Losing a jewel-Rapid declines in Myanmar's intact forests from 2002-2014

PLoS One. 2017 May 17;12(5):e0176364. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176364. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

New and rapid political and economic changes in Myanmar are increasing the pressures on the country's forests. Yet, little is known about the past and current condition of these forests and how fast they are declining. We mapped forest cover in Myanmar through a consortium of international organizations and environmental non-governmental groups, using freely-available public domain data and open source software tools. We used Landsat satellite imagery to assess the condition and spatial distribution of Myanmar's intact and degraded forests with special focus on changes in intact forest between 2002 and 2014. We found that forests cover 42,365,729 ha or 63% of Myanmar, making it one of the most forested countries in the region. However, severe logging, expanding plantations, and degradation pose increasing threats. Only 38% of the country's forests can be considered intact with canopy cover >80%. Between 2002 and 2014, intact forests declined at a rate of 0.94% annually, totaling more than 2 million ha forest loss. Losses can be extremely high locally and we identified 9 townships as forest conversion hotspots. We also delineated 13 large (>100,000 ha) and contiguous intact forest landscapes, which are dispersed across Myanmar. The Northern Forest Complex supports four of these landscapes, totaling over 6.1 million ha of intact forest, followed by the Southern Forest Complex with three landscapes, comprising 1.5 million ha. These remaining contiguous forest landscape should have high priority for protection. Our project demonstrates how open source data and software can be used to develop and share critical information on forests when such data are not readily available elsewhere. We provide all data, code, and outputs freely via the internet at (for scripts: https://bitbucket.org/rsbiodiv/; for the data: http://geonode.themimu.info/layers/geonode%3Amyan_lvl2_smoothed_dec2015_resamp).

MeSH terms

  • Conservation of Natural Resources*
  • Forests*
  • Myanmar
  • Satellite Imagery
  • Trees / physiology

Grants and funding

EU FLEGT--Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Provided funding for mapping forest condition and change from Landsat satellite imagery. Website: http://www.euflegt.efi.int/map-flegt-projects Role: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust Website: http://helmsleytrust.org/grant/smithsonian-institution-0 Supporting Integrated Protected Area Land and Seascape Management in Tanintharyi. The funder supported salaries for trainers and senior remote sensing analysts based in Myanmar. Role: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. USAID Burma Program Website: https://www.usaid.gov/burma/our-work/democracy-human-rights-and-rule-law Provided funding to support local GIS/remote sensing analyst as well as capacity building. Role: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) website: https://www.iucn.org/about/union/secretariat/offices/asia/asia_where_work/southeast_asia_group/country_members/myanmar/ Provided funding to support Myanmar GIS/RS analysts to help with mapping. Role: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.