We 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 northeastern 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.

Tropical forests are under pressure from both commercial and smallholder agriculture. Forest frontiers are seeing dynamic land use changes that frequently lead to land system regime shifts, posing challenges for the sustainability of entire local social-ecological systems. Monitoring highly dynamic land use change and detecting land system regime shifts is methodologically challenging due to trade-offs between spatial and temporal data resolution. We propose an innovative approach that combines analysis of very-high-resolution satellite imagery with participatory mapping based on workshops and field walks. Applying it in Laos, Myanmar, and Madagascar, we were able to collect annual land use information over several decades. Unlike conventional land use change mapping approaches, which assess only few points in time, our approach provides information at a temporal resolution that enables detection of gradual and abrupt land system regime shifts.

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Transdisciplinary research (TDR) has been developed to generate knowledge that effectively fosters the capabilities of various societal actors to realize sustainability transformations. The development of TDR theories, principles, and methods has been largely governed by researchers from the global North and has reflected their contextual conditions. To enable more context-sensitive TDR framing, we sought to identify which contextual characteristics affect the design and implementation of TDR in six case studies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and what this means for TDR as a scientific approach. To this end, we distinguished four TDR process elements and identified several associated context dimensions that appeared to influence them. Our analysis showed that contextual characteristics prevalent in many Southern research sites—such as highly volatile socio-political situations and relatively weak support infrastructure—can make TDR a challenging endeavour. However, we also observed a high degree of variation in the contextual characteristics of our sites in the global South, including regarding group deliberation, research freedom, and dominant perceptions of the appropriate relationship between science, society, and policy. We argue that TDR in these contexts requires pragmatic adaptations as well as more fundamental reflection on underlying epistemological concepts around what it means to conduct “good science”, as certain contextual characteristics may influence core epistemological values of TDR.

Tropical forest landscapes are undergoing vast transformations. Myanmar was long an exception to this trenduntil recent policy reforms put economic development at the forefront. Under ambiguous land rights, commercial agriculture has spread rapidly, causing an unprecedented loss of biodiversity-rich forest. In southeastern Myanmar, where land tenure is highly contested due to several decades of conflict, scientific evidence on these complex social-ecological processes is lacking. In the absence of past satellite data, we applied a participatory mapping approach and co-produced annual land use information with local land users between 1990 and 2017 for two case study landscapes. Results show that both landscapes have undergone a land use regime shift from small-scale farmers' shifting cultivation to plantations of rubber, betel nut, cashew, and oil palm. These changes are likely to have long-term impacts on land users' livelihoods and the environment. We call for a reconsideration of land governance arrangements and concerted land use planning that respects the rights of local land users and strengthens their role as environmental stewards. Applied with careful facilitation, participatory mapping could be an important tool to engage communities in the highly challenging process of transforming land governance to achieve more sustainable outcomes in this post-conflict context.