An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries

By Noriko Hosonuma, Martin Herold, Veronique de Sy, Ruth S De Fries, M. Brockhaus, Louis Verchot, A. Angelsen, E. Romijn. 2012

1,283 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Countries are encouraged to identify drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the development of national strategies and action plans for REDD+. In this letter we provide an assessment of proximate drivers of deforestation and forest degradation by synthesizing empirical data reported by countries as part of their REDD+ readiness activities, CIFOR country profiles, UNFCCC national communications and scientific literature. Based on deforestation rate and remaining forest cover 100 (sub)tropical non-Annex I countries were grouped into four forest transition phases. Driver data of 46 countries were summarized for each phase and by continent, and were used as a proxy to estimate drivers for the countries with missing data. The deforestation drivers are similar in Africa and Asia, while degradation drivers are more similar in Latin America and Asia. Commercial agriculture is the most important driver of deforestation, followed by subsistence agriculture. Timber extraction and logging drives most of the degradation, followed by fuelwood collection and charcoal production, uncontrolled fire and livestock grazing. The results reflect the most up to date and comprehensive overview of current national-level data availability on drivers, which is expected to improve over time within the frame of the UNFCCC REDD+ process.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e9017673f19de21b66df191fbeb142234797568

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

In Pollution

Citations in the corpus

Addressing future trade-offs between biodiversity and cropland expansion to improve food security (2016, background): “tation of natural habitats is the globally more dominant driver of biodiversity loss, particularly in highly biodiverse tropical and subtropical regions (Foley et al. 2005; Hosonuma et al. 2012; Pereira et al. 2012).”
Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries (2017, positive): “…excessive amount of N leads to soil and air pollution, drives biodiversity loss, pollutes coastal marine waters and watersheds (Howarth et al. 2011, Swaney et al. 2012), and increases the level of N 2 O and reactive N gases in the troposphere (Robertson and Vitousek 2009, Canfield et al. 2010,…”
Governing the design of national REDD+: an analysis of the power of agency (2014, methodology): “Mining, infrastructure development and population movements and policies (migration and resettlements) also have direct impacts on deforestation and forest degradation (Table 1) (Babon and Gowae, 2013; Dkamela, 2010; Hosonuma et al., 2012; Indrarto et al., 2012; May et al., 2011b; Paudel et al., 201”
Land use patterns and related carbon losses following deforestation in South America (2015, background): “Few countries, however, monitor deforestation drivers in a systematic manner and national-level quantitative spatially explicit information on drivers is often lacking (De Sy et al 2012, Hosonuma et al 2012).”
Change in terrestrial human footprint drives continued loss of intact ecosystems (2020, background): “For example, much of the intact ecosystem loss experienced in tropical countries can likely be attributed to not only the availability of arable land, but also increases in human populations, their per capita consumption,(67) and international demands for product.(68) Thus, it is critical that futur”
What Drives Deforestation and What Stops it? A Meta-Analysis of Spatially Explicit Econometric Studies (2014, positive): “Tropical forest is largely being converted to cropland and pasture for the production of soy, beef, palm oil, and timber (Rudel 2009; Hosonuma et al 2012), with the majority of new global agricultural land coming at the expense of tropical forest (Gibbs 2010).”
Global change effects on humid tropical forests: Evidence for biogeochemical and biodiversity shifts at an ecosystem scale (2016, background): “TROPICAL FORESTS AND GLOBAL CHANGE 43 and developable land [DeFries et al., 2010; Hosonuma et al., 2012; Seto et al., 2012].”