Systematic conservation planning in Thailand.

Abstract

Thailand supports a variety of tropical ecosystems and biodiversity. The country has approximately 12,050 species of plants, which account for 8% of estimated plant species found globally. However, the forest cover of Thailand is under threats: habitat degradation, illegal logging, shifting cultivation and human settlement are the main causes of the reduction in forest area. As a result, rates of biodiversity loss have been high for some decades. The most effective tool to conserve biodiversity is the designation of protected areas (PA). The effective and most scientifically robust approach for designing networks of reserve systems is systematic conservation planning, which is designed to identify conservation priorities on the basis of analysing spatial patterns in species distributions and associated threats. The designation of PAs of Thailand were initially based on expert consultations selecting the areas that are suitable for conserving forest resources, not systematically selected. Consequently, the PA management was based on individual management plans for each PA. The previous work has also identified that no previous attempt has been made to apply the principles and methods of systematic conservation planning. Additionally, tree species have been neglected in previous analyses of the coverage of PAs in Thailand. These indicate the importance of this research. This research deals with the identification of complementary areas to the PA network in Thailand, specifically to support the conservation of tree species. This work also contributes to the improvement of conservation planning and PA network design in Thailand using the application of systematic conservation planning techniques. The research focused specifically on 783 target tree species, belonging to 92 families in Thailand, consisting of four groups of tree species that are respectively threatened with extinction, dominate the different forest types in Thailand, are of particular economic importance, and are important to in situ genetic conservation. A GIS-based multi-criteria analysis (MCA) approach was used to support systematic conservation planning. ILWIS, a GIS support software was used to identify priority conservation areas in this research. With currently data available, the crucial finding from this research is that the priority areas that should be considered for establishment of new PAs, or to expand existing PAs comprise: (1) areas next to current PAs in the Southern region and (2) areas near to Cambodia in Trat province in the Eastern region, areas near to PAs on Ko Chang and Ko Kut islands in the Gulf of Thailand. It also confirmed that the systematic conservation planning approach should be introduced to PA managers or planners. This should be possible because it is transparent and beneficial, and utilizes user-friendly spatial software to generate spatial data and easy to understand output maps.