Pillay Rajeev, Watson James E M, Hansen Andrew J, Burns Patrick, Virnig Anne Lucy Stilger, Supples Christina, Armenteras Dolors, González-Del-Pliego Pamela, Aragon-Osejo Jose, A Jantz Patrick, Ervin Jamison, Goetz Scott J, Venter Oscar
Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Institute, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia V2N 4Z9, Canada.
School of The Environment, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Dec 17;121(51):e2413325121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2413325121. Epub 2024 Dec 9.
Structurally intact native forests free from major human pressures are vitally important habitats for the persistence of forest biodiversity. However, the extent of such high-integrity forest habitats remaining for biodiversity is unknown. Here, we quantify the amount of high-integrity tropical rainforests, as a fraction of total forest cover, within the geographic ranges of 16,396 species of terrestrial vertebrates worldwide. We found up to 90% of the humid tropical ranges of forest-dependent vertebrates was encompassed by forest cover. Concerningly, however, merely 25% of these remaining rainforests are of high integrity. Forest-dependent species that are threatened and declining and species with small geographic ranges have disproportionately low proportions of high-integrity forest habitat left. Our work brings much needed attention to the poor quality of much of the forest estate remaining for biodiversity across the humid tropics. The targeted preservation of the world's remaining high-integrity tropical rainforests that are currently unprotected is a critical conservation priority that may help alleviate the biodiversity crisis in these hyperdiverse and irreplaceable ecosystems. Enhanced efforts worldwide to preserve tropical rainforest integrity are essential to meet the targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity's 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework which aims to achieve near zero loss of high biodiversity importance areas (including ecosystems of high integrity) by 2030.
结构完整且未受重大人类压力影响的原生森林，对于森林生物多样性的持续存在而言，是至关重要的栖息地。然而，目前尚不清楚留存下来的此类高完整性森林栖息地对于生物多样性而言的范围究竟有多大。在此，我们对全球16396种陆地脊椎动物地理分布范围内，作为森林总覆盖面积一部分的高完整性热带雨林的数量进行了量化。我们发现，依赖森林生存的脊椎动物的湿润热带分布范围中，高达90%被森林覆盖。然而，令人担忧的是，这些留存下来的雨林中，仅有25%具有高完整性。受到威胁且数量正在减少的依赖森林生存的物种，以及地理分布范围较小的物种，所剩余的高完整性森林栖息地比例低得不成比例。我们的研究让人们迫切关注到，在湿润热带地区，留存下来用于生物多样性保护的大部分森林质量不佳。有针对性地保护目前尚未得到保护的世界上剩余的高完整性热带雨林，是一项关键的保护重点工作，这可能有助于缓解这些生物多样性高度丰富且不可替代的生态系统中的生物多样性危机。在全球范围内加大力度保护热带雨林的完整性，对于实现《生物多样性公约》2022年《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》的目标至关重要，该框架旨在到2030年实现高生物多样性重要地区（包括高完整性生态系统）的近乎零损失。
