Enhancing forest conservation planning in Argentina with spatially-explicit data on human footprint

Abstract

Human land use andinfrastructure are the major threats to terrestrial ecosystems, resulting inhabitat loss, fragmentation, and biodiversity declines. The human footprintframework maps showing the cumulative human pressure on the landscape, andrepresents a useful tool for quantifying potential human impacts and identifiedthe last of the wilderness. Argentina is one of the top countries in terms ofdeforestation and land use change, and available information for supportingforest conservation efforts is limited. Our main goal was to determinepotential ecological intactness and conservation condition of natural forestareas in Argentina based on human footprint data. We mapped the human footprintof Argentina at 100-m pixel resolution using detailed information on land useand infrastructure, and found that more than half of the forest areas in thecountry are under higher level of human influence. Some forest types andregions are more affected than others. At the same time, we observed that the nationalforest conservation plan in place for Argentina might allow the presence of humanactivities in areas with null human footprint (e.g. wilderness areas), which couldbe a threat for biodiversity and habitat conservation. Our study provides novelinformation about the potential ecological intactness of natural forestslandscapes in Argentina, and highlights the value of human footprint data for informingconservation planning efforts.