Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Management Regime on Forest Structure and Disturbance Patterns in the Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

博士论文研究：管理制度对坦桑尼亚乌桑巴拉山森林结构和干扰模式的影响

• 批准号: 0703073
• 负责人: James Randolph
• 金额: $ 1.15万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-04-15 至 2008-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0703073&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Effects; Management

The fate of tropical forests in human-dominated landscapes relies on interdisciplinary research to better understand ecosystem processes and ecological functioning, while also determining how such forests may be managed to meet the needs of resource-dependent people. Participation by local forest users in tropical forest management continues to gain legal and institutional grounding, but the ecological effects of particular management actions and patterns of resource use under such policies remain understudied. This dissertation research combines tropical forest ecology and institutional analyses to examine differences in local institutional arrangements for forest management, anthropogenic forest disturbance patterns, and ensuing changes in forest structure and composition, among seven Tanzanian forests and forest-adjacent villages. Comparisons will be made horizontally among forests currently under three different management strategies varying by degree of local participation, and longitudinally in each forest before and after national forest policy was revised to facilitate community participation. The objectives of the study are (1) to compare changes in forest condition, spatial patterns and intensity of human forest use, between Joint Forest Management, Community Forest Management and central government forest management strategies and (2) to identify local institutional strategies correlated with comparatively improved forest conditions. Forest condition will be indicated by composition and structural attributes measured from overstory plots and hemispherical photo transects. Current and historical patterns of forest conversion and canopy gap formation, a structural indicator of logging intensity, will be quantified via spectral mixture analysis and multi-temporal change detection using a 12-yr Landsat imagery chronosequence. Semi-structured interviews with forest-dependent villagers, local forest management committees, and Forest Department staff will identify changes in forest access rules, rule enforcement and relationships between these actors in response to national forest policy change. Paired control forests will be used to account for factors other than management change that may drive observed changes in forest condition at the study sites. A minimally disturbed research forest is also included in the study to serve as an ecological reference for comparison of forest structure and composition, and to determine a benchmark rate of canopy gap formation in the absence of significant human disturbance.Research results will determine how differences in the institutional structure and local participation of forest-dependent peoples among different forest management strategies disparately affect human disturbance patterns in the study forests, hence forest condition and ecological dynamics. Study results may enable an improved design for functional local forest management in participatory settings, and increase the currently small body of knowledge about how different patterns and intensities of anthropogenic forest use affect tropical forest structure. Such information is necessary for building a stronger framework for forest management that promotes social and ecological sustainability in human-dominated landscapes worldwide.

人类主导景观中热带森林的命运依赖于跨学科研究，以更好地了解生态系统过程和生态功能，同时确定如何管理此类森林以满足依赖资源的人们的需求。 当地森林使用者参与热带森林管理继续获得法律和制度基础，但此类政策下特定管理行动和资源利用模式的生态影响仍未得到充分研究。 本论文研究结合了热带森林生态学和制度分析，研究了坦桑尼亚七个森林和森林相邻村庄之间当地森林管理制度安排的差异、人为森林干扰模式以及随之而来的森林结构和组成的变化。 将根据当地参与程度对当前采用三种不同管理策略的森林进行横向比较，并在国家森林政策修订以促进社区参与之前和之后对每个森林进行纵向比较。 该研究的目的是（1）比较联合森林管理、社区森林管理和中央政府森林管理战略之间森林条件、空间格局和人类森林利用强度的变化；（2）确定与相对改善的森林条件相关的地方制度策略。 森林状况将通过从覆盖层图和半球形照片横断面测量的成分和结构属性来指示。 森林转变和树冠间隙形成的当前和历史模式（采伐强度的结构指标）将通过光谱混合分析和使用 12 年 Landsat 图像时间序列的多时间变化检测来量化。 对以森林为生的村民、当地森林管理委员会和林业部门工作人员的半结构化访谈将确定森林准入规则、规则执行以及这些参与者之间关系的变化，以应对国家森林政策的变化。 配对对照森林将用于解释管理变化以外的因素，这些因素可能会导致研究地点观察到的森林状况发生变化。研究还包括一个受干扰最小的研究森林，作为比较森林结构和组成的生态参考，并确定在没有重大人类干扰的情况下树冠间隙形成的基准率。研究结果将确定不同森林管理策略中以森林为生的人们的制度结构和当地参与的差异如何不同地影响研究森林中的人类干扰模式，从而影响森林状况和生态动态。 研究结果可能有助于改进参与性环境中功能性当地森林管理的设计，并增加目前关于人为森林利用的不同模式和强度如何影响热带森林结构的少量知识。 这些信息对于建立更强大的森林管理框架是必要的，该框架可促进全球人类主导景观的社会和生态可持续性。