Biophysical and Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Forest Transitions at Multiple Spatial and Temporal Scales

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Forest transitions (FT) occur when socioeconomic development leads to a shift from net deforestation to reforestation; these dynamics have been observed in multiple countries across the globe, including the island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Starting in the 1950s, Puerto Rico transitioned from an agrarian to a manufacturing and service economy reliant on food imports, leading to extensive reforestation. In recent years, however, net reforestation has leveled off. Here we examine the drivers of forest transition in Puerto Rico from 1977 to 2000 at two subnational, nested spatial scales (municipality and barrio) and over two time periods (1977-1991 and 1991-2000). This study builds on previous work by considering the social and biophysical factors that influence both reforestation and deforestation at multiple spatial and temporal scales. By doing so within one analysis, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of the relative importance of various social and biophysical factors for forest transitions and the scales at which they are manifest. Biophysical factors considered in these analyses included slope, soil quality, and land-cover in the surrounding landscape. We also considered per capita income, population density, and the extent of protected areas as potential factors associated with forest change. Our results show that, in the 1977-1991 period, biophysical factors that exhibit variation at municipality scales (~100 km²) were more important predictors of forest change than socioeconomic factors. In this period, forest dynamics were driven primarily by abandonment of less productive, steep agricultural land in the western, central part of the island. These factors had less predictive power at the smaller barrio scale (~10 km²) relative to the larger municipality scale during this time period. The relative importance of socioeconomic variables for deforestation, however, increased over time as development pressures on available land increased. From 1991-2000, changes in forest cover reflected influences from multiple factors, including increasing population densities, land development pressure from suburbanization, and the presence of protected areas. In contrast to the 1977-1991 period, drivers of deforestation and reforestation over this second interval were similar for the two spatial scales of analyses. Generally, our results suggest that although broader socioeconomic changes in a given region may drive the demand for land, biophysical factors ultimately mediate where development occurs. Although economic development may initially result in reforestation due to rural to urban migration and the abandonment of agricultural lands, increased economic development may lead to deforestation through increased suburbanization pressures.

Identifying hotspots of deforestation and reforestation in Colombia (2001–2010): implications for protected areas

“…Three out of four reforestation hotspots were located in the highland forests of the Andes mountain range. Other studies have also detected forest regeneration in mountainous areas (Yackulic et al 2011, which are less suitable for mechanized agriculture. Our reforestation hotspots coincide with other studies that have identified forest recovery in the Andes (Cardenas 2000, Cabrera et al 2011, Rodríguez et al 2012 and in the Amazon foothills (Etter et al 2006a, Dávalos et al 2011) of Colombia.…”

Asymmetric forest transition driven by the interaction of socioeconomic development and environmental heterogeneity in Central America

“…Recent studies suggest that FT is associated with variables related to socioeconomic development, such as rural abandonment and accompanying urbanization, agricultural intensification, the establishment of extensive tree plantations (often through statedriven policies), economic industrialization, growing education and technical knowledge, and the strengthening of sociopolitical institutions (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20). However, these studies, including the seminal descriptions of FT in Europe (21)(22)(23)(24)(25) and Southeast Asia (10,26), are mostly derived from case studies of a single country, usually because data are only available at the national level, which limits the potential for broad-scale extrapolation or generalization of findings and has strong potential for biases because of arbitrary or opportunistic site selection (27).…”

Export-oriented deforestation in Mato Grosso: harbinger or exception for other tropical forests?

“…Determining whether and where a forest transition occurs depends on large-scale analyses of which regions become production landscapes to provide commodities for distal consumption and which regions become consumption landscapes. For example, Walker [31], Pfaff & Walker [32], Meyfroidt & Lambin [33] and Yackulic et al [34] explain forest transitions in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, northeastern USA, Vietnam and Puerto Rico, respectively, through each location's distal connections with production landscapes.…”