Habitat fragmentation: consequences, management and future research priorities

[Extract] Change in land use and land cover, and the associated fragmentation of habitat, is one of the most pervasive effects of human activities on the face of the globe. Habitat destruction and fragmentation are the likely primary causes of the increase in the rate of extinction over recent decades (Henle et al. 1996). All measures of habitat destruction and fragmentation in all areas on earth today indicate a severe and accelerating problem (e.g., Whitmore 1997). Even large wilderness areas like the Amazon are becoming fragmented. In the Amazon, forest clearing increased exponentially during the 1970s and 1980s (Fearnside 1987) and continues at an alarming rate. This is significant because the tropics are highly diverse and relatively unknown. In Peninsular Malaysia, for example, there are over three thousand tree species of over 30 cm diameter, compared to fifty species indigenous to continental Europe north of the Alps and west of the Urals (Whitmore 1997).