We used aerial photographs, satellite images, and field surveys to monitor forest cover in the core zones of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico from 2001 to 2012. We used our data to assess the effectiveness of conservation actions that involved local, state, and federal authorities and community members (e.g., local landowners and private and civil organizations) in one of the world's most iconic protected areas. From 2001 through 2012, 1254 ha were deforested (i.e., cleared areas had

This study assesses the presence of a forest transition - that is, a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation - in Vietnam during the 1990s, and describes its key attributes relevant for global environmental change issues. Using Fuzzy Kappa and other indicators, we compared forest cover estimates and spatial patterns from global and national land cover maps from the early and late 1990s, and compiled other available statistics for years before and after that period.

Soil degradation and subsequent amelioration were studied on soil chronosequences of old-growth forest, abandoned fields, and young and mature conifer plantations on the Oak Ridges Moraine, an environmentally vulnerable landform near Toronto threatened by encroaching urban development. The chronosequences reflect a history of pre-settlement deforestation, exploitive pioneer agriculture and ensuing land abandonment that led to soil fallowing and/or wind erosion in the 1920s followed by soil stabilization after extensive planting with red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.).

More than three-quarters of Mexico's coffee is grown on small plots shaded by the existing forest. Because they preserve forest cover, shade coffee farms provide vital ecological services including harboring biodiversity and preventing soil erosion. Unfortunately, tree cover in Mexico's shade coffee areas is increasingly being cleared to make way for subsistence agriculture, a direct result of the unprecedented decline of international coffee prices over the past decade.

In the turmoil of a rapidly changing economy the Albanian government needs accurate and timely information for management of their natural resources and formulation of land-use policies. The transformation of the forestry sector has required major changes in the legal, regulatory and management framework.

Property rights, the agricultural price index, forest area, population, income and timber price are important factors in the deforestation process. The aim of this study was to test the impact of these factors on deforestation in Iran using an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). The autoregressive distributed lag approach was also used to estimate the deforestation function. The existence of an inverted U-shaped EKC for deforestation in Iran was confirmed.

Mexico’s 1992 agrarian counter-reforms opened up the country’s vast network of common property regimes, known as ejidos, to the possibility of privatization. This study investigates the relationship between dynamic common property regimes and deforestation in the wake of policy reform among eight ejidos in southeastern Mexico. Using institutional analyses, land use/land cover change (LULCC) analyses and a Forest Dependency Index, we examine how land tenure arrangements relate to land use and forest cover change patterns.

In the Andean region of South America, understanding communities’ water perceptions is particularly important for water management as many rural communities must decide by themselves if and how they will protect their micro-watersheds and distribute their water. In this study we examine how Water User Associations in the Eastern Andes of Colombia perceive water scarcity and the relationship between this perception and observed climate, land use, and demographic changes. Results demonstrate a complex relationship between perceptions and observed changes.

The Shangri-La County of the Yunnan Province, SW China, is an economically and ecologically important area. This is especially true for Jiantang that is famous for the Napahai, Bitahai and Shudu Lake wetlands. However, continuing development has threatened the wetland ecosystems and the associated biodiversity in these areas. To better document such changes in land use and their effect on the ecosystem, land use was mapped using a time series of satellite images acquired in 1974, 1993, 2000 and 2012. The results of this survey suggest that forest cover first decreased and then increased.

The impact of climate change and anthropogenic deforestation on biodiversity is of growing concern worldwide. Disentangling how past anthropogenic and natural factors contributed to current biome distribution is thus a crucial issue to understand their complex interactions on wider time scales and to improve predictions and conservation strategies. This is particularly important in biodiversity hotspots, such as Madagascar, dominated by large open habitats whose origins are increasingly debated.

Brazilian environmental law imposes more restrictions on land-use change by private landowners in riparian forests than in non-riparian forest areas, reflecting recognition of their importance for the conservation of biodiversity and key ecosystem services. A 22-year time series of classified Landsat images was used to evaluate deforestation and forest regeneration in riparian permanent preservation areas over the past two decades, focusing on the municipality of Paragominas in the state of Pará in eastern Amazonia.

Carbon-based forest conservation requires the establishment of ‘reference emission levels’ against which to measure a country or region's progress in reducing their carbon emissions. In East Africa, landscape-scale estimates of carbon fluxes are uncertain and factors such as deforestation poorly resolved due to a lack of data. In this study, trends in vegetation cover and carbon for East Africa were quantified using moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover grids from 2002 to 2008 (500-m spatial resolution), in combination with a regional carbon look-up table.