Intra-regional variation in land use and livelihood change during a forest transition in Costa Rica's dry North West

Forest ecosystem-service transitions: the ecological dimensions of the forest transition

“…The transition is attributed to urbanization, a decline in the beef industry, a sharp drop in agricultural employment, a rise in service sector employment (particularly tourism), agricultural intensification in the lowlands, and conservation policies, including the establishment of protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, and restrictions on timber extraction and forest clearing (Calvo-Alvarado et al 2009, Daniels 2010, McLennan and Garvin 2012. Spontaneous regeneration dominates the new forests, although the earliest regrowth on hilly terrain with coastal views was later cleared and fragmented for tourism and real estate development (Calvo-Alvarado et al 2009), and tree plantations are concentrated on flatter land (Morera et al 2007).…”

Transforming river basins: Post-livelihood transition agricultural landscapes and implications for natural resource governance

“…The nature of farm activities and the type of crops grown changed when labor was shifted away from farming. The families that continued to farm shifted to less labor demanding perennial crops, aquaculture or agroforestry practices in several villages of Africa, Asia and Latin America (Akram-Lodhi, 2005;McLennan and Garvin, 2012;Rigg and Nattapoolwat, 2001;Snyder, 2009;Steward, 2007). The trajectory of pluriactive households were observed to be to gradually move out of agriculture altogether rather than invest the off-farm income in farm operations, as reported from Tamil Nadu, India (Djurfeldt et al, 2008).…”

“…Macroeconomic studies on the rural non-farm economy (Barrett et al, 2001;Haggblade et al, 2010;Lanjouw and Lanjouw, 2001;Reardon et al, 2007) and micro-level case studies using Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) (McLennan and Garvin, 2012;Turner, 2012), political economy (Braun and McLees, 2012) political ecology (Batterbury, 2001(Batterbury, , 2010, rural sociology, agricultural economics (Barbier, 2000) human and cultural geography (King, 2011;Vadjunec et al, 2011;Zimmerer, 2014) frameworks are all employed in the analysis and interpretation of livelihood-landscape intersections. More recently, landuse change science literature dealing with drivers of Land Use Land Cover (LULC) change (Ribeiro Palacios et al, 2013) and transition studies (Wang et al, 2011), land grab and acquisition studies (Woodhouse, 2012) and to a limited extent climate change adaptation research (Wohl et al, 2012) have also contributed to livelihood writings.…”

“…Labor shortages, decreased investments and general disinterest and resultant yield declines are reported to lead to further shrinkages and abandonment of productive farm holdings, decrease in multi-cropping indices, reduced agro-biodiversity and further reductions in agricultural outputs (Liu et al, 2014;Rigg et al, 2012;Zimmerer, 2010). Increased abandonment and idling of highly productive farmlands as a consequence are being reported from across the rural South (Batterbury, 2001;McLennan and Garvin, 2012;Rigg, 2006).…”

¿Es la cobertura forestal conservada y restaurada por las zonas protegidas?: El caso de dos áreas silvestres protegidas en el Pacífico Central de Costa Rica

“…In recent decades, agricultural and urban transformation have generated a landscape with heterogeneous characteristics (Rosero-Bixby & Palloni, 1998;Turner, 2005), which describes a mosaic of natural and human-driven spaces that define spatial and temporal patterns on lands (McLennan & Garvin, 2012;Peña-Cortés et al, 2006). From a conservation perspective, these heterogeneous landscapes result in loss, fragmentation and modification of forest habitats, which leads these areas to have a decline in flora and fauna communities (Fahrig, 2003;Haila, 2002;Hanski, 1998;Sanchez-Azofeifa, Harriss, & Skole, 2001).…”