Oliver T. Coomes

TL;DR: In this article, the authors track some of the major myths on driving forces of land cover change and propose alternative pathways of change that are better supported by case study evidence, concluding that neither population nor poverty alone constitute the sole and major underlying causes of land-cover change worldwide.

TL;DR: Forest transitions have occurred in two, sometimes overlapping circumstances: economic development and scarcity of forest products have prompted governments and landowners to plant trees in some fields as mentioned in this paper, and these transitions do little to conserve biodiversity, but they do sequester carbon and conserve soil, so governments should place a high priority on promoting them.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the spatial patterns and statistical relationships between deforestation and changes in pasture and soybean areas in the Brazilian Amazon and found evidence for the hypothesis that an increase of soy in Mato Grosso has displaced pasture further north leading to deforestation elsewhere.

TL;DR: The role of seed exchange networks in the preservation and adaptation of crop specific and genetic diversity is discussed in this article, where the authors advocate a diversity of approaches to foster the creation of robust and policy-relevant knowledge.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined coping strategies in response to covariate flood shocks and idiosyncratic health shocks among riverine peasant households in the Amazonian tropical forests, and revealed an important insurance role of non-timber forest product gathering for the asset poor who have limited options for coping with flood risk.