El Salvador is often seen as a classic environmental "basket case" of population growth, deforestation and collapsing biodiversity. This view, which was open to question even when it was first articulated (cf. Durham 1972) is not supported by contemporary studies. Today, El Salvador is experiencing a resurgence in forest cover. The changing national and international context suggests that globalization, while clearly triggering deforestation in many places in Latin America, can also stimulate forest resurgence. This has been the case in El Salvador through such global processes as war, interna-Globalization, Forest Resurgence and Environmental Politics in

SignificanceWhile infrastructure expansion has been broadly investigated as a driver of deforestation, the impacts of extractive industry and its interactions with infrastructure investment on forest cover are less well studied. These challenges are urgent given growing pressure for infrastructure investment and resource extraction. We use geospatial and qualitative data from Amazonia, Indonesia, and Mesoamerica to explain how infrastructure and extractive industry lead directly and indirectly to deforestation, forest degradation, and increasingly precarious rights for forest peoples. By engaging in explicit analyses of community rights, the politics of development policy, and institutions for transparency, anticorruption, and the defense of human rights, Sustainability Science could be more effective in examining deforestation and related climate-change impacts and in contributing to policy innovation.

In principle, payments for environmental services -such as watershed management, biodiversity conservation, and carbon sequestration -can advance the goals of both environmental protection and poverty reduction. A review of recent initiatives in the Americas suggests, however, that this desirable combination is not automatic. If payments for environmental services (PES) schemes are to be an effective vehicle for strengthening livelihoods in poor rural communities, they must be designed with that objective firmly in mind. This paper draws key lessons from diverse experiences in

In principle, payments for environmental services -such as watershed management, biodiversity conservation, and carbon sequestration -can advance the goals of both environmental protection and poverty reduction. A review of recent initiatives in the Americas suggests, however, that this desirable combination is not automatic. If payments for environmental services (PES) schemes are to be an effective vehicle for strengthening livelihoods in poor rural communities, they must be designed with that objective firmly in mind. This paper draws key lessons from diverse experiences in

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