Myanmar Protected Areas: Context, Current Status ... - Istituto Oikos

The main drivers identified during field survey as causes of the vegetation cover changes are: woodlands
clearing to establish agricultural fields; conversion of natural vegetation to artificial plantation; fires
and shifting cultivation followed by bamboo invasion. In general in the field a general degradation has
been observed due to wood over-exploitation and forest fires, higher in the forests close to the lowland
inhabited areas than in the highest mountains. This process seems to be severe in both sides, even if it
is generally higher on the eastern valley, maybe for differences in climate regimes.
IDENTIFICATION OF TYPES OF CHANGE
Figure 5 shows the final map, and a more detailed subset, to illustrate the types of change found in the
study area. In Figure 5 the magnitude of increase and decrease of vegetation NDVI is expressed in tones
of cyan and red, respectively. Recent road networks, quarries and dams constitute large decrease of
vegetation and are easily detected from their spatial pattern. There are also clearly visible negative and
positive changes due to clear cutting and regeneration which represent the traditional slash and burn
cultivations in hilly and mountainous forest.
Vegetation change
in Rakhine Yoma Elephant
Range WR
In-depth Study of Rakhine Yoma Elephant Range Wildlife Reserve
Overall, within the protected area about 70% of surface remain stable in time and this area cannot be
considered to be a hot spot of degradation. On the contrary the western and eastern mixed deciduous
forest are more affected by damage (prevalently human-induced) with variable intensity and recovering
in relation to distance from the coast line and hence to the spatial pattern of rainfall (data not shown).
Within the park a net decrease of NDVI of about 10% was however observed from 1974 to 2001. The
main land cover found in the area consists of Bamboo Brakes, Evergreen and Sparse Semi-Evergreen
forest. Overall, it appears that evergreen forests are subjected to subtle degradation associated to an
increase of vigour in bamboo formations.
NDVI changes for land cover (2000)
within the Rakhine Yoma Elephant Range WR
142 143