BIODIVERSITY LOSS AND Conservation in Fragmented Forest Landscapes: The Forests of Montane Mexico and Temperate South America

Abstract

This book describes the results of a collaborative programme of research, spanning some 10 years, which examined the processes of forest loss, degradation and fragmentation and their impacts on biodiversity, and methods of forest conservation and restoration. The research was undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers drawn from Chile, the UK, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and Spain, and was funded primarily by two grants from the European Commission, with additional funding obtained from a range of sources from within the partner countries. In order to provide some context for what follows in the rest of the book, I describe here how this initiative originally came about, and how it subsequently developed. I make no apologies for presenting here what is very much a personal account, as it provides me with an opportunity to thank the many people who have helped make the collaboration such a success. The research focused on the tropical montane forests of eastern and southern Mexico (in the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas) and the temperate rainforests of the southern cone of South America (Chile and Argentina). Why focus on these areas? Undoubtedly, these forests are of international conservation importance, yet they have been neglected by previous research. Over the past two decades, research on forest conservation ecology has focused primarily on lowland tropical rainforests. While this is understandable, given their exceptional biological diversity, other diverse and distinctive forests have been somewhat overlooked