Forest transitions: a new conceptual scheme

Abstract

Abstract. "Forest transitions" have recently received much attention, particularly in the hope that the historical transitions from net deforestation to forest recovery documented in several temperate countries might be reproduced in tropical countries. The analysis of forest transitions, however, has struggled with questions of forest definition and has at times focussed purely on tree cover, irrespective of tree types (e.g. native forest or exotic plantations). Furthermore, it has paid little attention to how categories and definitions of forest are used to political effect or shape how forest change is viewed. In this paper, I propose a new heuristic model to address these lacunae, building on a conception of forests as distinct socio-ecological relationships between people, trees, and other actors that maintain and threaten the forest. The model draws on selected work in the forest transition, land change science, and critical social science literatures. It explicitly forces analysts to see forests as much more than a land cover statistic, particularly as it internalizes consideration of forest characteristics and the differential ways in which forests are produced and thought about. The new heuristic model distinguishes between four component forest transitions: transitions in quantitative forest cover (FT1); in characteristics like species composition or density (FT2); in the ecological, socio-economic, and political processes and relationships that constitute particular forests (FT3); and in forest ideologies, discourses, and stories (FT4). The four are interlinked; the third category emerges as the linchpin. An analysis of forest transformations requires attention to diverse social and ecological processes, to power-laden official categories and classifications, and to the discourses and tropes by which people interpret these changes. Diverse examples are used to illustrate the model components and highlight the utility of considering the four categories of forest transitions.

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

“…Key knowledge gaps include a detailed understanding of the underlying mechanisms of cash crop expansion pathways (Meyfroidt et al, 2014), of the factors promoting shifts between land use regimes (Müller et al, 2014;Ramankutty & Coomes, 2016), and of the concrete effect of PA establishment on ongoing LULC processes (Oestreicher et al, 2009). These uncertainties critically hamper ongoing theory-building efforts (Meyfroidt et al, 2018), particularly in regard to land use (DeFries, Foley, & Asner, 2004;Foley et al, 2005) and forest transitions (Kull, 2017;. Furthermore, although sociopolitical processes (e.g.…”

The Global Forest Transition as a Human Affair

“…31 Despite these, the forest transition theory remains one of the foundations of current thinking on forest landscape change. [32][33][34] Sustainability Transition Theory A multi-level perspective (MLP) of nested scales is commonly used for modeling socio-technical transitions [35][36][37][38] and has been used in forest-governance contexts for analyzing conditions across policy levels. [39][40][41] It identifies three analytical levels ( Figure 3).…”

The Global Forest Transition is a Human Affair

“…Forest transitions are embedded in social transformations that result from technological advances, changes in societal values, new business models, and substantial policy changes. 25,[30][31][32] Over the years academics seeking to understand innovation have developed different analytical frameworks to explain innovation processes and the socio-technical configurations needed for change. 33 Two different perspectives have evolved to understand fundamental transformation processes.…”