Unreported yet massive deforestation driving loss of endemic biodiversity in Indian Himalaya

By M. Pandit, N. Sodhi, Lian Pin Koh, A. Bhaskar, Barry W. Brook. Biodiversity and Conservation, 2006

266 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Deforestation is a primary driver of biotic extinctions in the tropics. The impacts of deforestation in tropical biodiversity hotspots are of particular concern because these regions contain high concentrations of globally endemic species. However, the effects of large-scale deforestation on native biotas within the biodiversity hotspot of Himalaya remain poorly documented. Here we report on an alarming trend of deforestation in the Indian Himalaya and project the likely consequential extinctions of endemic taxa (species and subspecies) by 2100 across a broad range of taxonomic groups, including gymnosperms, angiosperms, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. With the current level of deforestation, by 2100 only about 10% of the land area of the Indian Himalaya will be covered by dense forest (>40% canopy cover)—a scenario in which almost a quarter of the endemic species could be wiped out, including 366 endemic vascular plant taxa and 35 endemic vertebrate taxa. We also show that inaccurate reporting of forest cover data by governmental institutions can result in underestimations of the biological impacts of deforestation, as well as potential miscalculations in land-use decisions (e.g., the construction of hydroelectric dams). Large-scale conservation efforts, including forest protection and reforestation, are urgently needed to avoid the impending deforestation-driven biodiversity losses in the Himalaya.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/294fcf6eda1f3a791f3ec4d59230246fb43c554b

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In Ecology

1. Sean Sloan
2. J. Sayer

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Mikkel Hooge Holck
2. Sean Sloan
3. E. Sharma
4. Rajesh Bahadur Thapa
5. J. Sayer
6. B. Shakya
7. N. Chettri

Citations in the corpus

• Status of a protected area system in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas: An analysis of PA coverage (2008, background): “However, deforestation and degradation continued through human activities (Bawa et al. 2004; Pandit et al. 2007).”
• Participatory forest monitoring: an assessment of the accuracy of simple cost–effective methods (2008, background): “As a result, decision-makers often lack the information needed to make the best decisions, which can lead to gross underestimations of the current rate of forest disturbance and deforestation (Padmanaba and Sheil 2007; Pandit et al. 2007).”
• Forest Resources Assessment of 2015 shows positive global trends but forest loss and degradation persist in poor tropical countries (2015, background): “In South Asia stronger forest institutions are conserving the modest remaining areas of forest and encouraging the expansion of plantations, but total forest area is now critically low in many countries (Pandit et al., 2007; Sloan et al., 2014).”