Land tenure and forest cover change. The case of southwestern Beni, Bolivian Amazon, 1986e2009 Jaime Paneque-Gálvez a, b, * , Jean-François Mas a , Maximilien Guèze b , Ana Catarina Luz a , Manuel J. Macía c , Martí Orta-Martínez b , Joan Pino d , Victoria Reyes-García e a Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental (CIGA), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro No 8701, Col. Ex-Hacienda de San José de La Huerta, 58190 Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico b Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193 Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain c Departamento de Biología, Unidad de Botánica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Calle Darwin 2, 28049 Madrid, Spain d Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193 Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain e ICREA and Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193 Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain Keywords: Bolivian lowlands Tropical deforestation and forest degradation Tropical forest fragmentation Indigenous territories Protected areas Logging concessions Private lands Biocultural conservation abstract As land use change continues to increase throughout the Amazon basin, there is a pressing need to accurately map, quantify and assess the effects of different factors on forest cover change (FCC). Land tenure may sometimes have important effects on forest cover, yet such effects remain poorly understood in Amazonia, particularly outside Brazil. In this paper we assess whether significant differences in trends of FCC can be partially explained by different land tenure arrangements, using a case study in south- western Beni (Bolivian Amazon). We examine spatio-temporal dynamics of FCC across four land tenure systems (indigenous titled territory, protected area, logging concession, and private land) by classifying forests using a time-series of Landsat satellite imagery consisting of four dates (1986, 1996, 2001, 2009). Specifically, we unravel (1) trends in early growth and old-growth forest extent, including changes in total cover area, annual change rates, and spatial change dynamics, and (2) trends in old-growth forest fragmentation. To better understand the association between land tenure and FCC, we qualitatively assess the potential role that other underlying and proximate drivers may have had in FCC over the study period. We found that private lands underwent, by far, the largest FCC, that indigenous territories and the protected area had little FCC, and that logging concessions were responsible for the lowest FCC. Our findings suggest that land tenure played a key role in FCC except in private areas, where many other drivers had operated. Our study sheds light into the potential role of land tenure in FCC and has important implications for public policies aimed at socioeconomic development and environmental conservation in the Amazon. We give some policy recommendations drawn from a biocultural conser- vation perspective that could contribute to implement more inclusive conservation policies in the region. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Amazonian tropical forests are home to an incredible wealth of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity (Maffi, 2005). These forests have long been inhabited and managed by indigenous groups (Heckenberger, Russell, Toney, & Schmidt, 2007; Lombardo, Canal-Beeby, Fehr, & Veit, 2011; Mann, 2008), and in more recent times, they have attracted a myriad of outsiders seeking fortune by extracting commodities such as rubber, gold, and timber (Hetch & Cockburn, 2011). In the second half of the 20 th century, popula- tion growth, slash-and-burn agriculture, and the severe intensifi- cation of market-oriented economic activities (e.g., cattle ranching, industrial farming, logging, and mining) have resulted in the loss, fragmentation, and degradation of many old-growth forests in the region (Geist & Lambin, 2001; Rudel & Roper, 1997). Such forest cover change (FCC) has significant implications for local livelihoods (Sunderlin et al., 2008), biocultural conservation (Gorenflo, Romaine, Mittermeier, & Walker-Painemilla, 2012), and global climate (Luyssaert et al., 2008). As land use change continues to increase throughout the Amazon basin (Davidson et al., 2012; Hecht, 2005), there is a pressing need to map, quantify, and * Corresponding author. Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental (CIGA), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro No 8701, Col. Ex-Hacienda de San José de La Huerta, 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico Tel.: þ52 443 322 38 35. E-mail address: jpanequegalvez@gmail.com (J. Paneque-Gálvez). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Applied Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog 0143-6228/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2013.06.005 Applied Geography 43 (2013) 113e126