overall objective of the project is to identify sustainable approaches to land use, by identifying how biodiversity may be conserved in landscapes subjected to human use. Areas where deforestation is occurring at a high rate are generally characterised by conversion of forest to agricultural land-uses, such as crop cultivation and grazing, often in addition to logging and the use of fire. Clearance of forest for agriculture leads to a decline in forest area and fragmentation of forest habitat. Remnant patches of forest may be further degraded by extraction of forest products, and by alteration of environmental conditions in newly created forest edges. These processes reduce the ability of forest ecosystems to provide the services on which local communities depend, including soil and watershed protection, as well as provision of forest products. Understanding how human impacts influence biodiversity enables the environmental implications of different land-use decisions to be evaluated, providing a basis for assessing the local and national policy options relevant to local communities. The aim of the research will therefore be to investigate the impact of human activity on the key processes influencing biodiversity in fragmented forest landscapes, and to use the research results to develop practical tools for evaluating land-use decisions, thereby indicating how sustainable development might be achieved in practice.
For more details contact Dr Adrian Newton
