Impacts of forest cover change on ecosystem services in high Andean mountains

Basic information

• Case ID: INT-174-1
• Intervention type: Created habitats
• Intervention description:

  Exotic tree plantations (pine). “From the 1980s onwards, exotic tree species (mostly eucalyptus and pine) were increasingly used for plantation forests that now cover extensive areas “ Planting of pine motivated by need for quick revenue for farmers, increase economic benefits from grassland landscapes. The government supports/incentivizes afforestation for carbon credit schemes “While the ecological benefits provided by natural recovery in comparison to mono-specific plantations of exotic tree species are undoubtedly greater (Table 7), afforestation with pines was still largely preferred by local farmers. Pine plantations were mainly located in páramo grasslands (64%) and agricultural lands (35%) (Fig. 5).” “Forest plantations were already promoted by the government in the 1960s. The first patches of forest plantations appeared in the Pangor catchment in 1977. Forest plantations only began to appear at a relatively wide scale in Ecuador in the 1970s and 1980s through the establishment of governmental programs linking the Ministry of Agriculture (INEFAN, FONAFOR, Plan Bosque) with rural landowners (Farley, 2007, 2010)” “The goals of these first plantations were to meet the fuel wood demand and to restore degraded landscapes for small agricultural activities (Vanacker et al., 2003), while larger plantations were developed for industrial purposes like sawn-wood transformations (Farley, 2007). From the 1990s onwards, the extent and size of the exotic tree plantations increased rapidly, although the sources and amounts of funding provided by the governmental programs (such as the PLANFOR) started to decline (Granda, 2005; Farley, 2010). More recently, the major source of funding was coming from international programs aiming at mitigating climate change impacts through the generation of carbon credits like the Clean Development Mechanism of the UNFCCC (Farley, 2010).”

• Landscape/sea scape ecosystem management: Yes

• Climate change impacts	Effect of Nbs on CCI	Effect measures
  Soil erosion	Mixed results	1. Protection against water erosion - The protection against water erosion was evaluated on the basis of vegetation cover. The latter represents the effect of soil cover, plants, soil biomass and soil disturbing activities on erosion - Ref Molina et al. ; C-factor (%) 2. Erosion regulation a. The ability of land cover types to regulate soil erosion has been assessed based on 137Cs measurements realized by Henry et al. (2012) in a catchment located just north of the study site. Soil erosion within the last 50–60 years can be estimated from the 137Cs levels of topsoil material (Mabit et al., 2008; Henry et al., 2012).

• Approach implemented in the field: Yes
• Specific location:

  Pangor watershed, Western Andean Range; altitude between 1434 and 4333 m

• Country: Ecuador
• Habitat/Biome type: Created forest |
• Issue specific term: Not applicable
  

Evidence

• Notes on intervention effectivness: Note that in the discussion for ecosystem delivery the authors differentiate afforestation on agricultural land with afforestation on natural grasslands, we can see this in table 7 which shows the forest cover pathways; we see the results discussed that afforestation with pine plantations (PP) decreases biodiversity value when conversion is from paramo, but increases biodiversity when conversion is from agricultural land. Note that water availability/yield is not framed as a climatic impact, they are only interested in the impact of afforestation on water yield but this is not how we code. We only code for climatic impact when the impact is materializing or predicted to materialize. Here the only climatic mentioned by authors is erosion. Summary - When afforestation takes place on native paramo grassland, the above is negative impacted, with the worst impact is on water balance flow discharge, and water storage capacity Water yield is decreased, flow regulation is decreased (flood?) Negatively impacts slope stability On agricultural land – pine plantations are not necessarily associated with negative eimpact, and depends on soil quality / degradation in agricultural land. In highly degraded land plantation of exotic trees can improve ecological condition When páramo grasslands are converted to pine plantations, the on-site effects on ecosystem services are principally a tradeoff of belowground for aboveground carbon (and a loss of the total carbon stock in case of fire or harvesting), a loss of nitrogen, acidification and salinization of soils, and a decrease in soil water content and water retention capacities
• Is the assessment original?: Yes
• Broadtype of intervention considered: Not applicable
• Compare effectivness?: No
• Compared to the non-NBS approach: Not applicable
• Report greenhouse gas mitigation?: Yes
• Impacts on GHG: Mixed
• Assess outcomes of the intervention on natural ecosystems: Yes
• Impacts for the ecosystem: Mixed
• Ecosystem measures: extent of improvement in ecological conditions. "The overall capacity of the landscape to deliver ecosystem services dropped steadily by 16% over the 50 years’ study period. Conversion of native forests to agricultural land was associated with the strongest decline in ecosystem services.” Conversion of natural grasslands into pine plantations mostly led to negative and probably irreversible impacts on the delivery of ecosystem services.
• Assess outcomes of the intervention on people: No
• Impacts for people: Not reported
• People measures: n/a; reason is that the only people relevant measures are economic measures (assigned a $), see our coding definitions.
• Considers economic costs: Yes
• Economic appraisal conducted: No
• Economic appraisal described:
• Economic costs of alternative considered: No
• Compared to an alternative: Not reported

Evaluation methodology

• Type of data: Quantitative
• Is it experimental: No
• Experimental evalution done: Not applicable
• Non-experimental evalution done: Empirical case study
• Study is systematic: