GIS Methodologies for Developing Conservation Strategies Part 2 ppsx

The Spatial Nature of Conservation and Development 5

Humans, Economy, Ecology, and the Need to Consider Resource

Management in Land Use Planning

Humans rely on the landscape for most of their economic activities. These

activities include mining, agriculture, forestry, livestock, and urbanization. The

extent of the surface of the planet under some form of development is substantial

(table 1.1). Land use categories are cropland, rangeland, and forests or woodland.

The other major land use category, mining, is not included. Mining is of great

economic importance, but the amount of land altered by mining activities is

generally very small, amounting to only about 0.25 percent of the land area in

the United States, for example (Hodges 1995). Estimates for the period 1989–1991

are that 37 percent of the total land area of the planet is either in cropland or

permanent pasture (WRI 1994). Europe is the most extensively altered geographi￾FIG. 1.1 Diagram of a metapopulation. The isolated areas in white are those occu￾pied by individuals of the species in question. The metapopulation is connected to

varying degrees by migration (arrows). Some subpopulations will function as

sources (births exceeding deaths), while others will function as sinks (deaths ex￾ceeding births). The fate of the population as a whole depends upon the structure

and dynamics of the metapopulation.

6 Thomas E. Lacher Jr.

TABLE 1.1 Land Use Activities by Region for 1983, in Millions of Hectares

(modified from Wolf 1986)

Region Cropland Rangeland Forests and Woodland

North America 236 265 591

Central America / South America 175 550 999

Europe / Soviet Uniona 373 459 1,075

Africa 183 778 688

Oceania 47 459 116

Asia / Mideast 456 645 561

Total 1,470 3,156 4,030

a Includes all of the former Soviet Union.

TABLE 1.2 Percents of Total Areas Under Various Land Use Activities

Total % % % %

Country Area Domesticated Crops Crops Pasture Pasture Forest Forest

Developed countries

United States 916,660 47 187,776 20 239,172 26 287,400 31

Canada 922,097 8 45,947 5 28,100 3 359,000 39

Germany 34,931 50 12,002 34 5,329 15 10,403 30

France 55,010 56 19,187 35 11,381 21 14,817 27

United Kingdom 24,160 74 6,665 28 11,186 46 2,391 10

Japan 37,652 14 4,595 12 647 2 25,105 67

Australia 764,444 61 48,267 6 417,264 55 106,000 14

Averagea 44 20 24 31

Developing Countries

Ivory Coast 31,800 52 3,680 12 13,000 41 7,330 23

Zaire 226,760 10 7,863 3 15,000 7 174,310 77

Malaysia 32,855 15 4,880 15 27 0 19,361 59

Thailand 51,089 47 23,042 45 830 2 14,113 28

Indonesia 181,157 19 21,967 12 11,800 7 109,800 61

Colombia 103,870 44 5,410 5 40,400 39 50,300 48

Brazil 845,651 29 59,933 7 184,200 22 493,030 58

Averagea 31 14 17 51

aAverages are the unweighted means of the column values (WRI 1994).

cal region, with 47 percent of the land under some form of domestication; North

America and Central America together are the least disturbed at 30 percent,

largely because of Canada (WRI 1994).

There is a sharp contrast between developed countries and developing coun￾tries in the relative dependence on intensive land use. A comparison of seven

different developed and developing countries demonstrates some counterintu￾itive results (table 1.2). The developed countries appear to have much larger

percentages of land under some form of domestic use and substantially lower

percentages of forest cover, as compared to the seven selected developing coun-