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. 2017 Aug 3;7(1):6404.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-06751-6.

Conflict between conservation and development: cash forest encroachment in Asian elephant distributions

Peng Liu  1 , Hui Wen  2 , Franziska K Harich  3 , Changhuan He  1 , Lanxin Wang  4 , Xianming Guo  5 , Jianwei Zhao  4 , Aidong Luo  4 , Hongpei Yang  4 , Xiao Sun  1 , Yang Yu  1 , Shaobo Zheng  1 , Jing Guo  1 , Li Li  6 , Li Zhang  7
Affiliations

Conflict between conservation and development: cash forest encroachment in Asian elephant distributions

Peng Liu et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Over the last 4 decades, China has undergone major economic development, resulting in considerable impacts on its wildlife populations and habitats. It is essential to quantify the conflict between development and conservation to assist with policy-making because forestry policies and market trends affected indirectly the distribution of Asian elephants. Here, we mapped the historical distribution of elephants versus human land use. Elephant distributions appear to occur in unbroken natural forests only. However, over the 40-year period, the distribution ranges have become smaller and fragmented, with natural forest area also declining by 16%. The monoculture of cash trees is encroaching on natural forests. Over the past 10 years, rubber plantations have become concentrated in the south, with extensive natural forests and scattered rubber farms being converted to tea plantations, due to changes in governmental policies and product prices. Through mapping the spatial changes in the distribution of rubber and tea plantations, our study is expected to help local managers to incorporate the needs of endangered elephants through creating space when planning plantations, especially in Xishuangbanna and the south part of Pu'er. In conclusion, restoring elephant habitat and establishing ecological corridors are critical for the survival of elephants in this region.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribtuion areas of Asian elephants in 1975, 1990, 2005 and 2014. ArcGIS 10.2 (ESRI Ltd., CA, USA. www.esri.com) were used to analyze the remote sensing images and GIS data.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Land cover classification maps with related elephant distributions in 1975, 1990, 2005 and 2014. Software: ArcGIS 10.2 (ESRI Ltd., CA, USA. www.esri.com).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Spatial changes of different land cover (“+” means the appeared area; “−” means the disappeared area). (A) change of natural forest from 1975 to 2014; (B) change of rubber from 2005 to 2014; (C) change of tea from 2005 to 2014. Software: ArcGIS 10.2 (ESRI Ltd., CA, USA. www.esri.com).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Annual yields for rubber and tea in Yunnan Province and nationwide during 1978 to 2014 (millon kilogram). (A) annual rubber yields (no data had been recorded for Yunnan from 1978–1987 and from 1995–1997) (B) annual tea yields.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Annual Producer Price Index (PPI) for natural rubber and tea in Yunnan Province and nationwide during 2005 to 2014. (A) natural rubber PPI (B) tea PPI. Baseline: the price in the previous year is 100. (A Producer Price Index (PPI) measures the average changes in prices received by domestic producers for their output. In the US, the PPI was known as the Wholesale Price Index, or WPI, up to 1978).
Figure 6
Figure 6
The expected design for Asian elephant corridors in China (Zhang et al.). Software: ArcGIS 10.2 (ESRI Ltd., CA, USA. www.esri.com).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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