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.

Highlights

  • Over the past two centuries, population growth, urbanization, and industrialization have induced a prolonged decline and a partial recovery in the extent of forest cover in many regions across the globe (Mather 1992, Rudel et al 2005). Mather (1992) argued that this pattern of forest change is related to a nation’s social and economic development: as a nation develops economically, forest cover typically declines

  • 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

  • Our results show that in 1977-1991, forest dynamics in Puerto Rico were primarily driven by the abandonment of marginal agricultural land in the western-central highlands and by the development of pastureland and urban areas along the flat, coastal regions of the island

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Summary

Introduction

Over the past two centuries, population growth, urbanization, and industrialization have induced a prolonged decline and a partial recovery in the extent of forest cover in many regions across the globe (Mather 1992, Rudel et al 2005). Mather (1992) argued that this pattern of forest change is related to a nation’s social and economic development: as a nation develops economically, forest cover typically declines. Net increases in forest cover have been associated with a number of social, economic, and biophysical factors such as the development of industry, increased agricultural efficiency and abandonment of unproductive agricultural lands (Mather 1992, Mather and Needle 1998, Perz and Skole 2003, Rudel et al 2009), international trade, urban migration, changes in sources of energy (DeFries et al 2010), and overall economic development (Mather et al 1999, Southworth and Tucker 2001, Grau and Aide 2008). The enumeration of these drivers, leaves unanswered how important these social and biophysical factors are relative to one another and how they interact to induce land cover change at different spatial and temporal scales (Rudel et al 2005)

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