In Depth Coverage

Assessment of dispersal corridors connecting protected Andean bear habitat

My proposed project is focused on land-cover assessments and corridors modeling for Andean bear conservation across protected areas of the northern Venezuelan Andes. It will evaluate possible connections between populations inhabiting Sierra de Portuguesa (Yacambú, Terepaima, and El Guache national parks), Sierra de Barbacoas (Dinira national park) and Macizo de Guaramacal (Guaramacal national park). The project is a collaboration with the ongoing Planet-Action project led by Shaenandhoa García-Rangel concerning Andean bear habitat across Sierra de Portuguesa and, represents the next steps of efforts in this region to protect an endemic species, the remaining forest cover, and key water supplies. My project will incorporate this project’s previous work on landscape classification and habitat suitability, and will focus more specifically on the connectivity between large habitat regions.

• Link With Climate Change

  Open

  This project is designed to assist ongoing efforts to preserve forested regions of Sierra de Portuguesa and to expand these efforts into Sierra de Barbacoas and Macizo de Guaramacal. The protection of modeled corridors would prevent the deforestation process of large habitat regions and also in areas where deforestation has already heavily occurred. Stopping the deforestation process in these areas would both help preserve the health of the ecosystem in these regions, but also reduce carbon emissions given off by the process of extensive deforestation. Much like the ongoing project in Sierra de Portuguesa, this project will also promote the protection of important water sources in these regions, which are important for agriculture and urban settings that are impacted by the global change in climate.

• Objectives

  Open

  Main Objective:

  Delineate dispersal corridors connecting important habitat to the Andean bear, especially amongst protected areas (Yacambú, Terepaima, El Guache, Dinira, and Guaramacal national parks).

  Specific Objectives:

  -Classification of landcover in Sierra de Barbacoas and Macizo de Guaramacal regions.

  -Detailed classification of disturbed and non-forested areas of the Sierra de Portuguesa, Sierra de Barbacoas, and Macizo de Guaramacal regions.

  -Modeling of potential dispersal corridors between identified habitat regions by incorporating classification data with geographical and anthropogenic data available for these regions.

   

   

   

• Work plan

  Open

  This project is being designed to fulfill a thesis for obtaining a master's degree at Central Michigan University. Therefore, it is predicted the completion of this project will be atleast 2 years into the future, with a strong chance of continuing an additional year. During the months of the scheduled school year, I will work on the computer-based portion of this project, and summer months will be spent collecting field data needed. It is hoped to obtain all field data within two field seasons, but this cannot be accurately predicted that far into the future. It is planned that final results and objectives will be concluded within the following months of the last field season.

• Schedule

  Open

  I feel that annual progress reports given after each field season would give a strong representation of the progress of this project. This could also be made bi-annual, with one report after a season of computer-base work and another after the field season. In either case, this would be scheduled for the next 2-3 years, based on the length of time needed to conclude final results. It is felt that a report of the final results would best be given when my thesis is complete. This specific date is subject to change over the course of the project, so a more concrete date would be better established furthur along.

• Technical and Scientific Approach & Methods Proposed

  Open

  Since Sierra de Portuguesa landcover is being classified by the other ongoing project led by Garcia-Rangel, extensive forest classification does not need to be conducted for this region. However, classification of the land-cover outside forested areas will be carried out in more detail in order to identify features that could possible act as corridors for the Andean bear between protected areas. Land cover classifcation will still have to be done for the two regions outside of Sierra de Portuguesa (Sierra de Barbacoas and Macizo de Guaramacal), including both forest and non-forest cover in order to be consistant with classification amongst all three regions being studied.

  Remote-sensing of images will be done using ERDAS IMAGINE ®, but the majority of the computer-based work will be done using ArcGIS. By incorporating geographical as well as anthropogenic data of the landscape, I will model corridors using the ArcGIS extension called Corridor Designer. This extension will use weighted (by importance of the species) factors to delineate potential corridors throughout the landscape, connecting large habitat areas previously modeled. These weighted factors will be obtained from published literature, previously conducted expert surveys, and expert surveys that will be distributed during the course of this project.

   Fieldwork will be done to obtain ground control points and ground-truthing for the images used for classification. This will be required predominately in areas outside of Sierra de Portuguesa, since extensive fieldwork has already been accomplished in that region.

   

• Results

  Open

  Since the project is still in preliminary stages, no concrete results have been obtain at this time. Our goal from this project is to have atleast one publication in result, but have hopes of obtaining multiple publications from it.

• Deliverables

  Open

  From this project, I will provide a proposal of areas that hold significant importance for the conservation of the Andean bear. Modeling of corridors will provide a means to protect remaining forest, especially in very fragmented areas in order to preserve the connectevity of habitats, and ultimately preserving the health of the ecosystem. The specifics of the final deliverables obtained from this project are still to be determined, since it is still in preliminary stages.

• Use of Satellite Imagery and GIS Solutions

  Open

  Since a majority of this project is involving landcover classification, it is crucial to have sufficient satellite imagery in order to classify forest cover, forest type, and non-forested areas (agriculture, settlement, etc) . ERDAS IMAGINE ®  will be used for the remote-sensing aspect of the project. ArcGIS will be used extensively for creating databases used for modeling of both habitat and for modeling of the corridors. The Corridor Designer extension will specifically used for the corridor modeling. 

   

• Local Actions

  Open

  Since this project is a collaboration with the ongoing project led by Shaenandhoa Garcia-Rangel, this project is projected towards continuing and strenghting their local actions. The majority of this project will consist of delineating corridors between habitats, which will provide guidelines for management plans with means to include areas where heavy deforestation has already occured. These areas with only limited amounts of forest are still important, and with evidence supporting their protection, can help prevent continuous deforestation of landscape between protected habitat areas.  In addition, the focus on corridors and habitat connectivity of this project will create a more approachable means to implement outreach towards communities in areas involved in extensive deforestation and habitat fragmentation rather than those neighboring large habitat regions. 

• Miscellaneous information / interesting details on project

  Open

  As stated before, this project is a collaboration with the ongoing Planet-Action project led by Garcia-Rangel. She is a team member on this project, and we are working closely together to prevent any overlap of the two projects and to allow my project to complement their ongoing efforts as efficiently as possible.

• Region Name

  Open
  Sierra de Portuguesa
  Sierra de Barbacoas
  Macizo de Guaramacal
  

• Partners involved in project

  Open
  - Central Michigan University. USA
  - Wildlife Research Group, University of Cambridge. UK
  - Universidad Simón Bolívar. Venezuela
  - Venuezeulan Andean Bear Team. Venezuela.