Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change

Places experience forest transitions when declines in forest cover cease and recoveries in forest cover begin. Forest transitions have occurred in two, sometimes overlapping circumstances. In some places economic development has created enough non-farm jobs to pull farmers off of the land, thereby i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGlobal environmental change Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 23 - 31
Main Authors Rudel, Thomas K., Coomes, Oliver T., Moran, Emilio, Achard, Frederic, Angelsen, Arild, Xu, Jianchu, Lambin, Eric
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2005
Subjects
Deforestation
Environment
Environmental change
Forest cover change
Forest transition
Forests
Land use
Deforestation
Forest cover change
Forest transition
Land use
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Summary:Places experience forest transitions when declines in forest cover cease and recoveries in forest cover begin. Forest transitions have occurred in two, sometimes overlapping circumstances. In some places economic development has created enough non-farm jobs to pull farmers off of the land, thereby inducing the spontaneous regeneration of forests in old fields. In other places a scarcity of forest products has prompted governments and landowners to plant trees in some fields. The transitions do little to conserve biodiversity, but they do sequester carbon and conserve soil, so governments should place a high priority on promoting them.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0959-3780
1872-9495
DOI:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2004.11.001