The decline of the iconic monarch butterfly ( Danaus plexippus ) in North America has motivated research on the impacts of land use and land cover (LULC) change and climate variability on monarch habitat and population dynamics. We investigated spring and fall trends in LULC, milkweed and nectar resources over a 20-year period, and ~ 30 years of climate variables in Mexico and Texas, U.S. This region supports spring breeding, and spring and fall migration during the annual life cycle of the monarch. We estimated a − 2.9% decline in milkweed in Texas, but little to no change in Mexico. Fall and spring nectar resources declined < 1% in both study extents. Vegetation greenness increased in the fall and spring in Mexico while the other climate variables did not change in both Mexico and Texas. Monarch habitat in Mexico and Texas appears relatively more intact than in the midwestern, agricultural landscapes of the U.S. Given the relatively modest observed changes in nectar and milkweed, the relatively stable climate conditions, and increased vegetation greenness in Mexico, it seems unlikely that habitat loss (quantity or quality) in Mexico and Texas has caused large declines in population size or survival during migration.

There is a close match between the principles of the philosophy of Openness and the principles and practices necessary to move toward sustainable development (SD). On one hand, the achievement of SD requires development of local capacity, self-reliance, adaptability, reduction of risks and vulnerabilities, resilience, stability, democracy, transparency, equal access, strengthening of social networks, cooperation, increased learning capacity, and enablement of local capacity to fix and develop. On the other, the application of the principles of Openness (collaboration, inclusiveness, access, participatory development, and decision making) lead to science and technologies that are not exclusionary, have less barriers to be adapted to specific needs and contexts, encourage communication and cooperation strengthening social networks, foster learning and development of local capacities, and by being interoperable and reusable, reduce waste of time and efforts while increasing creativity and productivity. This paper defines what Openness and SD are and provides examples of the previously mentioned match and of the significant contributions of Openness to the achievement of SD. The examples provided are in the context of geospatial science and technology.

This paper presents a synopsis of the challenges and limitations presented by existing and emerging land use/land cover (LULC) digital data sets when used to analyze the extent, habitat quality, and LULC changes of the monarch (Danaus plexippus) migratory habitat across the United States of America (US) and Mexico. First, the characteristics, state of the knowledge, and issues related to this habitat are presented. Then, the characteristics of the existing and emerging LULC digital data sets with global or cross-border coverage are listed, followed by the data sets that cover only the US or Mexico. Later, we discuss the challenges for determining the extent, habitat quality, and LULC changes in the monarchs’ migratory habitat when using these LULC data sets in conjunction with the current state of the knowledge of the monarchs’ ecology, behavior, and foraging/roosting plants used during their migration. We point to approaches to address some of these challenges, which can be categorized into: (a) LULC data set characteristics and availability; (b) availability of ancillary land management information; (c) ability to construct accurate forage suitability indices for their migration habitat; and (d) level of knowledge of the ecological and behavioral patterns of the monarchs during their journey.

Community Forestry has been identified as a secure, profitable, and equitable strategy to reach the dual goal of forest conservation and poverty alleviation. This research contributes to the literature exploring the effects of local capacity building in forest communities by analyzing the Community Forestry Program (CFP) in Mexico. This program provides grants to enhance four types of local capacities: human, social, economic, and environmental. We used a quasi-experimental approach to quantitatively compare matched treatment and control communities regarding the effect of these interventions on two response variables: poverty alleviation and forest cover conservation. The treatment and control communities were assessed at two points in time: pre-intervention and after a 5-year treatment period. This approach was possible because we had access to a rich database of CFP grants containing more than 20,000 records from which we identify 5074 that meet the criteria for our study. Impact on poverty is assessed using a Marginality Index produced by a federal agency. Effect on forest cover conservation is evaluated by using two proxies, the rate of change on: forest cover and on forest cover fragmentation. Our results show that enhancement of only human/social capacities or all capacities as a package significantly reduce poverty. However, the first ones have a greater impact that the latter ones. Neither human/social capacities enhancement, nor all-capacities enhancement had a statistically significant effect on forest cover conservation. These findings can assist in better designing and targeting future CFP grants in Mexico. Also, they have implications for public policy since capacity building is cheaper than any other poverty alleviation mechanism such as direct cash transfers or subsidies. Furthermore, they have long-lasting impacts that do not require regular periodical contributions and they don't discriminate by gender, or by the requirement on individual community members of having land ownership rights within the community's land holdings. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This study explored the Land Cover (LC) and LC transitions at national level in Mexico using the GlobeLand30 (GL30) land cover 30 meter resolution data sets for the years 2000 and 2010. This information was contrasted against the results of previous national level Land Cover (LC)/LC Change (LCC) studies and land cover/use digital data sets. consistent with GL30, wetlands and barelands have had the most important decreases in their areas during the 2000-2010 period (-13.33% and -9.26%, respectively), while artificial surface and grasslands have had the most important increases (7.38% and 4.00%, respectively). Cultivated (1.88%), forest (-0.47%), shrublands (-1.04%) and water bodies (-1.21%) show low changes during the 2000-2010 period. From the GL30 estimates of LC extent and percent change, those for the forest and cultivated classes were the foremost almost like those estimates reported in previous studies. The estimates for other LC classes show low agreement with previous studies and with a group of aggregated LC classes created from official digital LC maps. Worth noticing is that the small decreased found for the GL30 Forest land cover class during the 2000-2010 period. this means a change in processes that in previous decades were reducing the extent of the forest cover in Mexico. the overall reduction in LC transitions observed within the 2000-2010 GL30 data supports reports that allocations for a few land covers/uses in Mexico have reached maturity and are tending to stabilize. The results of this study points to many needs for further research, like completing assessments of the locational and classification accuracy of the GL30 data sets for Mexico. More specifically, there's a requirement to closely analyze the extent and changes within the GL30 artificial surface and wetlands LC classes. Wildlife habitat and species round the world face a crisis. it's estimated that heating may cause the extinction of 15–37% of species by 2050. this is often another aspect which needs attention because we could lose about 1.25 million species. Unlike other environmental losses, this one can't be reversed because nature doesn't give second chances to biodiversity. Wildlife resources constitute an important link within the survival of the human species and are a topic of much fascination, interest, and research everywhere the planet . Today, when wildlife habitats are under severe pressure and an outsized number of species of untamed fauna became endangered, the effective conservation of untamed animals is of great significance. Because all folks depends on plants and animals for all vital components of our welfare, it's quite a matter of convenience that they still exist; it's a matter of life and death. Being living units of the ecosystem, plants and animals contribute to human welfare by providing • material benefit to human life; • knowledge about genetic resources and their preservation; and • significant contributions to the enjoyment of life (e.g., recreation). Human society depends on genetic resources for virtually all of its food; nearly half its medicines; much of its clothing; in some regions, all of its fuel and building materials; and a part of its mental and spiritual welfare. Considering the way we are galloping ahead, oblivious of what legacy we decide to leave for future generations, the longer term doesn't seem too bright. Statisticians have projected that by 2020, the human population will have increased by quite half, and therefore the arable fertile land and tropical forests are going to be but half what they're today. Genetic resources are treated as inexhaustible natural resource , but we'd like to worry about them. it's here that the concept of management and conservation of wildlife comes into play, because anything that's not human or undomesticated is ‘wildlife’. Presence or absence of an animal or plant during a region is decided by ecological and historical factors. Animals and plants live indicators of the characteristics of their environment; their ranges mark the places where environmental conditions are an equivalent or similar. To interpret the range of a species properly, it's necessary to understand , in detail, the conditions required for the species to measure and thrive. On this basis, the planet are often divided into six zoogeographical regions: 1) Nearctic North America and Greenland 2) Palaearctic Eurasia, without India 3) Ethiopian Africa, south of the Sahara 4) Oriental India and Indochina 5) Australian Australia and New Zealand 6) Neotropical South and Central America, and therefore the Antilles The high cost of captive breeding and therefore the paucity of additional release sites threaten gharial conservation efforts. Increasing interactions between riverside human populations and therefore the gharial, also because the negative effects of agriculture and fishing restrict successful gharial populations to a couple of stretches along isolated and guarded rivers. Gharial migration out of protected areas has been identified as a big factor that's slowing population recovery. If we take into consideration the traditional reasons why wildlife is disappearing in Asia, India is doing much better than other countries. India has launched an in depth protected area network of research institutions during which legislation, socio-economic factors, and wildlife research are playing an excellent role. The Central Zoo Authority plays a key role with zoos in programming research activities associated with the conservation and propagation of untamed animals. Planned research activities include studies on wildlife biology, genetic variability, species- specific nutritional requirements, animal behavior, epidemiological surveys, and disease diagnosis through autopsy. The longer term depends on interaction between captive and wild animals, preservation of biodiversity, and genetic and demographic variations of species. India still has 65% of Asia’s tiger population, 85% of the Asian rhino population, 80% of the Asian elephant population, and 100% of the Asiatic lion population.

Forest management in Mexico is immersed in diverse and complex ecological, socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological contexts. These contexts have led to the use of the forests for many purposes under diverse administration and management schemes. These schemes continue to evolve, both in the forest areas and in universities and forest research institutions throughout the country. Timber management has been part of this evolution and has given rise to several forest management approaches. Most of these approaches are adaptations of methods developed in other parts of the world for very different ecological, socio-cultural, and economic contexts. The majority of the timber management methods are based on sustainability principles and incorporate classical yield regulation and forest management concepts. However, the application of these methods in the complex and rapidly changing contexts in which the Mexican forests and forestry sector are immersed has resulted in unexpected and fortuitous results. There is a need for a new significant evolution of the forest and timber management methods in the country. New approaches must include greater emphasis on community-based forestry, consideration of markets for forest products and services, as well as the overall increase of resilience, learning capacity, and adaptation while reducing hazards, risks, and vulnerability of the forests and the communities that depend on them. These characteristics will allow better adaptation to the rapid changes, complexities, and ambiguities of the global environment and the Mexican ecological, social, political, and economic conditions.

The development, integration, and distribution of the information and spatial data infrastructure (i.e. Digital Earth; DE) necessary to support the vision and goals of Future Earth (FE) will occur in a distributed fashion, in very diverse technological, institutional, socio-cultural, and economic contexts around the world. This complex context and ambitious goals require bringing to bear not only the best minds, but also the best science and technologies available. Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Applications (FOSS4G) offers mature, capable and reliable software to contribute to the creation of this infrastructure. In this paper we point to a selected set of some of the most mature and reliable FOSS4G solutions that can be used to develop the functionality required as part of DE and FE. We provide examples of large-scale, sophisticated, mission-critical applications of each software to illustrate their power and capabilities in systems where they perform roles or functionality similar to the ones they could perform as part of DE and FE. We provide information and resources to assist the readers in carrying out their own assessments to select the best FOSS4G solutions for their particular contexts and system development needs.

Este articulo presenta una estimacion del nivel de fragmentacion de los bosques templados y tropicales de Mexico en tres fechas (1993, 2003 y 2008) usando las capas mas recientes de uso del suelo y vegetacion homogenizadas del Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia (INEGI) y un metodo raster de ventana movil. Utilizando un sistema de informacion geografica (SIG), este metodo produce mapas con cinco clases de fragmentacion de los manchones de bosques. Google Earth (GE) se uso como plataforma para distribuir y dar acceso a esta cartografia digital a traves de Internet. Sostenemos que la cartografia digital creada en este estudio es mas informativa que las estimaciones numericas de la fragmentacion de los bosques y que la facilidad de acceso y visualizacion disponibles a traves de GE contribuyen de mejor manera a apoyar tanto la planeacion a nivel estrategico de las areas forestales a nivel nacional como la educacion forestal y ambiental dirigida a diversos usuarios

En el presente articulo se presenta el uso complementario de la programacion lineal y la programacion de objetivos para en analisis de un sistema de abastecimiento forestal. Por medio de la PL se optimizan los objetivos considerados en la plnatacion anual de las actividades de abastecimeinto. Si despues de esta optimizacion los objetivos no entran en conflicto, se habra llegado a un plan optimo. Si los objetivos entran en conflicto de formula un modelo de PO el cual hace uso de los resultados de los modelos de Pl como los niveles deseados para cada objetivo. Se concluye que la PL y PO son poderosas herramientas en el analisis de sistemas de abastecimiento de grandes dimensiones y complejidad.

Forest managers and policy makers increasingly demand to have access to estimates of forest fragmentation, human accessibility to forest areas and levels of anthropogenic pressure on the remaining forests to integrate them into monitoring systems, management and conservation plans. Forest fragmentation is defined as the breaking up of a forest unit, where the number of patches and the amount of expose edge increase while the amount of core area decreases. Forest fragmentation studies in Mexico have been limited to local or regional levels and have concentrated only on specific forest types. This paper presents an assessment of the fragmentation of all forest types at the national level, their effective proximity to anthropogenic influences, and the development of an indicator of anthropogenic pressure on the forests areas. Broadleaf forests, tropical evergreen forests and tropical dry deciduous forests show the greatest fragmentation. Almost half (47%) of the tropical forests are in close effective proximity to anthropogenic influences and only 12% of their area can be considered isolated from anthropogenic influences. The values for the temperate forests are 23% and 29% respectively. Anthropogenic pressure in the immediate vicinity of anthropogenic activities is much higher in the tropical forests (75 in a scale 0–100) than in the temperate forests (30). When considering these results jointly, the tropical forests, and more specifically, the tropical evergreen forests and tropical dry deciduous forests are under the greatest pressure and risks of degradation.

In this paper we identify the characteristics of a sustainable forest management strategy and provide specific recommendations to move toward this goal in the forests in Armenia. To provide a context for these recommendations we present brief overviews of Armenian human and physical geography and the forests in the country. Also, we highlight how several crucial issues in the forestry sector have remained unchanged from the Soviet era to the independent period and the implications of this lack of change for the evolution and current state of forests in the country.

This paper illustrates the geographical extent of the Armenian forests at five points in time, from the year 4,000 B.C. to the present. For each period the social and economic context that is most relevant to the use and conservation of the forests is presented. An extensive literature search for the most reliable geological, archaeological, and bio-geographical records was conducted to provide an estimate of the extent of the forest cover in ancient times. According to the estimates produced, and the National Forest Inventories during the Soviet period, the forest cover has decreased from covering approximately 35% of Armenia during the first three millennia B.C., to 8.1% during the 1950s, 11.2% during the 1980s, to 7-8% today. The degree of deforestation that Armenia has suffered and the likelihood of losing the remaining highly fragmented forest areas in the coming years is highlighted.

Los metodos convencionales de clasificacion de tierras presentan algunas deficiencias como a) Representacion escasa de la variabilidad espacial, b) Suposicion de que todos los factores de estratificacion tienen la misma importancia en la produccion de cultivos, y c) Perdida de informacion durante el proceso o de modelacion. La aplicacion de la teoria de conjuntos difusos (Fuzzy) a la clasificacion de tierras es una alternativa para superar dichas limitaciones. En el presente trabajo se aplica el enfoque de limites difusos o de transicion gradual (Fuzzy) con el proposito de delimitar las clases de aptitud de las tierras del estado de Guanajuato, Mexico, para el desarrollo de especies de importancia pecuaria y forestal que no cuentan con datos de produccion. El metodo desarrollado es una modificacion del enfoque Fuzzy tradicional aplicado a cultivos que cuentan con datos estadisticos de produccion. Se utilizan los Sistemas de Informacion Geografica como herramientas para hacer mas eficiente el proceso de modelacion. Los resultados de Ja clasificacion de tierras con el enfoque Fuzzy, para varias especies vegetales, muestran las siguientes ventajas respecto a la clasificacion Booleana convencional: a) Mejor representacion de la variabilidad espacial, b) Representacion mas objetiva de la incertidumbre inherente a la calidad de los datos y a las divergencias de opinion entre especialistas, y c) Mejor aprovechamiento de la informacion disponible.

In order to analyze land-use changes during 1970-1997, four current land-use classes were identified in the state of Guanajuato, and these were related to their previous agricultural land use. Landsat TM images for 1996 and 1997 were visually classified on the computer screen with the ArcView system, supported by information from topographic maps (1998 edition), digital orthophotos (1993) and fieldwork using a GPS device. The comparison of statistical data from previous and updated maps allowed to quantify the general changes in land use, and map superposition for the two years allowed to spatially locate those changes. A reduction of 57 051 hectares (4%) in total cultivated land in Guanajuato was observed for a period of 27 years approximately. However, in the Rural Development District-004 the opposite trend was observed, with a growth of 22 642 ha (9.6%). Despite the general trend towards a decrease In agricultural land, the location of changes indicates abandonment of some previously cultivated areas, incorporation of cattle-raising or forest land to agriculture and proliferation of urban and industrial areas at the expense of cultivated land. The delimitation of the major changes in land use and their relationship with adequateness for agriculture will allow to generate new elements of judgments that may be of utility to maintain production alternatives within the land use planning proposals.

Recent classifications of land suitability for crop production, carried out in Mexican lands by the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agricolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP), were made considering only a Boolean conventional approach. To overcome some deficiencies of this method, a Gradual Transitional Limits approach (Fuzzy)was applied to classify land suitability for crop, forest and grass species production, in the state of Guanajuato, in Central Mexico. In order to know the advantages and constraints of the Fuzzy approach, this paper presents a comparison of both methods to crops in which whit statistical information wasavailable. The GIS software package used to process the vector data was ARC/INFO, subsequently the IDRISI raster system was used to process and to model map layer information, and the ArcView system to edit and generate the final maps. The main advantages of the Fuzzy approach versus the conventional method were: a) the changing weighting factor of stratification overcrop productivity; b) higher environmental feasibility segregation; c) its independence of the subjective perception of crop species specialists to define the physical requirements. A drawback of the Fuzzy method, is the requirement of current productivity database of crops for a specific geographic area.

Resumen es: A partir de la clasificacion del potencial agricola del Distrito de Desarrollo Rural 004 Celaya, Guanajuato, mediante el enfoque de “limites de transi...