Data from: Logging and indigenous hunting impacts on persistence of large Neotropical animals

Areas allocated for industrial logging and community-owned forests account
for over 50% of all remaining tropical forests. Landscape-scale
conservation strategies that include these forests are expected to have
substantial benefits for biodiversity, especially for large mammals and
birds that require extensive habitat but that are susceptible to
extirpation due to synergies between logging and hunting. In addition,
their responses to logging alone are poorly understood due to their
cryptic behavior and low densities. In this study, we assessed the effects
of logging and hunting on detection and occupancy rates of large
vertebrates in a multiple-use forest on the Guiana Shield. Our study site
was certified as being responsibly managed for timber production and
indigenous communities are legally guaranteed use-rights to the forest. We
coupled camera-trap data for wildlife detection with a spatially explicit
dataset on indigenous hunting. A multi-species occupancy model found a
weak positive effect of logging on occupancy and detection rates, while
hunting had a weak negative effect. Model predictions of species richness
were also higher in logged forest sites compared to unlogged forest sites.
Density estimates for jaguars and ocelots in our multiple-use area were
similar to estimates reported for fully protected areas. Involvement of
local communities in forest management, control of forest access, and
nesting production forests in a landscape that includes protected areas
seemed important for these positive biodiversity outcomes. The maintenance
of vertebrate species bodes well for both biodiversity and the humans that
depend on multiple-use forests.