An area of forest almost the size of Scotland has been lost from important wildlife sites worldwide in just over a decade, research suggests.
Satellite imagery was used to assess the loss of forests from 7,279 “important bird and biodiversity areas” (IBAs) around the world that support forest bird species.
More than 73,000 square kilometres of forests were lost from those areas between 2000 and 2012, or 2.5 per cent of the total 2.9 million square kilometres standing at the beginning of the century, the study by the RSPB, Birdlife International and experts in Italy found.
Rates of losses were highest in South America and South East Asia, while key countries facing forest loss were Brazil, Paraguay, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar and Ghana, the researchers said.
While most of the sites examined lost less than one per cent of their forest during the 2000 to 2012 period, some saw very high reductions in forest cover, including a 72 per cent loss for the Salta Forest, Argentina, home to species such as the endangered crowned solitary eagle.
Rawa Lunang and Tesso Nilo, in Indonesia, experienced 69 per cent and 65 per cent losses respectively, while India’s Sonai-Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary, which supports species including the critically endangered Bengal florican, a type of bustard, and the endangered white winged duck, saw reductions of 40 per cent.
The wildlife-rich tropics were “suffering most”, according to Graeme Buchanan, senior conservation scientist at the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science and a co-author of the study, published in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation.
But formal protection such as making an area a national park appears to help reduce forest loss, while more inaccessible areas at higher altitude or in mountainous terrain also saw lower reductions in forest cover.
Buchanan said: “It’s now possible to monitor changes in forest cover in all of the planet’s IBAs.
“As these areas form the majority of currently known sites of global importance for the persistence of biodiversity, their future conservation is of paramount importance.
“Indeed, the world’s governments have committed to protecting at least 17 per cent of land by 2020 – with a particular focus on areas of special importance for biodiversity such as IBAs and other key biodiversity areas.
“Citizens now have a way to monitor this progress to this target from a computer anywhere in the world, making the task of holding our governments to task on these pledges more immediate and manageable.”
Co-author Stuart Butchart, head of science at Birdlife International, added: “We will be making these data – and annual updates in future – readily available to Birdlife partners across the world so that they can focus their conservation efforts most effectively on the forest IBAs most vulnerable to rapid deforestation.”