The last stand of a watershed forest in Southern Philippines: a case study of land cover and biodiversity

Abstract

Abstract. Tabora JAG, Ancog RC, Sanchez PAJ, Arboleda MDM, Lit IL Jr, Tiburan CL Jr. 2023. The last stand of a watershed forest in Southern Philippines: a case study of land cover and biodiversity. Biodiversitas 24: 1438-1449. Land Use Land Cover (LULC) maps using remote sensing technology became popular due to their contribution to spatial information useful for threat determination, biodiversity conservation, and landscape management. Our area of interest in this paper is a watershed in the southern Philippines with no published land cover maps and low biodiversity records. The watershed was a resettlement area originally covered by forest but slowly converted to an agricultural landscape. It was declared a watershed and forest reserve to conserve the primary forest. This paper shows the first spatiotemporal display of Land Use Land Cover change of the watershed to describe the potential threats to the landscape. The land cover change shows a 58% reduction in primary forest cover from 1973 to 2021. In contrast, the croplands have increased by 117% in the same time frame. The Land Use Dynamics Index hints at the landscape's socioeconomic and political situation in the past. In addition, the biodiversity surveys show multiple threatened organisms in the remaining forest. The biodiversity data distinguish between ecosystem types, while the threatened species mapping suggests potential wildlife refuges. The spatially explicit land cover and the location of the threatened species map suggest potential areas for conservation and management.