Threshold change in forest understory vegetation as a result of selective fuelwood extraction in Nairobi, Kenya

Biomass Increases Go under Cover: Woody Vegetation Dynamics in South African Rangelands

“…Global and national studies highlight the lack of adaptive capacity of people in the developing world [ 37 , 87 – 88 ]; however, the strategies people adopt on local and regional scales often reveal surprising resourcefulness in response to change [ 89 – 91 ]. Within the fuelwood context in Bushbuckridge and elsewhere in Africa, responses to localised fuelwood shortages have included: changes in the preferred size class of fuelwood [ 29 , 35 , 86 ]; switching preferred fuelwood species [ 25 , 33 , 91 ]; more frequent trips or more time spent per trip to collect fuelwood [ 31 , 92 ]; travelling further from home [ 37 ]; use of wheelbarrows and vehicles to collect more wood per trip [ 33 , 38 , 86 , 93 ]; development of fuelwood markets [ 33 , 36 ]; and collecting from neighbouring private land [ 35 ]. Socio-economic factors also play a role in fuelwood demand dynamics.…”

“…Millions of people in Africa rely on woody vegetation for energy, extracted from both communal [ 25 – 27 ] and protected areas [ 28 – 29 ]. Within southern Africa, South Africa has a high per-capita use of fuelwood as a primary energy supply; despite having substantial access to electricity (66% of national population) [ 30 ].…”

Tropical Forests in the Anthropocene

“…The collection of fuelwood, distinct from logging for timber, is another pervasive driver of forest degradation across the tropics and accounts for the vast majority (often over 90%) of wood removals for many densely populated countries in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia (39). Intensive charcoal production often predictably follows an initial wave of high-value timber extraction (40), can drive a marked shift in the composition of understory tree species (e.g., 41), and may (like logging) ultimately result in complete forest clearance (29).…”

“…Such landscapes can become highly resilient to further changes, thus impeding attempts to promote recovery. Tropical forests abound with examples of such shifts toward alternate and often highly stable states, including changes in faunal communities (74), severe fragmentation and prolonged edge effects (76), repeat burnings (99), domination by pioneer species in logging gaps (187), landscape-wide deforestation and the loss of connectivity (107), domination by invasive plant and animal species (127), and the overextraction of fuelwood (41). Common to all these situations is the presence of positive feedback dynamics driving a system from one state to another and of the additional feedbacks that hold the system in a state of persistent degradation, such as the invasion by highly flammable understory trees and grass species in burned areas or the disruption of key interactions (e.g., the erosion of recolonization processes) in highly deforested landscapes.…”

Knowledge, Uses and Practices of the Licuri Palm (Syagrus Coronata(Mart.) Becc.) around Protected Areas in Northeastern Brazil Holding the Endangered Species Lear's Macaw (Anodorhynchus Leari)

“…Historically, different types of palm trees (Arecaceae) are harvested within or near protected areas [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], creating problems for the conservation of biological diversity [15][16][17][18][19] and management of these areas, especially when the varied knowledge of local communities and the factors that modulate the relationship between the people and resources are unknown [20].…”