Help them \u2018while we still can\u2019<\/h2>\n
The team of researchers from the University of Oxford in the U.K. chose the clouded leopard as a metric for biodiversity because of the species\u2019 high dependence on forest cover. \u201cClouded leopards are emblematic of forests and forest conservation,\u201d study lead author Ewan Macdonald, a conservation scientist at Oxford, told Mongabay.<\/p>\n
As arboreal top predators, clouded leopards require healthy and dense tracts of forest replete with a wide assemblage of other flora and fauna. This means their presence or absence can be used as a barometer for broader ecosystem health. If clouded leopards are doing well, there\u2019s also a good chance that other forest-dependent species, such as elephants, orangutans, proboscis monkeys or hornbills, are also in good shape.<\/p>\n
Macdonald added that clouded leopards are still fairly widely dispersed across large areas, unlike their bigger cat cousins, tigers and leopards, which have disappeared from much of their range in Southeast Asia. \u201cWe wanted to set out a plan, as it were, for a species while we can still do something for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sunda clouded leopards are categorized as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List due to steep population declines driven by the loss of roughly one-third of their habitat across their range islands of Borneo and Sumatra over the past two decades.<\/p>\n
Major highways, urban expansion, and clearing of forest for oil palm plantations have not only eroded the total size of their habitat, but have also severed important movement corridors around the periphery of core habitats, impeding the potential for genetic exchange between newly isolated populations. \u201cIt\u2019s the nibbling away at the edges of these big blocks of habitat that is most impactful for large animals like clouded leopards, elephants and orangutans,\u201d Macdonald said.<\/p>\n To investigate the impact of different approaches to protected area design in Borneo, Macdonald and his colleagues used clouded leopard distribution data from prior camera-trapping studies to model the outcomes of seven different scenarios.<\/p>\n First, they quantified the impact of adopting two extremes of approach to protected area management. On one hand, exclusively protecting areas with minimal development threat; and at the other extreme, focusing on areas under high development pressure. They then looked at the business-as-usual scenario representing Borneo\u2019s current state of protected areas and rates of forest loss, and also the effects of adding various combinations of more or less at-risk areas to the existing network.<\/p>\n They found that proactive scenarios that focused on at-risk areas outperformed other strategies. These approaches consistently retained higher levels of forest connectivity and genetic diversity in clouded leopards and preserved more forest carbon. The best-performing option projected a more than 50% improvement in habitat connectivity compared to the current state of conservation areas in Borneo.<\/p>\n Rebecca Runting, a spatial planning researcher at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who was not involved in the study, said she valued the study\u2019s insights into how more assertive conservation can yield benefits. \u201cThis is especially important given that not just in Borneo, but in most places around the world, the existing protected area network is dominated by remote and lower-risk locations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n However, proactive strategies face higher economic and political challenges, Runting noted. For one, the land itself is likely to cost more to acquire. Then there are likely to be conflicts of interest with would-be developers and communities who stand to gain from potential developments. \u201cThis is where a risk-balanced approach to protected area design can be practical,\u201d she said, \u201cof extending the existing protected area network with key high-risk, high-value and high-biodiversity locations, but balancing them with the lower-risk areas that are more likely to persist into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Ways exist to resolve the costs and potential conflicts that arise from proactive approaches, according to Macdonald, and leveraging them to incentivize policymakers to make proactive conservation decisions is paramount. One solution is to demonstrate the costs and benefits of developing land or leaving it in its natural state through policy interventions, such as payments for ecosystem services schemes like REDD+, he said. \u201cMonetizing the carbon stored in the forest is one option, showing the land has economic value by remaining as forest, not to mention the social and cultural values it might have to people.\u201d<\/p>\n The new findings will now feed into a new spatial planning toolkit Macdonald and his colleagues are developing. The culmination of a larger body of clouded leopard research, which has so far amassed 6 million camera-trap images, the toolkit will enable policymakers to make better decisions on which areas should be preserved for clouded leopards, and which areas would be less harmful to convert for impending developments like highways, urban expansion, logging concessions and plantations.<\/p>\n \u201cAnswers to these development decisions are for local policymakers to decide,\u201d Macdonald said, \u201cbut we want to try and provide the tools that give them the information that will help them make those decisions in an informed way.\u201d<\/p>\n Carolyn Cowan is a staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on , @CarolynCowan11.<\/p>\n Macdonald, E. A., Cushman, S. A., Malhi, Y., & Macdonald, D. W. (2024). Comparing expedient and proactive approaches to the planning of protected area networks on Borneo. npj Biodiversity, 3(1). doi:10.1038\/s44185-024-00052-8<\/p>\nModels point to a proactive approach<\/h2>\n
Balancing the trade-offs<\/h2>\n
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