Forest transitions, trade, and the global displacement of land use.

ABSTRACT: Reducing tropical deforestation is an international priority, given its impacts on carbon emissions and biodiversity. We examined whether recent forest transitions--a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation--involved a geographic displacement of forest clearing across countries through trade in agricultural and forest products. In most of the seven developing countries that recently experienced a forest transition, displacement of land use abroad accompanied local reforestation. Additional global land-use change embodied in their net wood trade offset 74% of their total reforested area. Because the reforesting countries continued to export more agricultural goods than they imported, this net displacement offset 22% of their total reforested area when both agriculture and forestry

SUBMITTER: Meyfroidt P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3000287 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature