Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 220, April 2018, Pages 245-253
Biological Conservation

Do responsibly managed logging concessions adequately protect jaguars and other large and medium-sized mammals? Two case studies from Guatemala and Peru

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.02.015Get rights and content

Abstract

Large areas of tropical forest have been designated for timber production but logging practices vary widely. Reduced-impact logging is considered best practice and third-party certification aims to ensure that strict standards are met. This includes minimizing the number of roads constructed, avoiding sensitive areas and strictly regulating hunting. Large scale camera trap grids were utilized in Guatemala and Peru to evaluate the impact of reduced-impact logging in certified concessions upon the large and medium-sized mammal fauna with special emphasis on jaguars (Panthera onca). Spatial capture-recapture models showed that jaguar density in Peru (4.54 ± 0.83 ind. 100 km−2) was significantly higher than in Guatemala (1.52 ± 0.34 ind. 100 km−2) but in both regions, densities were comparable to protected areas. Camera traps detected 22 species of large and medium sized mammals in Guatemala and 27 in Peru and a multi-species occupancy model revealed that logging had no negative impact on any of the species studied and actually had an initial positive impact on several herbivore species. We found no avoidance of logging roads; in fact, many species, especially carnivores, frequently used logging roads as movement corridors. Our results indicate that well-managed logging concessions can maintain important populations of large and medium-sized mammals including large herbivores and large carnivores as long as hunting is controlled and timber volumes extracted are low. Responsible forest management would therefore be an ideal activity in the buffer zones and multiple use zones of protected areas creating much less impact and conflict than alternatives such as agriculture or cattle ranching while still providing economic opportunities. Logging concessions can also play an important role in maintaining landscape connectivity between protected areas.

Introduction

Over the last few decades deforestation of humid tropical forests around the world has continuously increased (Achard et al., 2014; Asner et al., 2009; Hansen et al., 2013). In Southeast Asia and Central America over 70% of the original humid tropical forest has been lost or greatly degraded (<50% tree cover) and in South America this figure is 36% (Asner et al., 2009). About 40% of the remaining forests are affected by commercial logging that often leads to forest degradation, loss of carbon stock, increased vulnerability to fire and increased access to such areas by hunters and small farmers (Asner et al., 2009; Blaser et al., 2011; Laurance et al., 2014; Nepstad et al., 1999).

Management practices of logging operations vary greatly, ranging from clear-cutting to selective reduced-impact logging. Many countries have established forest reserves, logging concessions or other systems for leasing state owned forests to private companies for the extraction of timber with the goal of managing these forests sustainably for long-term production (Blaser et al., 2011). Forest certification was created as an independent third-party verification of responsible forest management with strict standards. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which was established in 1993, has a global forest certification system that accredits companies that use sound social and environmental practices for forest management (FSC, 2016). FSC-certified logging operations are required to practice reduced impact logging, control or prohibit hunting within the concession, set aside high conservation value forest, and avoid, repair, or mitigate environmental impacts (FSC, 2016). While this comes at a significant cost for the logging company (Gullison, 2003), certified wood sells for a higher price in international markets and companies get increased market access, resulting in a net financial benefit. Although the global area of certified forests has continuously increased over the last two decades, the largest increases happened in boreal forests in Europe and North America (FSC, 2016; PEFC, 2017). In 2011, only 13% of tropical forests were considered sustainably managed and only 4–5% were certified (Blaser et al., 2011).

The conservation of biodiversity is an explicit goal of the FSC certification scheme (FSC, 2016), but the number of studies that have evaluated how well certified forest management under the FSC label protects biodiversity are few in number. Several studies have looked at responses by either single species or small numbers of species of large and medium-sized mammals to certified forest management approaches, leading to the generation of management recommendations (Clark et al., 2009; Davies et al., 2001; Polisar et al., 2017; Rayan and Mohamad, 2009), but far fewer have examined the effects on the entire mammal community (Roopsind et al., 2017; Sollmann et al., 2017). Moreover, several studies have found negative impacts of logging on species richness with effects varying greatly by taxonomic group, geographic region, and logging intensity (Burivalova et al., 2014; Chaudhary et al., 2016; Gibson et al., 2011). For tropical forests, reduced impact logging has been found to have the least negative effect, with some forests under reduced-impact logging retaining between 80% and 100% of their species richness (Bicknell et al., 2014; Chaudhary et al., 2016; Gibson et al., 2011; Putz et al., 2012).

In this study, we use large-scale camera trap surveys to evaluate terrestrial mammal communities in FSC certified logging concessions in Guatemala and Peru. Camera traps are ideally suited to assess mammal communities in tropical forests and, unlike other methods such as line transects, they are also able to collect data on cryptic and nocturnal species (Ahumada et al., 2013; Tobler et al., 2008; Tobler et al., 2015). We used multi-species occupancy models (Dorazio and Royle, 2005; Dorazio et al., 2006; Yamaura et al., 2011) to examine community structure and distribution of mammals in the logging concessions, and assessed the density of the top predator, the jaguar, using spatial capture-recapture models (Borchers and Efford, 2008; Efford et al., 2009; Royle and Young, 2008).

Section snippets

Peru

Peru has 62.5 million ha of lowland tropical rainforest with historically low annual deforestation rates (around 0.2% per year between 1990 and 2015 (FAO, 2015)). In 2000, the Peruvian government passed a new law of Forestry and Wildlife (Ley Forestal y de Fauna Silvestre, Ley N° 27308) that designated about 8 million ha of permanent production forest. Within these areas the government can grant concessions of between 5000 and 50,000 ha for durations of up to 40 years. The concession holders

Jaguar densities

We obtained 203 records of 23 jaguars (14 males and 9 females) from Guatemala and 215 records of 43 jaguars (19 males, 22 females and 2 of unknown sex) from Peru. The estimated density in Guatemala was 1.52 ± 0.34 ind. 100 km−2 and in Peru 4.54 ± 0.83 ind. 100 km−2 with the highest ranking non-Euclidian distance model and 3.00 ± 0.54 with the Euclidian distance model. For both surveys, detection probability g0 was higher on active roads than on old roads, much lower off road, and higher for

Jaguar densities

Tobler and Powell (2013) found that many jaguar camera trap surveys covered too small an area to collect reliable data on jaguar densities and made a number of design recommendations. We subsequently implemented these recommendations resulting in two of the largest camera trap survey areas for jaguars with some of the highest numbers of individuals recorded to date (review of previous studies in Tobler and Powell, 2013). These robust datasets lead to improved density estimates with smaller

Acknowledgements

For the work in Peru we would like to thank the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund and WWF Switzerland for generous funding. We are grateful to Victor Espinoza, Elisabeth Espinoza and Victor Leoni Espinoza from Aserradero Espinoza and Vittorio De Dea Peña and Nelson Melendez Ascaño from Maderera Bozovich for allowing us to work in their concessions and for helping us with logistics. The following people helped with the camera trap work in Peru: Ruben Aviana, Marlon Guerrra, Javier Huinga, Juan,

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