Forest transition

Forest transition refers to a geographic theory describing a reversal or turnaround in land-use trends for a given territory from a period of net forest area loss (i.e., deforestation) to a period of net forest area gain. [Mather, A.S. 1992. The forest transition. "Area" 24(4): 367-379] [Grainger, Alan. 1995. The forest transition: an alternative approach. "Area" 27(3): 242-251] [Mather, A.S. and C.L. Needle. 1998. The forest transition: a theoretical basis. "Area" 30(2): 117-124] [Rudel, Thomas K. 1998. Is there a forest transition? Deforestation, reforestation, and development. "Rural Sociology" 63(4): 533-552] [Perz, Stephen G. 2007. Grand theory and context-specificity in the study of forest dynamics: forest transition theory and other directions. "Professional Geographer" 59(1): 105-114]

Forest recovery resulting in net increases in forest extent can occur by means of spontaneous regeneration, active planting, or both. [Rudel, Thomas K., Oliver T. Coomes, Emilio Moran, Frederic Achard, Arild Angelsen, Jianchu Xu, and Eric Lambin. 2005. Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of the land use change. "Global Environmental Change". 15: 23-31]

Forest transitions are associated with socio-economic transformations towards increased industrialization and urbanization. Other conditions leading to the abandonment of agricultural land (e.g., war and environmental legislation) have been found to play important roles in some cases.

Studies of forest transitions have been conducted for several nations as well as sub-national regions. Territories reported to have experienced forest transitions after the onset of industrialization include Bangladesh, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark [Mather, A.S., C.L. Needle, and J.R. Coull. 1998. From resource crisis to sustainability: the forest transition in Denmark. "Int J Sust Dev World" 5(3): 182-193] , Dominican Republic [Aide, T. Mitchell and H. Ricardo Grau. 2004. Globalization, migration, and Latin American ecosystems. "Science" 305(5692): 1915-1916] , El Salvador [Hecht, Susanna B., Susan Kandel, Ileana Gomes, Nelson Cuellar, and Herman Rosa. 2006. Globalization, forest resurgence, and environmental politics in El Salvador. "World Development" 34(2): 308-323] , France [Mather, A.S., J. Fairbairn, and C.L. Needle. 1999. The course and drivers of the forest transition: the case of France. "Journal of Rural Studies" 15(1): 65-90] , Gambia, Hungary, Ireland, Morocco, New Zealand, Portugal, Puerto Rico [Rudel, Thomas K., Marla Perez-Lugo, and Heather Zichal. 2000. When fields revert to forest: development and spontaneous reforestation in post-war Puerto Rico. "Professional Geographer" 52(3): 386-397] [Grau, H. Ricardo, T. Mitchell Aide, Jess K. Zimmerman, John R. Thomlinson, Eileen Helmer, and Xioming Zou. 2003. The ecological consequences of socioeconomic and land-use changes in postagricultural Puerto Rico. "Bioscience" 53(12): 1159-1168] [Aide, T. Mitchell and H. Ricardo Grau. 2004. Globalization, migration, and Latin American ecosystems. "Science" 305(5692): 1915-1916] , Rwanda, Scotland [Mather, A.S. 2004. Forest transition theory and the reforesting of Scotland. "Scottish Geographical Journal" 120: 83-98] , South Korea, Switzerland [Mather, A.S. and J. Fairbairn. 2000. From floods to reforestation: the forest transition in Switzerland. "Environment and History" 6(4): 399-421] , the United States, and Vietnam [ Meyfroidt, P. and Lambin, E. F. 2008. Forest transition in Vietnam and its environmental impacts. "Global Change Biology", in press. ] [Meyfroidt, Patrick and Eric F. Lambin. 2007. The causes of the reforestation in Vietnam. "Land Use Policy", 25(2): 182-197] . Furthermore, forest-transition dynamics have been documented for regions within Brazil [Perz, Stephen G. and David L. Skole. 2003. Secondary forest expansion in the Brazilian Amazon and the refinement of forest transition theory. "Society and Natural Resources" 16: 277-294] [Baptista, Sandra R. and Thomas K. Rudel. 2006. A re-emerging Atlantic forest? Urbanization, industrialization and the forest transition in Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. "Environmental Conservation" 33(3): 195–202] , Ecuador [Rudel, Thomas K., Diane Bates, and Rafael Machinguiashi. 2002. A tropical forest transition? Agricultural change, out-migration, and secondary forests in the Ecuadorian Amazon. "Annals of the Association of American Geographers" 92(1): 87-102] , and Mexico [Klooster, Dan. 2003. Forest transitions in Mexico: institutions and forests in a globalized countryside. "Professional Geographer" 55: 227-237] [Bray, David B. and Peter Klepeis. 2005. Deforestation, forest transitions, and institutions for sustainability in southeastern Mexico, 1900-2000. "Environment and History" 11(2): 195–223] . The findings of returning forests in these widespread studies raise questions about the prospects of a worldwide forest transition. [Rudel, Thomas K., Oliver T. Coomes, Emilio Moran, Frederic Achard, Arild Angelsen, Jianchu Xu, and Eric Lambin. 2005. Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of the land use change. "Global Environmental Change". 15: 23-31] [Kauppi, Pekka E., Jesse H. Ausubel, Jingyun Fang, Alexander S. Mather, Roger A. Sedjo, and Paul E. Waggoner. 2006. Returning forests analyzed with the forest identity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 103(46): 17574–17579]

In other words, can the global extent of forests be expected to reach a turning point in the future, reversing the current trend of overall forest decline towards overall forest expansion?

References