ANÁLISIS DE LA ASOCIACIÓN ENTRE LA POBREZA Y LA PÉRDIDA DE BOSQUES A NIVEL DISTRITAL EN EL PERÚ: APLICACIÓN DEL MODELO AUTORREGRESIVO ESPACIAL CON PERTURBACIONES AUTORREGRESIVAS ESPACIALES (SARAR)

BackgroundConversion of forests to other land cover or land use releases the carbon stored in the forests and reduces carbon sequestration potential of the land. The rate of forest conversion could be reduced by establishing protected areas for biological diversity and other conservation goals. The purpose of this study is to quantify the efficiency and potential of forest land protection for mitigating GHG emissions.ResultsThe analysis of related national-level datasets shows that during the period of 1992–2001 net forest losses in protected areas were small as compared to those in unprotected areas: -0.74% and −4.07%, respectively. If forest loss rates in protected and unprotected area had been similar, then forest losses in the protected forestlands would be larger by 870 km2/yr forests, that corresponds to release of 7 Tg C/yr (1 Tg=1012 g). Conversely, and continuing to assume no leakage effects or interactions of prices and harvest levels, about 1,200 km2/yr forests could have remained forest during the period of 1992–2001 if net area loss rate in the forestland outside protected areas was reduced by 20%. Not counting carbon in harvested wood products, this is equivalent to reducing fossil-fuel based carbon emissions by 10 Tg C/yr during this period. The South and West had much higher potentials to mitigate GHG emission from reducing loss rates in unprotected forests than that of North region. Spatially, rates of forest loss were higher across the coastal states in the southeastern US than would be expected from their population change, while interior states in the northern US experienced less forest area loss than would have been expected given their demographic characteristics.ConclusionsThe estimated carbon benefit from the reduced forest loss based on current protected areas is 7 Tg C/yr, equivalent to the average carbon benefit per year for a previously proposed ten-year $110 million per year tree planting program scenario in the US. If there had been a program that could have reduced forest area loss by 20% in unprotected forestlands during 1992–2001, collectively the benefits from reduced forest loss would be equal to 9.4% of current net forest ecosystem carbon sequestration in the conterminous US.

With the upgrading of living standards and rapid urbanization around the globe, waste treatment has become a ubiquitous environmental issue. Increased waste generation and narrowed prospects for landfill and composting have brought strong growth prospects for the waste-to-energy (WtE) industry. WtE is considered an effective method for waste treatment because it can significantly reduce the land use and environmental pollutants caused by other methods and can generate energy by means of electricity or heat from the treatment of waste. However, there have been supportive and opposing opinions about WtE from the economic, environmental, and social perspectives. Whether WtE plants are the best option depends not only on associated investment and operating costs but also on the environmental and social costs (termed as external cost) as compared to other waste treatment options. Economic costs are generally estimated by market price of materials, labor, and equipment. Social costs normally refer to health effects, transportation congestion, and environmental impacts, including the emission of gas and leachate. Qualitative and quantitative methods are proposed to assist in decision making on waste disposal alternatives. The qualitative method relies on the expert experience to rank waste treatment options, such as analytic hierarchy process and multicriteria decision model, while the quantitative method, such as life cycle assessment and social cost-benefit analysis, calculates the economic cost and monetizes the abstract external cost in the light of the historical data. The two methods offer different advantages and disadvantages, and thus cater to different conditions. In developed countries, along with the rapid development of WtE and the increase in available cost data, the estimation of the economic, environmental, and social costs is achievable, which promotes the popularization of quantitative method. In China and other developing countries, quantitative analysis is limited to the estimation of economic cost and the qualitative method is still dominated in the evaluation of environmental and social impacts due to the lack of cost data.

Insight into the imbalance of forest cover change at county level in mainland China during 2000–2020: From the perspective of subdividing forest cover change into forest gain and loss

Socioeconomic drivers of forest loss and fragmentation: A comparison between different land use planning schemes and policy implications

Forest degradation is a major cause of habitat loss for species that rely on old forest features. Quantitative knowledge of forest degradation and deforestation in the breeding range of the critically endangered swift parrot (Lathamus discolor) is poor but essential to inform effective conservation planning. We provide the first quantitative analysis of forest degradation and deforestation across the swift parrot breeding range. We identify trends and drivers of anthropogenic loss to determine whether current forestry policy is aligned with targets to secure species recovery. We used global datasets of forest extent, change and loss to evaluate historic deforestation and forest dynamics since the year 2000. We applied our analysis at three spatial scales within the breeding range: potential, core, and Swift Parrot Important Breeding Areas (SPIBAs). We measured trends in fire and anthropogenic forest loss before and after forestry policy changes. Results informed a land use change analysis to identify major drivers of forest loss. Habitat loss has occurred in more than 50% of the swift parrots’ breeding range. More than 37% of the breeding range was permanently deforested prior to the year 2000. Of remaining forest in the year 2000, approximately a quarter has been disturbed, degraded or permanently deforested. Degradation was 6.5 times that of deforestation, and production forestry was the major human driver of forest loss. Forest loss rates in SPIBAs have doubled since forestry policy change in 2014. Degraded forests are unlikely to provide habitat for swift parrots and urgent changes to forest policies and practices are needed to ensure the perpetuity of the species. We highlight the advantages of using publicly available remote-sensing datasets to quantify past and present habitat degradation, deforestation, and land use change at biologically meaningful scales relevant to the recovery of threatened species.

Regional governing organisations in New Zealand are developing new policies to assess and manage the effects of land use intensification on water quality. Such policies require an assessment to be made of potential nitrogen leaching losses from different land uses, particularly where land use may be becoming more intensive. This review compiles the information on nitrogen concentrations and fluxes in stream and soil water drainage from indigenous and planted forests in New Zealand. Nitrogen concentrations and losses in streams from undisturbed indigenous forests and from planted forests established on land that has not been developed for agriculture are low. Nitrogen concentrations and losses in streams draining forests established on pasture land are commonly higher than in streams from indigenous forests and from forests planted on non-agricultural land, however most of the values for planted forests on pasture land were influenced by high volcanic nitrogen inputs. The impact of afforestation of pasture land on nitrogen leaching is described, as are the effects of planted forest management practices including fertilisation, harvesting and herbicide use. Nitrogen leaching is generally not greatly affected by forest management practices, however fertilisation can cause large leaching losses in coastal sand forests. While nitrogen leaching from planted forests is normally less than from other major land uses, there are key times during the forest rotation when nitrogen leaching may occur, particularly in forests planted on coastal sands or pasture land. It is advantageous to minimise leaching at these key stages to limit adverse effects on the environment and maintain nitrogen in the soil for the benefit of crop nutrition. Measures to reduce nitrogen leaching losses in forests are discussed, as are practices to minimise nitrogen leaching of forest plantings in catchments with high nitrogen soils, where forests may be planted specifically to reduce nitrogen loss to sensitive waterways.

Farmers are carving a new agricultural frontier from the forests in the Southeast Asian Massif (SAM) in the 21st century, triggering significant environment degradation at the local scale; however, this frontier has been missed by existing global land use and forest loss analyses. In this paper, we chose Thailand's Nan Province, which is located in the geometric center of SAM, as a case study, and combined high resolution forest cover change product with a fine-scale land cover map to investigate land use dynamics with respect to topography in this region. Our results show that total forest loss in Nan Province during 2001-2016 was 66,072ha (9.1% of the forest cover in 2000), and that the majority of this lost forest (92%) had been converted into crop (mainly corn) fields by 2017. Annual forest loss is significantly correlated with global corn price (p<0.01), re-confirming agricultural expansion as a key driver of forest loss in Nan Province. Along with the increasing global corn price, forest loss in Nan Province has accelerated at a rate of 2,616±730ha per decade (p<0.01). Global corn price peaked in 2012, in which year annual forest loss also reached its peak (7,523ha); since then, the location of forest loss has moved to steeper land at higher elevations. Spatially, forest loss driven by this smallholder agricultural expansion emerges as many small patches that are not recognizable even at a moderate spatial resolution (e.g. 300m). It explains how existing global land use/cover change products have missed the widespread and rapid forest loss in SAM. It also highlights the importance of high-resolution observations to evaluate the environmental impacts of agricultural expansion and forest loss in SAM, including, but not limited to, the impacts on the global carbon cycle, regional hydrology, and local environmental degradation.

Reaching a ‘Net Zero’ GHG emissions by 2050 is our only way to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5°C and achieve the Paris Agreement. To achieve this, we have to reduce our total GHG emissions by 55% from 58 GtCO2e in 2019 to about 25 GtCO2e by 2030 (UNEP, 2021).

Forest landscapes are under much pressure globally due to changes in land use and their biodiversity and services are threatened at increasing magnitude especially in the tropics. Biodiversity and ample forest cover still remain in freshwater forest landscapes in the Niger basin of Nigeria, but are declining at astronomical scales across the region. To better understand the changes and modifications going on in the ecosystem at the landscape level, a thirty-year study (1987-2017) was conducted using remotely sensed Landsat imageries. These were processed and used to verify the dynamics in land cover changes and their major drivers. Land use change across the region reduced the forest extent and forest cover (up to 50.2 percent) of the natural ecosystems which served as the habitats for the indigenous species. Sparse vegetation and bare soil/farmlands increased over the study period and were seen as the major indices for modifications and forest loss in the area. Since land use indices such as agricultural activities were seen as one of the major factors of land cover change, sustainable forest use and management practices that accommodate agricultural practices were advocated. While the forest cover and ultimately their biodiversity and conservation prospects reduced following forest loss in the region, efforts should be targeted at conserving the pockets of vegetation seen in the sparsely vegetated zones and also maximize the potentials that the biodiversity in the agro-forested locations offers.

Forest loss in hotspots around the world impacts not only local climate where loss occurs, but also influences climate and vegetation in remote parts of the globe through ecoclimate teleconnections. The magnitude and mechanism of remote impacts likely depends on the location and distribution of forest loss hotspots, but the nature of these dependencies has not been investigated. We use global climate model simulations to estimate the distribution of ecologically-relevant climate changes resulting from forest loss in two hotspot regions: western North America (wNA), which is experiencing accelerated dieoff, and the Amazon basin, which is subject to high rates of deforestation. The remote climatic and ecological net effects of simultaneous forest loss in both regions differed from the combined effects of loss from the two regions simulated separately, as evident in three impacted areas. Eastern South American Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) increased due to changes in seasonal rainfall associated with Amazon forest loss and changes in temperature related to wNA forest loss. Eurasia’s GPP declined with wNA forest loss due to cooling temperatures increasing soil ice volume. Southeastern North American productivity increased with simultaneous forest loss, but declined with only wNA forest loss due to changes in VPD. Our results illustrate the need for a new generation of local-to-global scale analyses to identify potential ecoclimate teleconnections, their underlying mechanisms, and most importantly, their synergistic interactions, to predict the responses to increasing forest loss under future land use change and climate change.

Background: Urbanization and industrialization are mainly responsible for the conversion of large tract of agricultural lands and other vegetation-rich lands to non-agricultural purposes. Land and its utilization across various activities must be analysed to frame suitable policies for optimum land use. In Karnataka, the share of the net sown and non-agricultural areas increased. However, the share of permanent pasture and other grazing lands, barren and unculturable land, current and other fallow lands, culturable wasteland and land under miscellaneous tree crops and groves decreased compared to their share in 2000-01. The goal is to explore the direction of land use change between these land use categories in the context of urbanization. Methods: We utilized the district-level data sourced from reports of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics of the Government of Karnataka, enabling us to conduct a robust panel data regression using fixed effects model that empirically establishes the relationships between different land use categories, particularly non-agricultural land, barren land and arable land, from 2000-01 to 2020-21. We recorded the land use changes in the major land use classes at the district level by comparing the temporal dynamics for 2000-01 to 2020-21 and also studied the dynamics of each category’s land use outcomes and the changes in urbanization status at the district level. Result: This study provides a detailed insight into the trends and direction of land use changes in Karnataka from the perspective of urbanization, which has been getting a significant focus in the country’s development. The study’s findings have significant policy implications, as they underscore how rapid population growth and the expansion of non-agricultural areas at the district level negatively impact arable and barren land.

Today, world's forests have lost about one-third of its total areas since the beginning of civilization. The losses of world forests are alarming and have created serious challenges to the human life which include global warming. The loss of forest has been resulted in large degraded areas in many countries and is estimated reach 1 million ha. There are six anthropogenic activities that lead to the loss of forests worldwide namely poor land use policies, inadequate legislation, insecure property rights, agriculture and logging, limited capacity to enforce forest protection, and local and global demand for food and commodities. However, the agriculture and logging are the main causes of forest degradation which in turn decrease the forest productivity especially secondary forest. Regenerations are the act of renewing tree cover by establishing young trees promptly after previous stand has been removed. As an effort to maintain the forest benefits, the regeneration of new plant is recognized as an option to offset the loss of forests worldwide. It is reported that degraded land recovered to a new forest by natural regeneration (93%) and forest plantation (7%) which indicates the lack of effective management of forest regeneration. The forest destruction to date becomes a serious issue and human intervention is required to enhance the establishment of natural regeneration to rehabilitate world degraded forest.

This study comprehensively analyses spatiotemporal land use/land cover (LULC) dynamics within a 10-km buffer zone surrounding Volcanoes National Park (VNP), Rwanda, from 2000 to 2019, integrating biophysical and socio-economic drivers. It aims to quantify LULC change extent, rate, and type around VNP and inside the park; identify socio-economic, demographic, and policy drivers of LULC change; and evaluate the impact of LULC changes on VNP’s biodiversity via habitat fragmentation, connectivity, and species diversity. Employing remote sensing, spatial modelling, and field data, we reveal profound transformations within the park’s periphery. Forests and woodlots have significantly declined, replaced by agriculture, grasslands, and built-up areas, particularly in the 5.1–10 km belt (92.29% forest loss). While reforestation efforts exist, they are outpaced by deforestation, creating a stark deforestation-to-reforestation ratio of 12:1 in the 5.1 10 km belt and 6:1 in the 0–5 km belt. This alarming trend threatens VNP’s biodiversity as resource dependent communities continue to extract firewood, construction materials, and beanpoles from the park. To mitigate these impacts, we propose integrated strategies encompassing strengthened law enforcement, sustainable land management practices, community-based conservation initiatives, and alternative livelihood development.

Deforestation and forest degradation, particularly in the tropics, are recognised as important drivers of global warming and biodiversity loss. Forest loss can be driven by several factors, including the expansion of agriculture and pastureland to produce commodities and agroforestry.&amp;#160; On 29 June 2023, the European Union (EU) Regulation on deforestation-free products came into force, promoting the consumption of 'deforestation-free' products with the aim of reducing the EU's impact on global deforestation and forest degradation, as well as greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss.&amp;#160; The Regulation states that products related to cattle, timber, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee and rubber must be produced on land that is free from deforestation, after 31 December 2020.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; In this contribution, we combine the use of statistics on agricultural and wood production, trade flow data, earth observation on land use change and deforestation, with physically based land footprint and a land use balance models to calculate the impacts embodied in EU bilateral trade and consumption of the selected forest risk commodities. Specifically, we evaluated the impact in terms of land area of forest biomass stocks displaced for the production and consumption of the commodities listed in the Deforestation Free Product Regulation.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; Our evaluation reveals that, in relative terms, the EU significantly contributes to the impacts linked to the production of cocoa and coffee. Soy, cattle, and palm oil emerge as the overall major contributors to deforestation embodied in the EU consumption and are globally responsible for most forest biomass loss.&amp;#160;

Illicit Drivers of Land Use Change: Narcotrafficking and Forest Loss in Central America