Forest transition in South Korea: Reality, path and drivers

While forest transition (FT) in South Korea began in 1955, when forest cover was only 35% of national land area, significant increases in both forest cover and growing stock really occurred in the early 1970s. Using reconstructed historical records, we empirically demonstrate that (1) FT in South Korea was mainly accomplished by the recovery of degraded, non-stocked forest; and (2) one-dimensional FT analysis using forest area alone has severe limitations in diagnosing meaningful changes in forest sustainability. The key driver of FT in South Korea was the government-led reforestation policy. The comprehensive reforestation plans, started in 1973, not only provided economic incentives to the general public by establishing clear quantifiable goals, they also promoted inter-agency cooperation and coordination, especially between the energy and forest sectors, to replace firewood with fossil fuels. These government-led efforts, accompanied by rural-urban migration, brought an increase in stocked forest area and a complementary rising average growing stock level. The case of South Korea shows that FTs can be cultivated in a relatively short period of time by a central authority, even with imperfect governance and low economic development.     

Socio-environmental drivers of forest change in rural Uganda

Tropical deforestation and forest degradation are among the top global threats to biodiversity, carbon storage and rural livelihoods, but the social processes underlying these changes remain difficult to observe across large spatial scales and in data-poor contexts such as tropical Africa. We link longitudinal survey data from agricultural households in rural Uganda to high-resolution satellite data on forest cover change, and use this linked dataset to investigate processes at two scales: tree planting and harvesting at the parcel scale, and deforestation and reforestation at the community scale. This multi-scale analysis reveals that tree planting is more common on parcels with secure tenure, by educated heads and in isolated communities. Deforestation is highest in land-rich, agrarian communities with low population density and high baseline forest cover. These results provide explicit evidence that the social drivers of forest change in Uganda vary across scales, indicating a need for additional multi-scale studies.     

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

The concept of land use transition highlights that land use change is non-linear and is associated with other societal and biophysical system changes. A transition in land use is not a fixed pattern, nor is it deterministic. Land use transitions can be caused by negative socio-ecological feedbacks that arise from a depletion of key resources or from socio-economic change and innovation that take place rather independently from the ecological system. Here, we explore whether the sources of land use transitions are mostly endogenous socio-ecological forces or exogenous socio-economic factors. We first review a few generic pathways of forest transition as identified in national case studies, and evaluate the varying ecological quality of expanding forests associated with these pathways. We then discuss possible explanatory frameworks of land use transitions. We use the case of the recent forest transition in Vietnam as an illustration. Socio-ecological feedbacks seem to better explain a slowing down of deforestation and stabilization of forest cover, while exogenous socio-economic factors better account for reforestation. We conclude by discussing the prospects of accelerating land use transitions in tropical forest countries.     

Migration,socioeconomic transformation,and land-use change in Mexico’s Mixteca Alta: Lessons for forest transition theory

The forest transition is a concept used to describe and explain the transition from a dwindling to an expanding forest area in a given region or country. Three main explanations of the forest transition have been developed. The first is the “economic development path to the forest transition”, which contends that economic development and new agricultural technologies trigger rural-urban migration and agricultural intensification, leading in turn to the abandonment of marginal farmland and eventually to a forest recovery. The second is the “forest scarcity path to the forest transition”, which argues that the scarcity of forests is a major factor that encourages commercial tree plantations, reforestations and the conservation of woodlands. A third explanation has been advanced in certain developing countries. This explanation, referred to in this paper as the “diversification of rural livelihoods path to the forest transition”, holds that rural households must adjust to outside forces, including globalization and neoliberal economic policies, and that those adjustments marginalize smallholder farming, allowing for the expansion of forests. This paper describes and explains the onset of a forest transition in the Mixteca Alta UNESCO Global Geopark, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Based on qualitative fieldwork and the analysis of official statistics and land-use/cover maps, we contend that the three paths to the forest transition overlap in our study area. This implies a fuller and more complex explanation of the forest transition, which is crucial to understand the expansion of woodlands in other regions of Mexico and the developing world.     

Management flexibility,price uncertainty and the adoption of carbon forestry

A price on carbon has the potential to drive significant land use change through reforestation. Understanding the likely locations and extent of these changes is therefore a key focus for researchers and policy makers. Models of reforestation based on net present values (NPV) typically compare the economic returns of carbon forestry to alternative land uses. However, these models often neglect the impact of uncertainty. Two sources of uncertainty highly relevant to carbon forestry are the opportunity cost of the land on which the trees are established (i.e. future returns from alternative land uses) and carbon prices. In addition to foregoing the current land use, a landowner making a permanent land use change such as carbon forestry is also giving up the opportunity to change management in the future, for example by changing crop mix in response to commodity price changes. We develop a Monte Carlo model to demonstrate the value of management flexibility, based on a case study property in Australia. While in the absence of management flexibility carbon forestry is more profitable than the current land use, under uncertain future commodity prices it is less attractive to a landowner. We go on to show that, even if the returns from carbon exceed those from more flexible agricultural land use, uncertainty over future carbon prices is likely to delay the adoption of carbon forestry. Overall the models presented in this paper demonstrate that the adoption of carbon forestry is likely to be substantially lower, and slower, than models based on static values would suggest.     

Farmers and their groves: Will cost inefficiency lead to land use change?

Increased forest areas and climate change mitigation are policy goals enhanced by expanding private forest ownership. This study shows transfer of land from farms owning forested acreage associated with low quality land and high production costs achieves such goals. Calculated cost efficiency scores show a large gap between the most and least efficient farms, and farms with forests are less cost efficient. Land reforestation through subsidy programs could replace income from agricultural production. We illustrate that farms from the applied FADN panel could reforest 45,000 hectares, binding about 0.5 mln tons of carbon annually without limiting food or feed supply.     

Climate change versus land-use change—What affects the mountain landscapes more?

Land use and climate change are both strong drivers of landscape transformation. Using a representative valley of the Central Alps (Stubai Valley, Tyrol, Austria) we assess (1) the historical and likely future spatial patterns of land use/land cover (LULC), (2) the influence of temperature increase on the LULC distribution, and (3) the speed at which these changes will occur. Based on the historical landscape development and spatially explicit models, the effects of various land use and climate scenarios were modelled. Employing a pan-Alpine model, we were able to detect the temporal trajectory of spatial reforestation. The results show that land-use changes that already occurred during the last decades are responsible for the main future LULC changes (by secondary succession). Only an extreme land abandonment scenario and extreme climate scenarios (5 K temperature increase) would bring about similar changes in LULC distribution and expansion of the forested areas. While alpine grasslands, alpine pioneer formation and glaciers would shrink drastically, especially deciduous forests would spread. To a considerable degree, such changes might take place over the next 300 years. By contrast, the increase in forest areas triggered by temperature changes would be slower and longer termed (up to 700–800 years).The effects and intensity of land-use change in the investigated valley, that is comparable to many regions in the Alps, will be at least equally severe and responsible for transformation of the landscape as those of a projected temperature increase.     

Leisure traveller perceptions of iconic coastal and fjord countryside areas: Lush naturalness or remembrance of agricultural times past?

Several iconic coastal and fjord landscapes in Northern Norway have undergone natural spontaneous regrowth of abandoned agricultural areas and pastureland. At the same time, recent public discourse has assumed that such regrowth may taint tourists’ and outdoor recreationists’ perceptions of rural areas. Consequently, this in situ multilingual study in the archipelago of Vesterålen investigated this assumption. The results revealed that tourists’ and visiting recreationists’ foremost interest was in pristine rural areas that seemed devoid of human presence or activity. At the same time, roughly half of the visitors enjoyed seeing working farms. The enquiry displays preference ambivalence about the combination of “cultural” and “natural” elements of the rural landscape. The investigation also illustrates a disparity between foreign tourists’ desire for lush deciduous vegetation and Norwegian visitors’ fondness for a more open agricultural seaside with grassland and shrubland and just a few scattered trees, as the study area had appeared some decades earlier. Moreover, some implications of land use policy are discussed.     

退耕还林中农民收入增长对策探讨

本文着重分析退耕还林中影响农民增收的主要因素,并提出了解决的对策。     

Extending the framework of the economic evaluation of erosion control actions in Mediterranean basins

Traditionally, the benefits of erosion control projects in Mediterranean watersheds were valued by the replacement cost method (RCM). Nowadays, however, environmental economics has provided alternative methods, such as contingent valuation (CV) and others based on stated preferences, the main strength of which is their capacity to capture non-use and future use values, which are essential for the monetary valuation of erosion. This study uses CV to estimate the externalities associated with watershed restoration and erosion control projects conducted in the Aljibe Basin (Almería, Spain). Comparison shows that CV estimates of net environmental benefits are almost double those obtained using standard methods. Thus, the project meets the profitability criteria in the former case but not in the latter. In concrete terms, the Internal Rates of Return are 5.23% versus 2.25%, respectively. The above shows CV to be a useful tool for estimating the social-environmental return on investment in this kind of project. However, as the experimental phase of this study shows, CV is not without certain issues and limitations, the majority of which derive from its hypothetical nature. Moreover, being preference-based, it may be more coherent with a cost-benefit analysis approach. The RCM, on the other hand, is highly detailed in technical terms and, by using physical data, produces more objective results. The two can therefore be considered complementary rather than competing methods, since they view the valuation from different perspectives.