Assessment and Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India. 1. General Introduction and Forest Land Cover and Land Use Changes (1977-1997)

B.R. Ramesh (1) , Mohan Seetharam (1) , M. C. Guero, (1) , R. Michon (1)

1 IFP - Institut Français de Pondichéry

PPE volumes 6 and 7 are parts of a project report published in 1999 in collaboration with the Karnataka Forest Department on the assessment and conservation of forest biodiversity in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. After introducing the project objectives and the study area, this volume deals more specifically with forest land-cover and land-use changes over a 20-year period (1977-1997), assessed from vegetation maps and satellite images. The study revealed that forest areas were converted to anthropogeneic cover types at an annual rate of 0.63%. Forest loss was mitigated in areas under state protection (reserve forest), while degraded or fragmented forests lost more area than dense, undisturbed ones. Conservation priorities and recommendations for forest management are discussed in the second volume (PPE 7).

Mots clés: Karnataka; India; land-cover; land-use; tropical forests; vegetation maps; Western Ghats

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie

B.R. Ramesh, Mohan Seetharam, M. C. Guero,, R. Michon. Assessment and Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India. 1. General Introduction and Forest Land Cover and Land Use Changes (1977-1997). Institut Français de Pondichéry, pp. 1-64, 2009, Pondy Papers in Ecology no. 6, Head of Ecology Department, Institut Français de Pondichéry, e-mail: [e-mail]. ⟨hal-00408263⟩