The forest transition: Towards a more comprehensive theoretical framework☆

doi:10.1016/J.LANDUSEPOL.2009.02.001

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The forest transition: Towards a more comprehensive theoretical framework☆

Journal Article•DOI•

The forest transition: Towards a more comprehensive theoretical framework☆

Edward B. Barbier¹, Joanne C. Burgess¹, Alan Grainger²•Institutions (2)

University of Wyoming¹, University of Leeds²

01 Apr 2010-Land Use Policy (Pergamon)-Vol. 27, Iss: 2, pp 98-107

TL;DR: The authors argue that long-run changes in forest cover in a country or region cannot be separated from the overall pattern of land use changes, and this pattern is determined by relative land values.

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About: This article is published in Land Use Policy.The article was published on 2010-04-01. It has received 283 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Land management & Land use.

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Journal Article•DOI•

Land use transitions: Socio-ecological feedback versus socio-economic change

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Eric F. Lambin¹, Patrick Meyfroidt¹•Institutions (1)

Catholic University of Leuven¹

01 Apr 2010-Land Use Policy

TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore whether the sources of land use transitions are mostly endogenous socio-ecological forces or exogenous socio-economic factors, and evaluate the varying ecological quality of expanding forests associated with these pathways.

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935 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Global Forest Transition: Prospects for an End to Deforestation

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Patrick Meyfroidt¹, Eric F. Lambin²•Institutions (2)

Université catholique de Louvain¹, Catholic University of Leuven²

24 Oct 2011-Annual Review of Environment and Resources

TL;DR: In this article, a review synthesizes existing knowledge on the occurrence, causes, and ecological impacts of forest transitions and examines the prospects and policy options for a global forest transition, concluding that the ecological quality of forest transition depends on multiple factors, including the importance of natural forest regeneration versus plantations.

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Abstract: Although global rates of tropical deforestation remain alarmingly high, they have decreased over the period 2000–2010, and a handful of tropical developing countries have recently been through a forest transition—a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation. This review synthesizes existing knowledge on the occurrence, causes, and ecological impacts of forest transitions and examines the prospects and policy options for a global forest transition. The ecological quality of forest transitions depends on multiple factors, including the importance of natural forest regeneration versus plantations. Given an increased competition for productive land between different land uses, a global forest transition will require major technological and policy innovations to supply wood and agricultural products. In the globalization era, national strategies aimed at forest protection and sustainable use of forest resources may have unintended effects abroad owing to a displacement of land use across countries. Decisions by consumers combined with certification schemes and moratoriums have an increasing influence on the fate of forests.

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502 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Paying for Ecosystem Services—Promise and Peril

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Ann P. Kinzig¹, Charles Perrings¹, F. S. Chapin², Stephen Polasky³, V. K. Smith¹, David Tilman³, Billie Turner¹ - Show less +3 more•Institutions (3)

Arizona State University¹, University of Alaska Fairbanks², University of Minnesota³

04 Nov 2011-Science

TL;DR: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment concluded that over the past 50 years, 60% of all ecosystem services had declined as a direct result of the growth of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, industries, and urban areas.

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Abstract: have for long recognized human well-being. The explanation lies partly in the publicgood regulation through carbon sequestration), partly in the lack of well-defi ned property rights diction), and partly in the various costs of forming the historic Many environmental markets created years intended these are Prices of changes in resource scarcity if they capture all signifi cant use 12). Mech

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337 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Middle-range theories of land system change

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Patrick Meyfroidt¹, Rinku Roy Chowdhury², A. de Bremond³, A. de Bremond⁴, Erle C. Ellis⁵, Karl-Heinz Erb⁶, Tatiana Filatova⁷, Tatiana Filatova⁸, Rachael D. Garrett⁹, J. M. Grove¹⁰, Andreas Heinimann³, Tobias Kuemmerle¹¹, Christian A. Kull¹², Eric F. Lambin¹³, Eric F. Lambin¹, Y. Landon¹⁴, Y. le Polain de Waroux¹⁵, Peter Messerli³, Daniel Müller¹⁶, Daniel Müller¹¹, Jonas Østergaard Nielsen¹¹, Garry D. Peterson¹⁷, V. Rodriguez García¹, Maja Schlüter¹⁷, Billie Turner¹⁸, Peter H. Verburg¹⁹, Peter H. Verburg²⁰ - Show less +23 more•Institutions (20)

Université catholique de Louvain¹, Clark University², University of Bern³, University of Maryland, College Park⁴, University of Maryland, Baltimore County⁵, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna⁶, University of Twente⁷, University of Technology, Sydney⁸, Boston University⁹, United States Department of Agriculture¹⁰, Humboldt University of Berlin¹¹, University of Lausanne¹², Stanford University¹³, Indiana University¹⁴, McGill University¹⁵, Leibniz Association¹⁶, Stockholm University¹⁷, Arizona State University¹⁸, VU University Amsterdam¹⁹, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research²⁰

01 Nov 2018-Global Environmental Change-human and Policy Dimensions

TL;DR: The authors reviewed and synthesized the theories that explain the causal mechanisms of land-use change, including systemic linkages between distant landuse changes, with a focus on agriculture and forestry processes.

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Abstract: Changes in land systems generate many sustainability challenges Identifying more sustainable land-use alternatives requires solid theoretical foundations on the causes of land-use/cover changes Land system science is a maturing field that has produced a wealth of methodological innovations and empirical observations on land-cover and land-use change, from patterns and processes to causes We take stock of this knowledge by reviewing and synthesizing the theories that explain the causal mechanisms of land-use change, including systemic linkages between distant land-use changes, with a focus on agriculture and forestry processes We first review theories explaining changes in land-use extent, such as agricultural expansion, deforestation, frontier development, and land abandonment, and changes in land-use intensity, such as agricultural intensification and disintensification We then synthesize theories of higher-level land system change processes, focusing on: (i) land-use spillovers, including land sparing and rebound effects with intensification, leakage, indirect land-use change, and land-use displacement, and (ii) land-use transitions, defined as structural non-linear changes in land systems, including forest transitions Theories focusing on the causes of land system changes span theoretically and epistemologically disparate knowledge domains and build from deductive, abductive, and inductive approaches A grand, integrated theory of land system change remains elusive Yet, we show that middle-range theories – defined here as contextual generalizations that describe chains of causal mechanisms explaining a well-bounded range of phenomena, as well as the conditions that trigger, enable, or prevent these causal chains –, provide a path towards generalized knowledge of land systems This knowledge can support progress towards sustainable social-ecological systems

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292 citations

Cites background from "The forest transition: Towards a mo..."

...These theories of forest transition have been formalized through several disciplinary lenses, such as land rent frameworks (Barbier et al., 2010)....
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...It also evokes the environmental Kuznets curve, which posits increasing environmental degradation in early stages of economic development and a reversal with higher income, in a trajectory moderated by policies (Barbier et al., 2010)....
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...Mirroring the multidimensional nature of intensification, disintensification can encompass various realities. abundant but labor and capital are scarce, land-use expansion is expected to best render the satisficing outcome and thus be more likely (Barbier, 2010; le Polain de Waroux et al., 2018)....
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...The resource frontiers theory expects that, where land is accessible to many potential land users, and with population pressure and increasing affluence, rapid land-use expansion occurs as land-use agents engage in a race for the accumulation of natural resources (Barbier, 2010)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Land use transitions and land management: A mutual feedback perspective

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Hualou Long¹, Yi Qu¹•Institutions (1)

Chinese Academy of Sciences¹

01 May 2018-Land Use Policy

TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed a theoretical model of regional land use transitions based on expanding and deepening the concept and connotations of land use transition, and probed the mechanism of mutual feedback between land-use transition and land management based on a threefold framework of natural system-economic system-managerial system.

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274 citations

Cites background from "The forest transition: Towards a mo..."

...Sometimes, the actual values that are used to allocate land may be far from optimal, and undermine the rural sustainability by the distorted economic and political incentives due to the policy and institutional failures (Barbier et al., 2010)....
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...Barbier et al. (2010) developed a more comprehensive theory of the forest transition and argued that long-run changes in forest cover in a country or region cannot be separated from the national or regional pattern of land use changes, taking into account of the competition among different land use....
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References

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Open Access

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Journal Article•DOI•

Global Consequences of Land Use

[...]

Jonathan A. Foley¹, Ruth DeFries², Gregory P. Asner³, Carol C. Barford¹, Gordon B. Bonan⁴, Stephen R. Carpenter¹, F. Stuart Chapin⁵, Michael T. Coe¹, Michael T. Coe⁶, Gretchen C. Daily⁷, Holly K. Gibbs¹, Joseph H. Helkowski¹, Tracey Holloway¹, Erica A. Howard¹, Christopher J. Kucharik¹, Chad Monfreda¹, Jonathan A. Patz¹, I. Colin Prentice⁸, Navin Ramankutty¹, Peter K. Snyder⁹ - Show less +16 more•Institutions (9)

University of Wisconsin-Madison¹, University of Maryland, College Park², Carnegie Institution for Science³, National Center for Atmospheric Research⁴, University of Alaska Fairbanks⁵, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution⁶, Stanford University⁷, University of Bristol⁸, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign⁹

22 Jul 2005-Science

TL;DR: Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity.

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Abstract: Land use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance. Worldwide changes to forests, farmlands, waterways, and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fiber, water, and shelter to more than six billion people. Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. Such changes in land use have enabled humans to appropriate an increasing share of the planet’s resources, but they also potentially undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain freshwater and forest resources, regulate climate and air quality, and ameliorate infectious diseases. We face the challenge of managing trade-offs between immediate human needs and maintaining the capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long term.

...read moreread less

10,117 citations

"The forest transition: Towards a mo..." refers background in this paper

...However, for most countries and regions f the world, the main land use change during the extended national and use transition period is the conversion of forest area to agriultural use (Foley et al., 2005; Ramankutty and Foley, 1999)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead

[...]

Oliver E. Williamson

01 Sep 2000-Journal of Economic Literature

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the progressive development of the new institutional economics over the past quarter century, distinguishing four levels of social analysis, with special emphasis on the institutional environment and the institutions of governance.

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Abstract: This paper examines the progressive development of the new institutional economics over the past quarter century. It begins by distinguishing four levels of social analysis, with special emphasis on the institutional environment and the institutions of governance. It then turns to some of the good ideas out of which the NIE works: the description of human actors, feasibility, firms as governance structures, and operationalization. Applications, including privatization, are briefly discussed. Its empirical successes, public policy applications, and other accomplishments notwithstanding, there is a vast amount of unfinished business.

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5,184 citations

"The forest transition: Towards a mo..." refers background in this paper

...…Use Po ( a t o o “ h f r p A r R A A A A A A B B B B B B B B B B B C C C C C C C C D E F F F F F F G G G G G G G G G G G H J K K L L L L M M M M 06 E.B. Barbier et al. / Land Williamson, 2000), land change science (Rindfuss et al., 2004), nd sustainability science (Parris and Kates, 2003)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992

[...]

Navin Ramankutty, Jonathan A. Foley

01 Dec 1999-Global Biogeochemical Cycles

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented a simple approach to derive geographically explicit changes in global croplands from 1700 to 1992, by calibrating a remotely sensed land cover classification data set against cropland inventory data.

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Abstract: Human activities over the last three centuries have significantly transformed the Earth's environment, primarily through the conversion of natural ecosystems to agriculture. This study presents a simple approach to derive geographically explicit changes in global croplands from 1700 to 1992. By calibrating a remotely sensed land cover classification data set against cropland inventory data, we derived a global representation of permanent croplands in 1992, at 5 min spatial resolution [Ramankutty and Foley, 1998]. To reconstruct historical croplands, we first compile an extensive database of historical cropland inventory data, at the national and subnational level, from a variety of sources. Then we use our 1992 cropland data within a simple land cover change model, along with the historical inventory data, to reconstruct global 5 min resolution data on permanent cropland areas from 1992 back to 1700. The reconstructed changes in historical croplands are consistent with the history of human settlement and patterns of economic development. By overlaying our historical cropland data set over a newly derived potential vegetation data set, we analyze our results in terms of the extent to which different natural vegetation types have been converted for agriculture. We further examine the extent to which croplands have been abandoned in different parts of the world. Our data sets could be used within global climate models and global ecosystem models to understand the impacts of land cover change on climate and on the cycling of carbon and water. Such an analysis is a crucial aid to sharpen our thinking about a sustainable future.

...read moreread less

1,765 citations

"The forest transition: Towards a mo..." refers background in this paper

...However, for most countries and regions f the world, the main land use change during the extended national and use transition period is the conversion of forest area to agriultural use (Foley et al., 2005; Ramankutty and Foley, 1999)....
[...]

Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands

[...]

Navin Ramankutty, Jonathan A. Foley

01 Jan 1999

TL;DR: Ramankutty et al. as discussed by the authors presented a simple approach to derive geographically explicit changes in global croplands from 1700 to 1992 by calibrating a remotely sensed land cover classification data set against cropland inventory data.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Human activities over the last three centuries have significantly transformed the Earth's environment, primarily through the conversion of natural ecosystems to agriculture. This study presents a simple approach to derive geographically explicit changes in global croplands from 1700 to 1992. By calibrating a remotely sensed land cover classification data set against cropland inventory data, we derived a global representation of permanent croplands in 1992, at 5 min spatial resolution (Ramankutty and Foley, 1998). To reconstruct historical croplands, we first compile an extensive database of historical cropland inventory data, at the national and subnational level, from a variety of sources. Then we use our 1992 cropland data within a simple land cover change model, along with the historical inventory data, to reconstruct global 5 min resolution data on permanent cropland areas from 1992 back to 1700. The reconstructed changes in historical croplands are consistent with the history of human settlement and patterns of economic development. By overlaying our historical cropland data set over a newly derived potential vegetation data set, we analyze our results in terms of the extent to which different natural vegetation types have been converted for agriculture. We further examine the extent to which croplands have been abandoned in different parts of the world. Our data sets could be used within global climate models and global ecosystem models to understand the impacts of land cover change on climate and on the cycling of carbon and water. Such an analysis is a crucial aid to sharpen our thinking about a sustainable future.

...read moreread less

1,632 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change

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Thomas Rudel¹, Oliver T. Coomes², Emilio F. Moran³, Frederic Achard⁴, Arild Angelsen, Jianchu Xu⁵, Eric F. Lambin⁶ - Show less +3 more•Institutions (6)

Rutgers University¹, McGill University², Indiana University³, European Union⁴, Kunming Institute of Botany⁵, Catholic University of Leuven⁶

01 Apr 2005-Global Environmental Change-human and Policy Dimensions

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.

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Abstract: 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. C 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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1,278 citations

"The forest transition: Towards a mo..." refers background in this paper

...Other social scientists have followed Mather in searching for vidence of forest transitions elsewhere in the world (e.g., Kauppi t al., 2006; Mustard et al., 2004; Palo and Vanhanen, 2000; Rudel, 998; Rudel et al., 2000, 2005), but they have largely emphasized escription over theory....
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...In addition, if farmland is abandoned but not ecessarily converted to other uses, e.g. to satisfy the demand for and for residential housing and urbanization, natural reforestation ay also occur (Mather and Needle, 1998; Rudel et al., 2005)....
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...…one must account for the influence of structural, instituional and technical changes in influencing the forest transition see, for example, Foster and Rosenzweig, 2003; Grainger, 1995a, 995b, 2008; Mather, 1992, 2000; Mather and Needle, 1998; Perz, 007; Perz and Skole, 2003; Rudel et al., 2005)....
[...]
...Rudel et al. (2005) istinguish between an economic development path and a forest carcity path....
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...Rudel et al. (2005) refer to this process as the forest scarcity ath to the forest transition, since it is often signalled through risng prices for timber and tree products in markets and growing oncern over the availability of domestic supplies expressed by olicymakers and industry....
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