Honduras
Tropical Dry Forests of Honduras
The tropical dry forests of Honduras have been experiencing
transformations due to agriculture, logging, and cattle
ranching. Over-harvesting of the pine-oak forests has
resulted in a decline in timber production during recent
decades, but due to strong regeneration, the forest area
has not been greatly diminished.
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Village and its forests in the Western Honduras study area
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Research in the mountains of western Honduras has
focused on a municipality with a majority of its land
under forest cover. Changes in land tenure patterns and
agricultural activities have been occurring with implications
for forests and livelihoods. Processes of privatization are
reducing communal forests, while expanding coffee production
is related to forest transformation,
market integration, and increasing social heterogeneity.
Research has addressed multi-level interrelationships
related to forest change (ecological, economic, demo-graphic,
and political factors at local and national levels),
national policies and rules-in-use influencing forest conservation
or transformation, and a comparison of forest
outcomes between private and common property forests.
The research supports data from other CIPEC sites that
indicate that the type of land tenure is not a determinative
factor in forest outcomes so much as the rules used and
enforced for forest management.
This site also demonstrates that road construction and distance from road represent important factors in the pattern of forest transformation. In general, areas that are
further from road and at higher elevation experience less transformation. But in areas suitable for coffee, deforestation has increased as coffee farmers'
plant coffee in advance of road building. This pattern links to a national policy which provides municipalities with funds to build roads in coffee producing areas.
Related CIPEC Publications:
Tucker, C. 1999. Private versus Common Property Forests: Forest Conditions and Tenure in a Honduran Community. Human
Ecology 27:201–230.
Nagendra, H., J. Southworth, and C. M. Tucker. In press. Accessibility as a determinant of landscape transformation in Western Honduras: linking pattern and process. Landscape Ecology.
Southworth, J., H. Nagendra, and C. M. Tucker. 2002. Fragmentation of a landscape: incorporating landscape metrics into satellite analyses of land cover change. Landscape Research 27(3):253-269.
Munroe, D. K., J. Southworth, and C. M. Tucker. 2002. The Dynamics of Land-Cover Change in Western Honduras: Exploring Spatial and Temporal Complexity. Agricultural Economics 27(3):355–369.
Southworth, J. and C. M. Tucker. 2001. The roles of accessibility, local institutions and socioeconomic factors influencing forest cover change in the mountains of western Honduras. Mountain Research and Development, 21(3):276-283.
Tropical Moist Forests of Honduras
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| Río Plátano -Bands 5,4,3 Landsat TM |
The tropical moist forests of eastern Honduras have
experienced accelerated clearing during recent years. A
major factor implicated in the process is population
growth due to high fertility and immigration.
CIPEC research has focused on indigenous communities
within the northern Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve. Here
population has increased rapidly over the last forty years,
increasing pressures upon local resources necessary for
livelihood, especially agricultural lands cleared from rain
forests. Researchers analyzed a time series of demographic
data, aerial photographs, and satellite imagery to quantify
changes in population and agricultural extensification in
three communities. From 1960 to 1996, population more
than quadrupled, but forest area disturbed by agriculture
only doubled. Communities are responding in multiple
ways that affect both environmental and population
changes. They are converting areas under swidden cultivation
and adopting more intensive agricultural technologies.
They are now more willing to defend their land
against encroachment. Women state a growing desire for
decreased family size.
Related CIPEC Publications:
Dodds, D. 1998. Lobster in the Rainforest: The Political Ecology of Miskito Wage Labor and Agricultural Deforestation. Journal of
Political Ecology 5:83–108.
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