4 B. Fallarcuna: Forest Cover Dynamics in the Philippines from LandSAT-Derived Global Forest Cover Forest Cover Dynamics in the Philippines from LandSAT-Derived Global Forest Cover Dataset (2000-2012) Brent Fallarcuna 1,2 and Gay Jane Perez 1,2 1 Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, 1101 2 Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, 1101 Correspondence to: B. Fallarcuna brentiebark@gmail.com Abstract. Tropical deforestation still pervades in the developing countries despite the conservation and de- velopment programs implemented by national agencies and international community. Its effects are mostly felt not only by forest dependent rural communities, but also by other people across the globe in line with the changing climate. In relation to this, up to date and reliable estimates of forest cover is necessary in order to guide the policy makers and forest managers in implementing relevant policies and programs for sustainable forest management and conservation. However, as other tropical countries like the Philippines, forest cover maps and statistics is hampered by multiple imagery sources, varying scale and resolutions, undisclosed meth- ods of mapping and use of different forest classes and definitions. In this study, global and freely available Landsat processed data were used in order to quantify the rates of forest loss on the provincial level and to determine its level of accuracy in the Philippines. The Landsat processed data was enhanced by defining a threshold on percent tree cover that represents forest. However, by applying previously published forest maps, non-forest features were masked out. This data was then analyzed to produce net change ranking and annual forest loss trends and correlations. This was done per forest cover type to provide more detailed insights on forest cover change. Results showed that at least 53,620.20 hectares of forest was lost in the country from year 2000- 2012. Overall accuracy indicates high reliability for both loss (86.48%, kappa statistic = 0.86) and gain (92.26%, kappa statistic = 0.92). Mindanao provinces such as Zamboanga Sibugay (-11.30%), Zamboanga del Norte (-5.42%) and Basilan (-4.06) topped the provinces with negative aggregate net changes. Provinces like Surigao del Sur (r = 0.77), Surigao del Norte (r = 0.65) and Ilocos Sur (r = 0.61) had the highest increasing trend of forest loss (p-value at ¡ 0.05). For open forest alone, all Zamboanga provinces showed high aggregate net change while forest cover loss correlations with positive trend were significant in Agusan del Sur (r = 0.70), Tarlac (r = 0.69) and Davao Oriental (r = 0.69). Among the forest cover types analyzed, the open forest (secondary) type exhibited the highest aggregate net change, implying that it was most dynamic and vulnerable to deforestation. This study showed that forest cover changes could be quantified consistently given a globally available platform such as the Landsat processed data. 1 Introduction Forests are among the most important ecosystems that pro- vide various benefits to society. It contributes in the regula- tion of global cycles, provides ecological services and mit- igates anthropogenic climate change effects (Foley et al., 2005); (Bonan, 2008). Despite its contribution in sustaining such processes and estimated annual ecosystem services of US$4.7 trillion (Costanza et al., 1997), forests still experi- ence further decline and degradation, especially in the trop- ics. Based on the earth observation satellite data, a total of 2.3 million km2 were lost while 0.8 million km2 of forest were Journal of the Philippine Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society http://philgrss.org/journal/