Land Use

Linking Reforestation Policies with Land Use Change in Northern Vietnam: Why Local Factors Matter

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Based on a case study in Vietnam, this study seeks to understand the extent to which common state policies on land management actually contribute to reforestation. 

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Influence of Overstory Composition on Understory Colonization by Native Species in Plantations on a Degraded Tropical Site

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This study evaluates forest understory regeneration in a 4.5 year-old plantation in Puerto Rico. The plantations, established in 1989, were planted on abandoned pasture in mixtures or monocultures of three exotic species: Casuarina equisetifolia, Eucalyptus robusta, and Leucaena leucocephala.

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Restoring tropical diversity: beating the time tax on species loss

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Remnant tropical forests are being deforested at approximately the same rates as cleared lands revert to secondary forest, leading to a fragmented or patchwork landscape. Small patches of remnant forest may remain, but these inevitably lose species to local extinction. Despite forestation rates that may appear relatively stable on paper, vegetation matrices are rapidly changing from a diversity of old-growth species to a much smaller number of early-successional and non-native species that dominate natural-regeneration and reforestation sites.

Open access copy available

Globalization, Forest Resurgence, and Environmental Politics in El Salvador

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El Salvador was seen as a classic case study of population growth, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity, yet contemporary studies have not supported these claims. Instead, it has been found that forest cover in El Salvador today is actually greater than previously estimated, including remnant forest, reforested areas, plantations, smallholder and NTFP plantations. This resource explores the potential drivers for this unsuspected reforestation.

Open access copy available
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