Forest cover change in the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve and its future: The contribution of the 1998 protected natural area decree

The Los Tuxtlas mountain range harbors one of the last remnants of tropical rain forest on the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico. This volcanic range has a high degree of heterogeneity in its geology, climate and ecology, in addition to a very long history of human occupation. The original area covered by tropical forest has been drastically reduced by agricultural activities, and during the last four decades in particular, deforestation has been very intense. In order to protect the remaining forest, in 1998 the Mexican government created the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve (LTBR). While previous studies estimated deforestation rates and the amount of forest cover remaining in some areas of the LTBR, this is the first study to do so for the entire protected area. A retrospective analysis from 1986 to 2011 was conducted to assess the effect of the 1998 decree of the LTBR on deforestation rates, and to predict future changes in forest cover up to the year 2025 using Markov chains and cellular automata based on current deforestation patterns. The results show that shortly after the 1998 decree, deforestation rates in the LTBR not only decreased but reversed, however this trend did not continue. In recent years deforestation has again increased. Our projection shows that if current trends continue unchanged then by the year 2025 we might have lost close to 14% (ca. 9000 ha) of the forest cover that was present in 2011. The decree of the LTBR was part of the federal policy to protect biodiversity in Mexico and our results show that the strategy of establishing this protected area did work to protect tropical forest, at least temporarily in Los Tuxtlas. Also, our results show that it is not only possible to reverse forest loss within the ample buffer zone of the LTBR, it is also still relatively easy to achieve by promoting passive restoration.