Protected areas reduce deforestation and degradation and enhance woody growth across African woodlands
Protected areas reduce deforestation and degradation and enhance woody growth across African woodlands
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/s43247-023-01053-4
复制
发表时间：
2023-10
影响因子：
7.9
通讯作者：
I. McNicol;Aidan Keane;Neil D. Burgess;Samuel J. Bowers;E. Mitchard;C. Ryan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
I. McNicol;Aidan Keane;Neil D. Burgess;Samuel J. Bowers;E. Mitchard;C. Ryan
保护区因其固碳能力以及生物多样性的好处而得到越来越多的推广。然而，我们对它们在减少森林砍伐和退化、或促进植被生长方面是否有效，以及这对地上木本碳储量变化的影响了解有限。在这里，我们提供了一张新的基于卫星雷达的南部非洲林地植被碳变化地图，并将其与一种匹配方法相结合，以评估保护区对碳动态的影响。我们发现，保护对地上碳有积极的影响，与未受保护的可比土地(每年增加0.08%)相比，保护区的储量增长更快(每年增加0.53%)。保护的积极影响反映了较低的森林砍伐率(−39%)和退化(−25%)，以及受保护土地内植被生长的更普遍(+12%)。在控制了地点的差异后，受到严格保护的地区与其他类型的保护结果相似，影响分数反而因国家和威胁程度的不同而不同。这些结果突显了保护区封存地上碳的潜力，尽管我们警告说，在某些地区，这可能会对生物多样性和人类福祉产生负面影响。
Protected areas are increasingly promoted for their capacity to sequester carbon, alongside biodiversity benefits. However, we have limited understanding of whether they are effective at reducing deforestation and degradation, or promoting vegetation growth, and the impact that this has on changes to aboveground woody carbon stocks. Here we present a new satellite radar-based map of vegetation carbon change across southern Africa’s woodlands and combine this with a matching approach to assess the effect of protected areas on carbon dynamics. We show that protection has a positive effect on aboveground carbon, with stocks increasing faster in protected areas (+0.53% per year) compared to comparable lands not under protection (+0.08% per year). The positive effect of protection reflects lower rates of deforestation (−39%) and degradation (−25%), as well as a greater prevalence of vegetation growth (+12%) inside protected lands. Areas under strict protection had similar outcomes to other types of protection after controlling for differences in location, with effect scores instead varying more by country, and the level of threat. These results highlight the potential for protected areas to sequester aboveground carbon, although we caution that in some areas this may have negative impacts on biodiversity, and human wellbeing.