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Through the eyes of children: perceptions of environmental change in tropical forests.

ABSTRACT: This study seeks to understand children's perceptions of their present and future environments in the highly biodiverse and rapidly changing landscapes of Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. We analyzed drawings by children (target age 10-15 years) from 22 villages, which show how children perceive the present conditions of forests and wildlife surrounding their villages and how they expect conditions to change over the next 15 years. Analyses of picture elements and their relationships to current landscape variables indicate that children have a sophisticated understanding of their environment and how different environmental factors interact, either positively or negatively. Children appear to have landscape-dependent environmental perceptions, showing awareness of past environmental conditions and many aspects of recent trends, and translating these into predictions for future environmental conditions. The further removed their present landscape is from the originally forested one, the more environmental change they expect in the future, particularly declines in forest cover, rivers, animal diversity and increases in temperature and natural disasters. This suggests that loss of past perceptions and associated "shifting environmental baselines" do not feature strongly among children on Borneo, at least not for the perceptions we investigated here. Our findings that children have negative expectations of their future environmental conditions have important political implications. More than other generations, children have a stake in ensuring that future environmental conditions support their long-term well-being. Understanding what drives environmental views among children, and how they consider trade-offs between economic development and social and environmental change, should inform optimal policies on land use. Our study illuminates part of the complex interplay between perceptions of land cover and land use change. Capturing the views of children through artistic expressions provides a potentially powerful tool to influence public and political opinions, as well as a valuable approach for developing localized education and nature conservation programs.

SUBMITTER: Pellier AS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4122389 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Using data from 50 long-term permanent plots from across Venezuelan forests in northern South America, we explored large-scale patterns of stem turnover, aboveground biomass (AGB) and woody productivity (AGWP), and the relationships between them and with potential climatic drivers. We used principal component analysis coupled with generalized least squares models to analyze the relationship between climate, forest structure and stem dynamics. Two major axes associated with orthogonal temperature and moisture gradients effectively described more than 90% of the environmental variability in the dataset. Average turnover was 1.91 ± 0.10% year-1 with mortality and recruitment being almost identical, and close to average rates for other mature tropical forests. Turnover rates were significantly different among regions (p < 0.001), with the lowland forests in Western alluvial plains being the most dynamic, and Guiana Shield forests showing the lowest turnover rates. We found a weak positive relationship between AGB and AGWP, with Guiana Shield forests having the highest values for both variables (204.8 ± 14.3 Mg C ha-1 and 3.27 ± 0.27 Mg C ha-1 year-1 respectively), but AGB was much more strongly and negatively related to stem turnover. Our data suggest that moisture is a key driver of turnover, with longer dry seasons favoring greater rates of tree turnover and thus lower biomass, having important implications in the context of climate change, given the increases in drought frequency in many tropical forests. Regional variation in AGWP among Venezuelan forests strongly reflects the effects of climate, with greatest woody productivity where both precipitation and temperatures are high. Overall, forests in wet, low elevation sites and with slow turnover stored the greatest amounts of biomass. Although faster stand dynamics are closely associated with lower carbon storage, stem-level turnover rates and woody productivity did not show any correlation, indicating that stem dynamics and carbon dynamics are largely decoupled from one another.

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Through the eyes of children: perceptions of environmental change in tropical forests.

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