数十年にわたるプランテーション農業の結果、ヤシの木は太平洋環礁の森林の半分以上を占めている(After decades of plantation agriculture, coconut palms dominate over half of Pacific atoll forests)

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2024-12-04 カリフォルニア大学サンタバーバラ校(UCSB)

カリフォルニア大学サンタバーバラ校とザ・ネイチャー・コンサーバンシーの研究によれば、過去200年にわたるプランテーション農業の影響で、ココナッツヤシが太平洋の環礁における森林被覆の58.3%を占め、全陸地面積の24.1%に達していることが明らかになりました。このココナッツヤシの優占は、地下水の枯渇、海鳥の減少、隣接するサンゴ礁への悪影響など、生態系に深刻な影響を及ぼしています。特に、海鳥はココナッツヤシには巣を作らず、広葉樹林の減少により、彼らの糞による栄養供給が失われ、島の生態系全体に影響を及ぼしています。この研究は、持続可能なコミュニティの構築に向け、放棄されたプランテーションの場所を特定し、在来の広葉樹林の回復を促進する必要性を強調しています。

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衛星画像から、太平洋の環礁にココナッツ・プランテーションが広がっていることが明らかになった Satellite imagery reveals widespread coconut plantations on Pacific atolls

Michael W Burnett, Rory French, Breonna Jones, Alexander Fischer, Alexandra Holland, Irina Roybal, Timothy White, Sebastian Steibl, Leander D L Anderegg, Hillary Young
Environmental Research Letters  Published: 4 December 2024
DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/ad8c66

数十年にわたるプランテーション農業の結果、ヤシの木は太平洋環礁の森林の半分以上を占めている(After decades of plantation agriculture, coconut palms dominate over half of Pacific atoll forests)

Abstract

Efforts to mitigate tropical deforestation overlook coconut palm (Cocos nucifera L.) plantations on atolls—low island ecosystems that represent the most common landforms in the Pacific basin. Coconut palms have a deep history in the Pacific and were planted extensively over the last two centuries to meet the surging demand for coconut oil exports. But despite wide interest in the global footprint of palm crops, the distribution of coconut palms on Pacific atolls has remained unknown. We applied a supervised machine learning classifier to satellite imagery to produce 2 m resolution vegetation maps of 235 of 266 Pacific atolls. Despite the abandonment of many plantations in recent decades, we find that coconut palms surpass native broadleaf trees in terms of canopy area: coconut presently covers 58.3% of the mapped atolls’ total forested area and 24.1% of their total land area. 51.2% of these coconut canopies occur in monocultures indicative of plantation agriculture and drastic ecological changes. Even among atolls with climates equally suitable for coconut palms, coconut canopy coverage is 32.1 percentage points greater on those that historically exported coconut products, demonstrating the significant and persistent effects of plantations on forest compositions in the tropical Pacific. Coconut palms are most dominant on large, wet islands, reflecting their high rates of water use and thus their potential to deplete critical groundwater resources. The spread of coconut plantations also came at the expense of native vegetation critical for wildlife habitat, nutrient cycling, and soil formation. The severe environmental impacts of coconut plantations urge ecosystem management in a region uniquely exposed to climate change.

1900環境一般
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