Forest Frontier Research Articles

Measuring forest and agricultural income in the Ecuadorian lowland rainforest frontiers: Do deforestation and conservation strategies matter?

Forest and agricultural activities are the main income source in tropical regions. Ecuadorian farmers at the forest frontiers also depend on natural resources as part of their livelihood strategies; consequently, factors like deforestation and conservation strategies might limit the availability and accessibility to natural resources with potential implications for local economies. Rural income studies are still scarce for Latin America; moreover, there is a knowledge gap about how deforestation and conservation strategies affect rural income. This manuscript addresses this gap by analyzing whether the deforestation context and the presence of conservation strategies, command and control and incentive-based conservation, influence forest and agricultural income generated by rural farmers. Additionally, we explore the contribution of natural resources to rural income, providing insights on farmers’ dependency on natural assets. Our results are based on 1157 surveys applied to households in the lowland rainforest frontiers from the Central Amazon and the Northwestern Coast of Ecuador. We determined that more than 50% of household income comes from forest and agricultural activities. Regression results showed that in the Central Amazon, the deforestation context and conservation strategies did not have significant effects on forest income. However, indigenous households living close to an area under conservation derive higher income from agricultural activities. On the Northwestern Coast, where the forest is becoming scarce, high deforestation context is associated with higher forest and agricultural income at the household level. Nevertheless, indigenous people living around a conservation area derive more forest income and less agricultural income due to the intense timber extraction in privately owned forest remnants. This study provides useful information for policies aimed to improve rural economies and natural resources conservation.

Public support for protected areas in new forest frontiers in the Brazilian Amazon

SummaryGazetting and maintaining protected areas (PAs) are political processes and, as such, depend on wider society’s support in order to achieve their aims. In this paper, we evaluated the influence of gender, education, age, income, place of origin and place of residence on public support for PAs in the Brazilian state of Amapá, a new tropical forest frontier. We gathered 615 complete interviews with adults living in both rural and urban settings. We found that most (90.5%) of the participants support PAs and that this attitude is more likely to exist among urban than rural participants. We found that gender, education, age, income and place of origin did not influence support for PAs. Biodiversity conservation is the most common reason why PAs receive public support. In contrast, participants who do not favour PAs see them as providing no benefit to people. We suggest that support by local political leaders from dominant and rival political parties for conservation helps to promote acceptance of PAs by stakeholders. However, relatively low support for PAs among rural participants could indicate that the expectations of these populations regarding the social benefits associated with this conservation policy have yet to be fulfilled.

Village-scale reserves in the forest frontier regions of Chenes and Calakmul, Mexico

ABSTRACT Sketch-map-facilitated interviews were conducted in 23 villages in two adjacent regions in the southern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico – the Maya (and increasingly Mennonite) forest-agriculture mosaic of the Chenes, and the late-20th-century-settlement forest frontier of Calakmul – to determine the frequency and typology of local-scale reserves, including the external (e.g. Payments for Environmental Services programs) and internal sources of their generation. 9% of the study communities are found to satisfy the author’s criteria for deliberate, autochthonous reserves. The static polygon reserve and static map are found to have limited value for understanding the evolving cultural ecologies of these regions. Alternative approaches are discussed, particularly those employed by geographers.

Governing intensification: the influence of state institutions on smallholder farming strategies in Calakmul, Mexico

ABSTRACT In forest frontiers, smallholder agrarian livelihoods remain uneasily juxtaposed with conservation interests. Agricultural intensification is often considered a viable means of reconciling competing environmental and livelihood objectives given its potential to concentrate production on less land. However, intensification may have unintended consequences, including loss of resilient agricultural systems. The risks of smallholder agricultural intensification warrant a better understanding of its drivers. This study uses the case of Calakmul, Mexico, to examine the critical role of the state in intensification processes. Drawing on household surveys and key-informant interviews, it traces the linkages between state institutions and local farming practices. Statistical and qualitative analyses reveal how intensification is both incentivized and imposed by prevailing policies, the former via subsidies and the latter via regulations against field rotations. The outcome – increased external inputs and longer cultivation periods between fallows – may undermine the sustainability of smallholders’ agroecosystems, an undesirable consequence amid limited livelihood alternatives.

Crop booms at the forest frontier: Triggers, reinforcing dynamics, and the diffusion of knowledge and norms

Crop booms in forest frontiers are a major contributor to deforestation and global change. Because of their non-linearity, intensity, and unpredictability, booms are specific instances of land change, namely land system regime shifts, which require an analysis going beyond that of their drivers or individual actors’ decisions. So far, the combined effect of behavioral dynamics at the household, village, and higher levels, which are often mutually-reinforcing, have not been considered in the empirical analysis of crop booms. In this paper, we aim to further the understanding and the theory behind the dynamics of crop booms and land regime shifts. We focus on the smallholder-driven northern Laos rubber boom and analyze two case study areas with different intensity of rubber expansion. We use a combination of household surveys and interviews with villagers, government officials and private sector actors to analyze the preconditions, triggers and reinforcing effects at household and higher levels that help explain the timing and extent of the boom. In particular, we focus on the role of information transmission and imitation in household decisions to adopt and expand rubber. Our findings show that the rapid expansion of rubber in northern Laos was in part the result of household decisions spurred by economic and policy triggers that changed the real and perceived benefits of growing rubber. In addition, there were higher-level and mutually-reinforcing dynamics, such as the conversion of village communal forests, a rush for land, and individual behavior contingent on others’, including imitation. The transmission of information through social networks played a key role in rubber adoption decisions, but the diffusion of new norms and values was also important and may have accelerated adoption decisions. Rubber adoption and expansion decisions thus had normative and informational, as well as knowledge-based and imitation components.

Local Perspectives on Ecosystem Service Trade-Offs in a Forest Frontier Landscape in Myanmar

Extensive land use changes in forest frontier landscapes are leading to trade-offs in the supply of ecosystem services (ES) with, in many cases, as yet unknown effects on human well-being. In the Tanintharyi Region of Myanmar, a forest frontier landscape facing oil palm and rubber expansion, little is known about local perspectives on ES and the direct impact of trade-offs from land use change. This study assessed the trade-offs experienced with respect to 10 locally important ES from land user perspectives using social valuation techniques. The results show that while intact forests provide the most highly valued ES bundle, the conversion to rubber plantations entails fewer negative trade-offs than that to oil palm. Rubber plantations offer income, fuelwood, a good microclimate, and even new cultural identities. By contrast, oil palm concessions have caused environmental pollution, and, most decisively, have restricted local people’s access to the respective lands. The ES water flow regulation is seen as the most critical if more forest is converted; other ES, such as non-timber forest products, can be more easily substituted. We conclude that, from local perspectives, the impact of ES trade-offs highly depends on access to land and opportunities to adapt to change.

Green Territoriality: Conservation as State Territorialization in a Resource Frontier

I explore how and in what ways global conservation projects carried out in forest frontiers under rebel authority can serve to assert state control over resource-rich territories and populations. I advance the concept of “green territoriality” to describe how conservation practiced beyond the state can serve counterinsurgency aims based on a two-year field case study in a global biodiversity hotspot under armed conflict and inhabited by Karen in south-eastern Myanmar. I analyze military-led forced displacements by economic concessions and conservation during war alongside more recent conservation projects during the ceasefire. My findings reveal how military offensives, economic concessions, and conservation activities threaten to bring state agencies, administration, and management into rebel forests where Karen fled from war but have not yet returned. These findings highlight the importance of integrating conservation activities in conflict affected areas with humanitarian assistance, land restitution, and livelihood rehabilitation.

Assessment of browsed plants in a sub-tropical forest frontier by means of fuzzy inference

Browsing of forest frontiers by cattle in sub-tropical landscapes is detrimental to ecosystem health, but essential to smallholder livelihoods. We described a silvopastoral landscape, searching for browsed plants to assess how much of the forest is actually used for this end, and also searching for potential new useful species for silvopastoral purposes. The first objective was accomplished through a floristic description, making observations of individuals with browsing marks. Information from interviews, bromatological analyses and vegetative propagation tests further complemented this information to achieve the second objective. We classified the results using Fuzzy Inference Systems (FISs). A great variety of nutritious browsed plants was found, distributed across various types of vegetation, growth habits and taxonomic groups: forest frontiers already are like silvopastoral systems. Various plants like Acalypha leptopoda, Montanoa tomentosa and Verbesina perymenioides are interesting prospects for further intensification of silvopastoral systems.

Sediment yield at southwest Ethiopia's forest frontier

AbstractDeforestation is one of the major factors affecting soil erosion in tropical regions but to what extent does the crop growth in deforested areas protect the land from erosion? We evaluated the effect of deforestation on suspended sediment yield at the scale of zero‐order catchments by contrasting five paired small forest and cropland catchments at Ethiopia's southwestern forest frontier. Suspended sediment samples were collected from nine San Dimas flumes and one V‐notch weir installed in catchments draining the natural forest and cropland, at different altitudes. The suspended sediment data were collected from June 8 to October 30, 2013 and 2014. The suspended sediment yield of both land‐use types was strongly correlated with the corresponding runoff discharge. The results show that the average seasonal suspended sediment yield from cropland (17.0 ± 7.6 Mg ha−1) is four times higher than from the paired forests (4.0 ± 1.9 Mg ha−1). High sediment yields from forests are related to livestock grazing, but forests still have an important role in the protection of the surface soil from erosion at southwest Ethiopia's forest frontier. Land management in southwestern Ethiopia's highlands will need a strong change in paradigm, in which the overall belief in the recently imported mahrasha ard plough is abandoned, oxen and other cattle decreased in number and kept in homesteads, the forests being protected from human and livestock interferences and the open farmlands turned into agroforestry. Such an approach is still possible as all required elements are available in the landscape.

Effects of protected area establishment and cash crop price dynamics on land use transitions 1990–2017 in north-eastern Madagascar

ABSTRACTWe applied a participatory mapping approach supported by very high-resolution satellite imagery to reconstruct spatially explicit, year-to-year land use transitions in two highly biodiverse, data-scarce forest frontier landscapes in north-eastern Madagascar. We explored these transitions in the light of major continuous trends and discrete events highlighted by local farmers as influencing their land use decisions. Our results suggest that the process of establishing protected areas first reinforced ongoing deforestation, but later led to a significant reduction of forest loss rates. Recent cash crop booms appear to have induced agricultural intensification processes in our study landscapes, while also putting additional pressure on forests, as people may be encouraged to clear forest for cash crop cultivation. These findings are crucial to understanding rapid land use change processes in forest frontier contexts in the humid tropics, and especially to informing natural resource governance and development initiatives in complex mosaic landscapes.

Understanding the drivers of deforestation and agricultural transformations in the Northwestern uplands of Cambodia

At the end of the 1990s, the Northwestern uplands of Cambodia were one of the last forest frontiers of the country. In a region that was the last Khmer Rouge stronghold, the opening of former conflict zones after a peace agreement initiated a vast movement of agricultural colonization. This movement was economically triggered by high market demand for agricultural commodities such as maize and cassava and fueled by a massive flow of spontaneous in-migration of land-poor farmers from lowland regions around the entire country. Focused on four upland districts along a pioneer front of Northwestern Cambodia, we analyzed historical trajectories of land use/cover changes using a chronological series of Landsat data from 1976 to 2016. We identified key drivers of deforestation using demographic data and qualitative information from local actors and other relevant stakeholders. We found a 65 percent forest cover loss due to conversion by smallholders into agricultural land for maize and cassava cultivation over a period of 15 years. The underlying mechanisms of land use change were further investigated to understand the diversity of individual farm trajectories and decision-making processes in relation to land conversion. These elements of diagnosis are essential to engage farming communities in innovative land use systems and to develop sustainable alternatives to boom crops that have led to the current situation of land degradation and economic instability.

Is Collective Titling Enough to Protect Forests? Evidence from Afro-Descendant Communities in the Colombian Pacific Region

During the mid-1990s, one of the most ambitious land reforms in recent decades took place in Colombia. The reform recognized collective land rights of 5 million hectares by Afro-Colombian groups, with the dual goals of improving livelihoods and preserving valuable ecosystems. We estimate the impact of this collective land titling program on forest cover using panel data and a difference-in-difference empirical strategy. We find that overall, collective titling significantly reduces deforestation rates, but the effect varies substantially by sub-region. We observe that the larger effects are in Narino and Valle del Cauca especially in places with higher deforestation threat, closer to the forest frontier, to roads, and to navigable rivers, as well as in places without illegal crops. Our qualitative analysis suggest that this might be the result of communities being able to expel private companies from their lands which is more challenging with actors promoting illegal crops. We conclude that under the adequate conditions, titling can lead to forest conservation.

Conflicts over Extractivist Policy and the Forest Frontier in Central America

Central America is characterized by an asymmetric forest transition in which net deforestation is a product of both forest loss and patches of forest resurgence. Forest loss is also associated with rights violations. We explore the extent to which extractive industry and infrastructure investments create pressure on forest resources, community rights and livelihoods. Drivers of this investment are identified, in particular: constitutional, legislative and regulatory reforms; energy policies; new financial flows; and ideas of development emphasizing the centrality of infrastructure in combining geographical integration and economic growth. We discuss forms of contentious action that have emerged in response to these pressures, asking how far and in what ways this contention has elicited changes in the policies that govern investment and extractive industry, and how far such changes might reduce pressure on Central America’s remaining forest cover. The paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing relationships among contention, policy change and the resilience of policy changes. Resumen: Conflictos sobre politica extractivista y la frontera forestal de America Central America Central se caracteriza por una transicion forestal asimetrica en la que la deforestacion es producto tanto de la perdida de bosques como de parches de resurgimiento forestal. La perdida de bosques tambien esta asociada con violaciones de derechos. Exploramos hasta que punto las inversiones en industrias e infraestructuras extractivas crean presion sobre los recursos forestales, los derechos de la comunidad y los medios de vida. Se identifican los impulsores de esta inversion, en particular: reformas constitucionales, legislativas y reglamentarias; politicas energeticas; nuevos flujos financieros; e ideas de desarrollo que enfatizan la centralidad de la infraestructura en combinacion con la integracion geografica y el crecimiento economico. Discutimos formas de accion contenciosa que han surgido en respuesta a estas presiones, cuestionandonos cuantos y como ha provocado este conflicto cambios en las politicas que gobiernan la inversion y la industria extractiva, y hasta que punto dichos cambios podrian reducir la presion sobre el bosque restante de America Central. El documento desarrolla un marco conceptual para analizar las relaciones entre la contencion, el cambio de politica y la resistencia de los cambios de politica.

Household economy, forest dependency & opportunity costs of conservation in eastern rainforests of Madagascar

The Government of Madagascar is trying to reduce deforestation and conserve biodiversity through creating new protected areas in the eastern rainforests. While this has many benefits, forest use restriction may bring costs to farmers at the forest frontier. We explored this through a series of surveys in five sites around the Corridor Ankeniheny Zahamena new protected area and adjacent national parks. In phase one a stratified random sample of 603 households completed a household survey covering demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and a choice experiment to estimate the opportunity costs of conservation. A stratified sub-sample (n = 171) then completed a detailed agricultural survey (including recording inputs and outputs from 721 plots) and wild-harvested product survey. The data have been archived with ReShare (UK Data Service). Together these allow a deeper understanding of the household economy on the forest frontier in eastern Madagascar and their swidden agricultural system, the benefits households derive from the forests through wild-harvested products, and the costs of conservation restrictions to forest edge communities.

GENETIC VARIABILITY IN PROGENIES OF Eucalyptus grandis AND Eucalyptus urophylla FOR TOLERANCE TO HYDRIC DEFICIT

Genetic variability in progenies of Eucalyptus grandis and Eucalyptus urophylla for tolerance to hydric deficit. Information on the adaptation and genetic potential of Eucalyptus under water deficit conditions is necessary owing to the increasing cultivation of the genus in regions considered as "forest frontiers". Therefore, the present study aimed to estimate genetic variability, genotypic and phenotypic correlations, and estimated genetic gains in progenies of E. grandis and E. urophylla. Two progeny tests (TP1 and TP2) were performed in the municipality of Vila Nova dos Martirios (state of Maranhão, Brazil), in 30-month-old plants. The experiment was carried out using a randomized block design, with five replicates, nine plants/square plot, and 144 treatments in TP1 and 264 in TP2. Statistical analysis was performed and genetic parameters were estimated. Individual and within-progeny heritabilities were corrected using the kinship coefficient for eachspecies. Genetic gains were low, ranging from 0.96 to 6.39% for E. grandis and 1.62 to 5.48% for E. urophylla. The diameter at breast height (DBH) showed a higher coefficient of genetic variation compared with the other measured characteristics, suggesting a higher potential for selection. High, positive, and significant correlations were observed between DBH and height (H), indicating the possibility of obtaining gains based on a single characteristic. Heritability was considered low, thus directly influencing the selection gains, which were lower than those commonly reported in other studies. These findings provide important information for breeding programs in areas of forest expansion.

Smallholder response to environmental change: Impacts of coffee leaf rust in a forest frontier in Mexico

Coffee agroforestry systems are a promising approach to the challenge of sustaining both biodiversity and livelihoods in tropical landscapes. However, coffee farmers' response to the unrelenting coffee leaf rust (CLR) outbreak may have repercussions for the potential of coffee agroforestry systems to contribute to biodiversity conservation. Adaptations in management practices could affect the extent to which farmers rely on ecological processes vs. external inputs (e.g., agrochemicals) to support production. This study investigates farmers' response to CLR outbreak through a study in a forest frontier in a Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico. We conducted household surveys and fieldwork before the CLR outbreak in 2011-2012 (n = 59), and follow-up surveys after the outbreak in 2016 (n = 48). Before CLR outbreak, farmers were cultivating Arabica coffee varieties in agroforestry systems and generally following agroecological approaches. Most farmers (82%) were certified organic and did not employ synthetic agrochemicals. Farmers (66%) had plans to expand their Arabica coffee agroforests either into forest (35%) or fallow (31%) in response to high farm gate prices. After CLR outbreak, 94% of farmers had CLR-resistant hybrid coffee varieties (HCV) in their possession and were either incorporating them by substituting affected Arabica coffee plants in existing fields, or by establishing new coffee fields with HCV at lower elevations. In attempts to control CLR, farmers (54%) also applied agrochemicals at least once and, to a lesser extent (19%), removed shade trees. Among the farmers (63%) who were planning on expanding coffee production with HCV, more farmers were planning on expanding on fallow (46%) than forest (17%) compared to the period before CLR outbreak (p-value < 0.05). Public and private actors promoted and distributed saplings of HCV and agrochemicals along with technical assistance. The promotion of HCV along with fertilizers may result in a substitution of ecosystem functions with agrochemicals, and the need to acquire seeds and saplings outside of farmers’ own resource base and networks. This shift in management strategies generates new instabilities and risks by introducing a new market for HCV about which little is known and by making external agents the holders of productive resources and knowledge.

Increasing expansion of large-scale crop production onto deforested land in sub-Andean South America

A combination of high commodity crop prices, rising global food demand, and technological advances has transformed the scale of global crop production. Farming in South America is a prime example, where large-scale cash crops, such as soy, have transformed the land use dynamics at the forest frontier. We evaluate this transformation in sub-Andean South America by estimating crop and forest cover and detecting individual cropland field parcels using Landsat imagery in 5 year intervals over a 24 year period. From 1990 to 2014, cropland expansion onto deforested land was increasingly driven by large fields (>50 ha), whose contribution increased from 32% to 48% (+16% increase), while the contribution of smaller fields (<20 ha) declined from 36% to 26% (−10% decrease). This shift toward large-scale farming replacing cleared land across the region has important implications for food security and biodiversity conservation. Policy efforts will need to target different actors and transcend national borders in order to tackle the changing nature of South American deforestation.

Ongoing primary forest loss in Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Indonesia

Humid tropical forests provide numerous global ecosystem services, but are under continuing threat of clearing from economic drivers. Here, we report primary humid tropical forest extent for the year 2001, and primary forest loss and distance to loss from 2002–2014 for the largest rainforest countries of Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Indonesia. Brazil’s total area of primary forest loss is more than twice that of Indonesia and five times that of DRC. Despite unprecedented success in slowing deforestation along its forest frontier, Brazil’s most remote forests are increasingly nearer to loss, as extractive activities such as logging and mining intrude upon previously intact forests. In absolute terms, DRC has the lowest area of primary forest loss; however, its forests are increasingly encroached upon as smallholder agriculturalists move into remaining forests, often to escape conflict and insecurity. The decrease in DRC forests’ distance to loss as a function of area of forest loss was five times that of Brazil or Indonesia. In 2014, Indonesia had the least area of remaining primary forest. Despite an announced moratorium on concession licenses in 2011, Indonesia exhibited a rate of primary forest loss twice that of DRC and triple that of Brazil by the end of the study period. Forest loss dynamics in Indonesia range from industrial-scale clearing of coastal peatlands to logging of interior montane rainforests. While results illustrate considerable variation in forest loss dynamics between the three countries, the dominant narrative is of ongoing exploitation of primary humid tropical forests.

Quantifying long-term changes in carbon stocks and forest structure from Amazon forest degradation

Despite sustained declines in Amazon deforestation, forest degradation from logging and fire continues to threaten carbon stocks, habitat, and biodiversity in frontier forests along the Amazon arc of deforestation. Limited data on the magnitude of carbon losses and rates of carbon recovery following forest degradation have hindered carbon accounting efforts and contributed to incomplete national reporting to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). We combined annual time series of Landsat imagery and high-density airborne lidar data to characterize the variability, magnitude, and persistence of Amazon forest degradation impacts on aboveground carbon density (ACD) and canopy structure. On average, degraded forests contained 45.1% of the carbon stocks in intact forests, and differences persisted even after 15 years of regrowth. In comparison to logging, understory fires resulted in the largest and longest-lasting differences in ACD. Heterogeneity in burned forest structure varied by fire severity and frequency. Forests with a history of one, two, and three or more fires retained only 54.4%, 25.2%, and 7.6% of intact ACD, respectively, when measured after a year of regrowth. Unlike the additive impact of successive fires, selective logging before burning did not explain additional variability in modeled ACD loss and recovery of burned forests. Airborne lidar also provides quantitative measures of habitat structure that can aid the estimation of co-benefits of avoided degradation. Notably, forest carbon stocks recovered faster than attributes of canopy structure that are critical for biodiversity in tropical forests, including the abundance of tall trees. We provide the first comprehensive look-up table of emissions factors for specific degradation pathways at standard reporting intervals in the Amazon. Estimated carbon loss and recovery trajectories provide an important foundation for assessing the long-term contributions from forest degradation to regional carbon cycling and advance our understanding of the current state of frontier forests.

Linking forests, deforestation, and nutritional outcomes: an observational study in nine African countries

BackgroundAgricultural expansion is a leading driver of deforestation, yet malnutrition remains a significant cause of morbidity. Understanding trade-offs and synergies between forest protection and agricultural expansion, and how they vary between groups across time, could help guide socially equitable sustainable development. Forests have important roles in supporting dietary diversity and micronutrient intake, but limited empirical evidence links forests and broad nutritional outcomes. Our research explores the associations between key indicators of malnutrition and forest cover and deforestation, the mediating role of socioeconomic factors, and underlying temporal trends. MethodsIn this observational study, we explored associations between nutritional outcomes (underweightness, stunting, wasting, and overweightness) in children younger than 5 years and forest cover and loss gradients (in 10 km buffers around communities) in 61 032 African households. These households were surveyed by the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program from nine countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, and Liberia) between 2003 and 2014. DHS data were combined with spatially explicit data on forest cover and loss, climate, infrastructure, economy, and demography in a series of generalised linear mixed-effects models. FindingsIn urban areas, children in communities surrounded by 1 SD higher forest cover had 10·8% (95% CI 3·0–18·0; p=0·0073) lower incidence of underweightness and 11·7% (1·9–20·6; p=0·0212) lower incidence of wasting than did children in areas with the mean amount of forest cover. In rural areas, the relationship was reversed, with 6·0% (1·6–10·6; p=0·0074) higher incidence of underweightness among children in areas of 1 SD higher forest cover than among children in areas with the mean amount of forest cover. These relationships became marginally non-significant when analysing the urban and rural datasets together. Additionally, children in areas of 1 SD higher deforestation had 6·7% (1·4–12·3; p=0·0124) and 2·6% (0·04–5·2; p=0·0460) higher incidence of underweightness in urban and rural areas, respectively, than did children in areas with the mean amount of deforestation. This positive relationship between deforestation and underweightness appeared to diminish over time. InterpretationOur results provide evidence that forest cover is associated with worse nutritional outcomes in rural areas, but better outcomes in urban areas of Africa. We did not explicitly measure the contribution of forests to dietary diversity. Yet, the nutritional trade-offs between rural African forests and agriculture should be assessed alongside potential micronutrient benefits from forest foods. Furthermore, forest loss appears to be associated with worse nutrition in the short term, although unmeasured frontier migration might have a role. These results might indicate a farm–forest frontier effect, with short-term declines in nutrition during deforestation events, potentially followed by long-term improvements, although further research is required to substantiate this hypothesis. These nutritional effects should be recognised and accounted for in efforts to meet sustainable development objectives relating to health and forest protection. FundingMinistry of Education of Singapore.