Background:

Human impact over natural ecosystems located in Southern Mexico is increasingly evident. We generated a spatially explicit land use and cover change (LUCC) model to assess current and potential impact of human activities and to identify the influence of variables such as: distance to paved and unpaved roads, human settlements, rivers, slope and protected areas.

Study site:

Mesoamerican Biological Corridor located in the state of Chiapas (MBC-Ch), Mexico.

Methods:

We calibrated a model for the period 1993-2002 and ran a simulation for 2007 which we compared against the real 2007 land use and cover map to evaluate model’s performance. We then projected LUCC to 2030 under three different scenarios: 1) Agriculture and Livestock (AGL), 2) Business As Usual (BAU) and, 3) Conservation (CON).

Results:

Proximity to roads and settlements increased deforestation probabilities whereas the presence of natural protected areas had the opposite effect. The AGL scenario predicted a reduction of 43 and 41 % in the extent of closed tropical and temperate forests, respectively. In comparison, the BAU scenario predicted a reduction of 19.5 % in the area covered by closed tropical forest and of 30.1 % in temperate forests. The extent of land destined to agriculture and livestock activities increased by 22 and 15 % in the AGL and BAU scenarios, respectively. In contrast, the CON scenario predicted slight changes in the landscape.

Conclusions:

Our simulations indicate that it is highly probable to see a marked decay in the extent (and likely integrity) of natural habitats in the MBC-Ch region if a comprehensive series of management actions are not urgently implemented.

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