Between 1992 and 2015, nearly 148 million hectares (Mha) within biodiversity hotspots – biologically rich but threatened terrestrial regions – worldwide underwent land‐cover changes, equating to 6% of the total areal extent of hotspots.
Forest losses in hotspots amounted to 54 Mha (–7% of the forest area present in 1992), driven primarily by agricultural expansion (38 Mha); shrubland or savanna also declined by 23 Mha (–8%). Over the same time, urban areas expanded by 10 Mha (+108%).
Major losses in forest areas occurred in Sundaland (11 Mha, –13% relative to 1992), Indo‐Burma (6 Mha, –6%), and Mesoamerica (5 Mha, –7%). Approximately 7.5 Mha of forest loss occurred within protected areas (–5% of the respective forest area in 1992), of which 3.9 Mha was cleared between 2000 and 2015, with ~1 Mha alone converted in the 5 years after 2010. More stringent and effective land‐based policies are urgently needed to prevent additional landscape fragmentation and preserve existing species richness in the world's biodiversity hotspots.
Original Source [2]
Links:
[1] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/feature-article/overview-recent-land%E2%80%90cover-changes-biodiversity-hotspots
[2] https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.2276
[3] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/author/xiangping-hu-bo-huang-francesca-verones-et-al
[4] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/journal/frontiers-ecology-and-environment
[5] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/biodiversity-hotspots
[6] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/land-use
[7] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/deforestation
[8] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/agriculture
[9] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/global