The World Conservation Union is the world’s largest and most important conservation network. The Union brings together 82 States, 111 government agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide partnership.
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The world’s natural forests are experiencing land use change due to both proximate (direct) and underlying (indirect) causes. Direct causes include immediate human land use activities that change forest cover in a local area. Key drivers include agricultural expansion, infrastructure development, wood extraction, climate change, fire and alien invasive species. Underlying causes result from social and institutional processes that may indirectly impact forest cover from a local, national, or international level. Prominent underlying causes include market failure and perverse incentives, corruption, inappropriate state policies and institutional failure, population pressure and poverty. In general, forest related land use changes have complex socio-economic, cultural and political foundations. One cannot assume simple and static cause-effect relationships.
Direct causes of forest land use change
Agricultural expansion
Over the years, researchers have identified agricultural expansion as a major factor in almost all studies on deforestation. In the 1990s, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 70% of total deforested areas were converted to permanent agriculture systems. Despite the compelling figure, regional differences should be noted. For example, in Latin America conversion to agriculture has been large scale and permanent whereas in Africa small-scale agricultural enterprises have predominated. In Asia, the changes have been more equally distributed between permanent agriculture and areas under shifting cultivation.
Historically, increases in food production have been at the expense of millions of hectares of forest. With the expected clearance of additional forest land in the future for this purpose it is important to plan for this reality. However, equally important is acknowledging that technological innovations can have positive effects on forest areas and could, under certain circumstances, facilitate a transition from deforestation back to reforestation. If appropriate mechanisms are put in place to lock these gains in both developed and developing countries, this could potentially set a trend for large scale forest restoration in the future.
Infrastructure development
Infrastructure development (road construction, dams, mining, power stations, etc.) is an important proximate cause of forest-related land use change. Road construction particularly, is a key factor in triggering deforestation as it tends to open up areas of undisturbed, mature forests to pioneer settlements, logging, and occasionally unsuitable forms of agriculture. The ensuing fragmentation also increases the exposure of forests to the dangers of poaching, alien invasive species, fires and pest outbreaks. In addition, the World Commission on Dams has documented the loss of forests and wildlife habitat, the loss of species populations and the degradation of upstream catchment areas due to large dams. Mining corporations and individual miners are also notably responsible for the clearance of large areas of forest in some countries. However, a recent study released by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) argues that in some cases increased incomes from oil and mining activities can have a macro-level effect on reducing the loss of tree cover in tropical countries.