Digital cultural heritage and rural landscapes:preserving the histories of landscape conservation in the United States

This paper addresses how a digital heritage project can impact the research and interpretation of a large-scale rural cultural landscape in the United States.Due to the size and scope of rural landscapes,large-scale documentation methods are critical to advancing landscape conservation and preservation initiatives.Using an in-progress online project to document a 1935 US federally sponsored program,the Prairie States Forestry Project(PSFP),the authors show how diverse visual and textual data can be spatialised to construct a map reading of landscape change over time.To date,the PSFP is one of the largest afforestation projects in the history of the United States;the United States Forest Service and thousands of landowners undertook a series of cooperative planting agreements to plant over 200 million trees over seven years in approximately 33,000 shelterbelts from the panhandle of Texas to the North Dakota border.Due to a lack of coordinated monitoring,shelterbelt location and status was unknown,and the original archival material remained unpreserved.In the case of the Prairie States Forestry Project,the process for digitising and disseminating previously inaccessible primary source documents is an act of preservation that creates opportunities for future large-scale landscape conservation projects.The application of the archival mapping method and resulting PSFP datasets can be incorporated by individuals working on heritage documentation such as Historic American Landscapes Survey(HALS)reports,National Register nominations,or Cultural Landscape Reports for the National Parks Service.The dataset could also be used by private groups such as cooperative conservation land managers.

The influence of canopy-layer composition on understory plant diversity in southern temperate forests

Background： Understory plants represents the largest component of biodiversity in most forest ecosystems and plays a key role in forest functioning.Despite their importance, the influence of overstory-layer composition on understory plant diversity is relatively poorly understood within deciduous-evergreen broadleaved mixed forests.The aim of this work was to evaluate how tree overstory-layer composition influences on understory-layer diversity in three forest types（monospecific deciduous Nothofagus pumilio（Np）, monospecific evergreen Nothofagus betuloides（Nb）, and mixed N.pumilio-N.betuloides（M） forests）, comparing also between two geographical locations（coast and mountain） to estimate differences at landscape level.Results： We recorded 46 plant species： 4 ferns, 12 monocots, and 30 dicots.Canopy-layer composition influences the herb-layer structure and diversity in two different ways： while mixed forests have greater similarity to evergreen forests in the understory structural features, deciduous and mixed were similar in terms of the specific composition of plant assemblage.Deciduous pure stands were the most diverse, meanwhile evergreen stands were least diverse.Lack of exclusive species of mixed forest could represent a transition where evergreen and deciduous communities meet and integrate.Moreover, landscape has a major influence on the structure, diversity and richness of understory vegetation of pure and mixed forests likely associated to the magnitude and frequency of natural disturbances, where mountain forest not only had highest herb-layer diversity but also more exclusive species.Conclusions： Our study suggests that mixed Nothofagus forest supports coexistence of both pure deciduous and pure evergreen understory plant species and different assemblages in coastal and mountain sites.Maintaining the mixture of canopy patch types within mixed stands will be important for conserving the natural patterns of understory plant composition in southern beech mixed forests.

Sumatran tiger(Panthera tigris sumatrae):A review of conservation status

The majority of wild Sumatran tigers are believed to live in 12 Tiger Conservation Landscapes covering approximately 88000 km^(2).However,the actual distribution of tigers across Sumatra has never been accurately mapped.Over the past 20 years,conservation efforts focused on the Sumatran tigers have increased,but the population continues to decline as a result of several key threats.To identify the status of the Sumatran tiger distribution across the island,an island-wide questionnaire survey comprised of 35 respondents from various backgrounds was conducted between May and June 2010.The survey found that Sumatran tigers are positively present in 27 habitat patches larger than 250 km2 and possibly present in another 2.In addition,a review on major published studies on the Sumatran tiger was conducted to identify the current conservation status of the Sumatran tiger.Collectively,these studies have identified several key factors that have contributed to the decline of Sumatran tiger populations,including:forest habitat fragmentation and loss,direct killing of tigers and their prey,and the retaliatory killing of tigers due to conflict with villagers.The present paper provides management authorities and the international community with a recent assessment and a base map of the actual distribution of Sumatran tigers as well as a general overview on the current status and possible future conservation challenges of Sumatran tiger management.

Today’s protected areas:supporting a more sustainable future for humanity

Nature provides significant benefits to people,especially those living in and around protected areas.Ecosystem services from protected areas include producing wild food,supporting biodiversity and water cycles,regulating climate,and providing cultural services like better health,tourism,and legacy for future generations.In economic terms,the flows of ecosystem services provided by protected areas are worth hundreds of billions of dollars each year,well justifying the costs of managing these sites,but protected areas are suffering from environmental problems such as impacts from human population growth,rural poverty,growing demands for natural resources,land use change that degrades ecosystem productivity,invasive non-native species that harm natural ecosystems,and climate change that is affecting all ecosystems.Addressing these linked challenges will require mobilizing all parts of the economy,including the protected area estate.For example,protected areas can take a leadership role in rural development,expand the conservation estate to half of the planet through connectivity and improved management of more of the non-agricultural land,enhance the prominent role of protected areas in contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation,encourage productive research on applying modern technology to protected areas management,seek broader private sector participation in conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services,and include protected areas as relevant parties in relevant trade and other international negotiations.When protected area managers embrace this broader role,they will find enthusiastic public support for this contribution to a sustainable human society.

Saving wild tigers:A case study in biodiversity loss and challenges to be met for recovery beyond 2010

Wild tigers are being annihilated.Tiger range countries and their partners met at the 1st Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation in January 2010 to mandate the creation of the Global Tiger Recovery Program to double the number of tigers by 2022.Only 3200-3600 wild adult tigers remain,approximately half of the population estimated a decade ago.Tigers now live in only 13 countries,all of which are experiencing severe environmental challenges and degradation from the effects of human population growth,brisk economic expansion,rapid urbanization,massive infrastructure development and climate change.The overarching challenge of tiger conservation,and the conservation of biodiversity generally,is that there is insufficient demand for the survival of wild tigers living in natural landscapes.This allows the criminal activities of poaching wild tigers and their prey and trafficking in tiger derivatives to flourish and tiger landscapes to be diminished.The Global Tiger Recovery Program will support scaling up of practices already proven effective in one or more tiger range countries that need wider policy support,usually resources,and new transnational actions that enhance the effectiveness of individual country actions.The program is built on robust National Tiger Recovery Priorities that are grouped into themes:(i)strengthening policies that protect tigers;(ii)protecting tiger conservation landscapes;(iii)scientific management and monitoring;(iv)engaging communities;(v)cooperative management of international tiger landscapes;(vi)eliminating transnational illegal wildlife trade;(vii)persuading people to stop consuming tiger;(viii)enhancing professional capacity of policy-makers and practitioners;and(ix)developing sustainable,long-term financing mechanisms for tiger and biodiversity conservation.