No abstract

No abstract

China has experienced extensive forest transition, from net deforestation to net forestation. Existing theories have highlighted economic growth, the intensification of agriculture and forest scarcity as the pathways of this transition, and studies, in particular from China, have also highlighted the contribution of a huge state afforestation program and the improved implementation and enforcement of forest protection policy and law. However, few studies have paid attention to local dynamics to provide a contextualized understanding of how forest transition has taken place at the local level and the significance of local factors in this change. This paper examines forest transition pathways in two villages in China. We consider the historical perspective and compare their local dynamics and variations to reach an understanding of the process of forest recovery at the local level. The results show that state forestry policies, including afforestation policy and tenure reform, arguably contribute to forest increase, while local processes including livelihood change and institutional factors play a key role in driving and shaping forest transition. We argue that there is a need for local-level studies and recommend including local institutions in forest transition analysis, contextualizing the socio-ecological interactions within the broader concept of political economy. OPEN ACCESSForests 2014, 5 215

A global, unified dataset on Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) changes under perennial crops has not existed till now. We present a global, harmonised database on SOC change resulting from perennial crop cultivation. It contains information about 1605 paired-comparison empirical values (some of which are aggregated data) from 180 different peer-reviewed studies, 709 sites, on 58 different perennial crop types, from 32 countries in temperate, tropical and boreal areas; including species used for food, bioenergy and bio-products. The database also contains information on climate, soil characteristics, management and topography. This is the first such global compilation and will act as a baseline for SOC changes in perennial crops. It will be key to supporting global modelling of land use and carbon cycle feedbacks, and supporting agricultural policy development.