Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Xiaojun Yang, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, Dept. of Geography. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 24, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 213 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (June 29, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The Meseta Purepecha, a volcanic plateau in the Mexican state of Michoacan, is home to one of the most species-rich pine forests in the world. Recent increases in demand for forest products has put added pressure on these resources. Though existing research has suggested significant deforestation in the Meseta, there is little information identifying specific areas of decline. This study focuses on two indigenous communities in the Meseta-Pichataro and Sevina. Both communities have long relied on wood as an economic resource. However, the two communities have reacted differently to increased demand for forest resources. The purpose of this study is to identify the differences in the rate and extent of forest change between Pichataro and Sevina. Three dates of Landsat satellite images - 1976, 1986, and 2000-were used to identify changes in the Meseta's forests. Supervised classification was used to classify the 2000 image into forested and non-forested areas. Change detection was performed on the 1976 through 2000 images to identify areas of forest clearing and forest regrowth. The 2000 image was then used as a reference for generating maps of historic forest extent based on the change detection results. Results show that between 1986 and 2000, Sevina cleared approximately 16% of its forested land between while Pichataro experienced a net gain of 7%. In the same period, 93% of the deforestation in the combined study area occurred within the community boundary of Sevina, which manages only 35% of the study area forests. Sevina's remaining forests are also more isolated and fragmented than the forests of Pichataro. The differences between the two communities appear related to management practices. Sevina has relied on larger-scale timber harvesting to derive economic benefits from its forests. Pichataro has focused on local harvesting and value-added production.

Social, political, economic, and environmental factors converge in developing countries to stimulate high rates of deforestation. Forest conversion reduces biodiversity, contributes to carbon loading of the atmosphere, alters the global water balance, and degrades the quality of life for rural people. Mexico is the fifth most biologically diverse country in the world and temperate and tropical forests in Mexico are rapidly disappearing with environmental and cultural repercussions for people and ecosystems. This study examines changes in the forest landscape surrounding two communidades indigenas in Michoacan, Mexico over a 15-year period. The research area includes communal forest, pasture, and agricultural land within the adjacent municipal boundaries of two Purepecha Indian communities: Sevina and San Francisco Pichataro. The economies of both villages depend in part on wood products manufacturing with timber harvested in local mixed-pine forests. As a result, forest landscapes surrounding the towns are at risk for potentially rapid land cover change and environmental degradation.

A l’image du bassin du Congo, la République Démocratique du Congo (République Démocratique du Congo) fait face à une réduction de la qualité et de la superficie de son couvert forestier. La présente étude avait pour objectif d’étudier l’effet de l’anthropisation, à travers la présence et les activités humaines sur la dynamique des paysages forestiers en République Démocratique du Congo. L’écologie du paysage, en tant que science pluridisciplinaire offre une très bonne approche à travers les indices et une méthodologie alliant la structure et la composition du paysage pour mettre en évidence les causes et les conséquences des processus écologiques. Ces approches sont basées sur le fait que en analysant la structure du paysage, des déductions utiles au sujet des processus écologiques fondamentaux peuvent être faites et vice versa. Les résultats ont montré, en quantifiant la dynamique spatio-temporelle de l’occupation du sol et par l’analyse et la caractérisation de la structure spatiale, que l’anthropisation est le moteur de la dynamique dans ces milieux forestiers. L’impact humain se traduit par une déstabilisation ou un dysfonctionnement des écosystèmes forestiers entraînant la dégradation, la fragmentation et la déforestation. Ainsi il a été montré que la proximité des villes est fortement corrélée à la dégradation et la perte d’habitats forestiers. Cela est fonction de l’importance socio-économique de ces villes car plus la ville est importante, plus elle attire la population ;que la densité de la population influence la fragmentation et l’incursion dans la forêt se fait en suivant les pistes et les routes mises en place généralement par les sociétés d’exploitation forestière. Le tout amplifié par la situation socio-économique difficile des populations et le manque de politiques de gestion appropriées de la part des gestionnaires publiques. Cette dynamique régressive du paysage forestier en République Démocratique du Congo aura une incidence négative sur les cycles climatiques globaux vu que le bassin du Congo est le plus grand bloc forestier après le bloc de l’Amazonie. La présente étude est donc un argument supplémentaire qui milite en faveur de la nécessité de prendre en compte les caractéristiques des populations locales dans les programmes de gestion de la forêt du bassin du Congo pour un meilleur équilibre écologique de la planète. / Like Congo basin, Democratic Republic of Congo’s forest covers are facing their reduction in quality and size. This study aimed to investigate the effect of human impact on forest landscape dynamics in DR Congo, through the human presence and its activities. Landscape ecology as a multidisciplinary science offers a very good approach through the index and a methodology combining the structure and the composition of the landscape to highlight the causes and the consequences of ecological processes. These approaches are based on the fact that by analyzing the structure of landscape, useful deductions about the underlying ecological processes can be made and vice versa. By quantifying the spatio-temporal dynamics of land use and by analysis and characterization of spatial structure, our results showed that anthropization is the driver of the dynamics in these forest environments. Human impact results in a destabilization or a dysfunction of the forest ecosystems involving degradation, fragmentation and deforestation. Thus it was shown that proximity to cities is strongly correlated to the degradation and loss of forest habitats. This depends on the socioeconomic importance of these cities because more the city is important, more it attracts people. Population density influences the fragmentation and the incursion into the forest is done by following the tracks and roads generally implemented by the logging companies. All amplified by socio-economic problems of population and lack of appropriate management policies on the part of public managers.This regressive dynamic forest landscape in République Démocratique du Congo will have a negative impact on global climate cycles because the Congo Basin is the largest forest block after Amazonia block. This study is another argument which advocates the need to take into account the characteristics of local population in forest management programs in the Congo Basin for a better ecological balance of planet. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished