Vegetation cover change in Manglot Wildlife Park, Pakistan: an indicator of success or a dilemma in management
Vegetation cover change in Manglot Wildlife Park, Pakistan: an indicator of success or a dilemma in management
Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Ayaz Khan
ABSTRACT
Manglot Wildlife Park was established in early 90's for re-introduction of chinkara, hog deer and urial to the range from where they were extinct. The park's vegetation changed over time with fencing and protection. Vegetation at center improved, while on periphery of the park degraded. This helped escape of some individuals of chinkara gazelle and establishing population in the nearby area with comparatively open vegetation. In this paper we have analyzed the vegetation change in Manglot Wildlife Park over time with Landsat time series. The changes suggest improvement in forest area of 1992 from 553 ha to 669 ha in 2013. This is however concentrated in center of the park, which is probably more protected than its peripheries. The open areas in the park reduced from 317 ha to 231 ha in 2013, however the degradation is more towards the edges, where local communities living around the park is probably cutting the forests. However, this degradation at edges, creating open areas which are preferred habitat of chinkara, has probably played a key role in escape of the chinkara from the park and establishing its population outside of the park, in the nearby open area.
Key words: Manglot, Nizampur, Chinkara, Pakistan, Wildlife, Khyber Paktunkhwa, land use change.
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March 2014
Vol. 64, Iss. 1
