Edited by: Alexandra C. Morel, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Reviewed by: Maria Piquer-Rodriguez, Institute of Regional Ecology, National University Tucuman, Argentina; René Verburg, Utrecht University, Netherlands
This article was submitted to Tropical Forests, a section of the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
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The conservation of Earth's remaining intact forests (IFs) is a global priority, but improved understanding of the causes and solutions to IF loss is urgently needed to improve conservation efforts. This meta-analysis examines 207 case studies of IF loss occurring since 1970 to synthesize the drivers of IF loss and the proposed case-specific interventions. The goal of this study is to build a portfolio of conservation best practices for retaining IFs. The most frequently reported direct drivers of IF loss were logging, agriculture, ranching, and infrastructure expansion. Mining and fire were also prominent threats to IFs in selected areas. Indirect drivers of IF loss varied between continents, with high demographic pressures driving forest loss in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, contrasting with North America and Europe-Russia. Indirect economic and socio-political drivers were most frequently reported at the national scale for all continents studied, indicating a central role for national institutions in IF loss and conservation. Decisive socio-political factors underlying IF loss worldwide include political failures, institutional failures, and pro-development policies. A wide range of interventions were recommended in the case studies to conserve IFs. The proposed actions were most frequently within the forest, finance, and education and science sectors, and also emphasized inter-sectoral activities. Based on the results of this study, three core approaches to IF conservation that can be combined at the landscape scale are identified: protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, and agricultural reforms. Related enabling conditions include cooperative landscape management, effective enforcement, and political advocacy. The success of IF conservation efforts ultimately depends on sustained political support and the prioritization of high-value forest landscapes. Such efforts should mitigate socio-economic pressures through policy mixes that are cross-sectoral and place-based. Key policy priorities for IF conservation include addressing the systemic failures of public institutions, increasing political support for IF conservation, and countering harmful development activities.
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Intact forests (IFs) are a global conservation priority because they provide ecosystem services and vital resources and cultural benefits to local and global societies, especially forest-dependent indigenous people (Finer et al.,
Underlying our need to better understand the drivers of IF loss is the reality that conservation interventions must be matched to the multi-scale drivers threatening IFs. Developing this knowledge can be difficult because the drivers of forest loss vary regionally and temporally due to variations in socio-economic conditions, land-use dynamics, population density, forest condition, and local biophysical conditions, among other factors (Lambin et al.,
Designing effective IF conservation interventions must account not only for the location-specific drivers of forest change, but also overcome a lack of evidence regarding the efficacy of conservation policies and programs. In general, the field of evidence-based policy and program design for biodiversity conservation remains immature (Miteva et al.,
In addition to insufficient knowledge about the impacts and trade-offs of IF conservation efforts, another key challenge is implementation. Even if a set of well-informed policies is designed to counter the drivers of forest loss, weak governance, institutional failure, and corruption may inhibit implementation and negate desired effects (Geist and Lambin,
To inform the aforementioned gaps in knowledge and the design of IF conservation efforts, this study examined the following questions: (1) what are the drivers of IF loss with respect to the case study literature?; (2) what IF conservation policies and activities are recommended in the case study literature?; and (3) can the synthesis of the case study's reported deforestation drivers and conservation recommendations inform the design of IF conservation policies and strategies?
Meta-analyses of case studies are widely used to provide systematic knowledge of scientific topics (Khan et al.,
The drivers of IF loss and the proposed conservation interventions extracted from the case studies.
Direct drivers | Drivers locally responsible for forest conversion or degradation | (1) agricultural expansion; (2) infrastructure development; (3) wood extraction; (4) natural disturbances (e.g., fire, pests, drought); (5) mining and hydrocarbon extraction; and (6) ranching |
Indirect drivers | Drivers that enable or encourage conditions that lead to forest conversion or degradation. | (1) demographic; (2) economic; (3) sociopolitical; (4) cultural and religious; and (5) scientific and technological. Drivers were recorded by spatial scale of local, national, and international |
Institutional failures | Failures in public institutions that lead to forest loss or degradation | (1) weak or inadequate law enforcement; (2) poorly designed policies; (3) insufficient capacity; (4) failures in tenure regime; (5) poor planning; (6) poor coordination or collaboration; and (7) institutional corruption |
Political failures | Failures by political actors that lead to forest conversion or degradation | (1) absent policies or insufficient political will; (2) political corruption; (3) failed policy effort; (4) unclear or ambiguous policies; (5) political instability or uncertainty; (6) insufficient or weak policies; and (7) insufficient funding |
Pro-development policies | Forest development, natural resource extraction, or immigration policies implemented by political leaders or policy-makers | (1) encourage resource extraction; (2) encourage agriculture/pasture expansion; (3) encourage migration/colonization projects; (4) subsidies or tax incentives to deforest; (5) encourage/support infrastructure development; and (6) promotion of general economic growth. |
Forest conservation interventions | Policy recommendations of case study authors to conserve forests | (1) sectoral policies; (2) inter-sectoral policies; and (3) unique policies and strategies |
The final dataset included 207 case studies from 193 publications documenting the drivers of IF loss at the local, regional, or national scale. Cases were identified and screened using the PRISMA-P meta-analysis protocol (Shamseer et al.,
Based on the keyword searches and after screening the titles for relevance to the study, a total of 1,113 case studies were identified and a total of 483 duplicate studies were removed. The abstracts of the remaining 630 cases were then screened and 441 were excluded, leaving 189 cases (see
The review of 193 publications produced 207 case studies of IF loss that formed the database used in this study. Data was collated across all major forest types, five continents, and 49 countries (
By order of frequency reported, the global direct drivers (i.e., proximate causes) of IF loss were agriculture, logging, and ranching (
The indirect drivers (i.e., underlying causes) of IF loss reported in the cases reviewed varied widely by continent and driver type (
A global and continental analysis of “pro-development” policies leading to IF loss found that 49% of all cases reported one or more pro-development policy, and the number of policies reported varied widely by continent. Pro-development policies were more commonly reported as driving IF loss in North America (50% of cases), Latin America (47%), and Asia (44%) compared to Europe-Russia (30%) and Africa (19%). In Latin America, the most frequent pro-development policies were associated with agriculture and pasture expansion, colonization schemes, and promotion of resource extraction (e.g., gold mining and logging). In Asia, the most common pro-development policies were agriculture expansion, promotion of resource extraction (i.e., logging), and infrastructure development. In North America, the pro-development policies most often reported were the promotion of resource extraction (i.e., logging) and agriculture expansion.
A common socio-political factor leading to IF loss is political failure (59% of all cases studied) due to the absence of political will or policies to conserve IFs (30% of all cases) (
The table below shows the reported political failures at the global and regional scales leading to IF loss.
% of cases with political failures | 59 | 55 | 67 | 69 | 40 | 70 |
Absent policies or political will | 30 | 30 | 18 | 44 | 30 | 50 |
Political corruption | 10 | 6 | 20 | 19 | 0 | 0 |
Failed policy effort | 11 | 11 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Political instability or uncertainty | 10 | 9 | 4 | 38 | 10 | 0 |
Insufficient or weak policies | 8 | 4 | 7 | 25 | 10 | 30 |
Lack of funding | 5 | 5 | 0 | 13 | 10 | 0 |
The table below shows the reported institutional failures at the global and regional scales leading to IF loss.
% of cases with institutional failures | 57 | 55 | 69 | 69 | 30 | 30 |
Inadequate law enforcement | 26 | 25 | 36 | 31 | 10 | 0 |
Poorly designed policies/planning | 5 | 4 | 9 | 13 | 10 | 10 |
Insufficient institutional capacity | 12 | 13 | 11 | 6 | 10 | 0 |
Issues with land tenure | 9 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
Poor resource/development planning | 10 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 10 | 20 |
Inadequate collaboration/coordination | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
Institutional corruption | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
In the 207 case studies, a total of 456 interventions were recommended to address forest loss. Each intervention was classified and organized by its respective governance sector (
The basic assumption of this research is that the long-term conservation of IFs depends on the integration of scientific knowledge and conservation efforts. Results from this meta-analysis show that the drivers of IF loss vary at the continental level, which adds further support to existing evidence that place-based conservation strategies are needed. As shown by this study, a wide variety of forest conservation policies are available. However, further research is needed to inform the design of IF conservation interventions for specific locations and to develop a portfolio of best practices. Improved understanding of the causes of IF loss and an overview of best practices for IF conservation is the focus of the following sections.
The meta-analysis results presented provide an overview of the case study literature describing the global and continental drivers of IF loss and their recommended conservation interventions. While the drivers of tropical forest loss are well understood (Geist and Lambin,
The indirect causes of IF loss also vary widely at the continental level. The three most frequently reported indirect drivers of IF loss were factors related to demographics, economics, and socio-politics. These factors can be summarized as increasing human demand for natural resources and the global trade in commodities, which drive local-to-global teleconnections (Carrasco et al.,
The need to simultaneously target both market forces and national development policies and institutions to conserve IF is evident in this study by the high frequency of reported political and institutional failures driving IF loss. More than half of the case studies reviewed reported one or more political failure. Lack of political will or absent policies were especially problematic and pronounced in North America and Africa. Many studies have identified the role of political failures, including failed policy efforts, political corruption, political instability, and insufficient or weak policies as major threats to forests in the tropics (e.g., Ascher,
A key finding of this study is the relatively high frequency of indirect drivers of IF loss at the national level, including demographic, economic, and socio-political factors. The importance of these national-level factors in IF loss, particularly decisions made by national governments and corporations, is supported by others who have noted the key role of national-scale institutions in driving tropical deforestation (Wells et al.,
Individual conservation policies and activities can be understood as “tools in the toolbox” of potential forest conservation interventions because policy instruments are viewed as substitutable (Landry and Varone,
Protected areas (PAs) form the foundation of global biodiversity and forest protection and are designed to prevent land-use change (United Nations Environmental Program,
PES programs are an increasingly popular forest conservation strategy that can be used to conserve IFs in lieu of or in addition to PAs. PES programs come in a variety of forms, including carbon payments (e.g., REDD+) and payments for hydrological services (Porras et al.,
Because PAs are insufficient to conserve all species and landscapes (Soares-Filho et al.,
Enabling conditions are necessary for the efficacy of the core IF conservation interventions described above and include cooperative landscape management, enforcement, and political advocacy. These three conditions were selected based on the high frequency of interventions recommended related to law enforcement and multi-sectoral actions, as well as their ability to increase political will for IF conservation.
The diversity of cross-sectoral deforestation drivers and proposed inter-sectoral conservation interventions reported in this study highlight the necessity of cooperative landscape management. Cooperative landscape management involves collaborative management of mixed-use landscapes by land-users and institutions with management authority at the landscape-scale (Jacobson and Robertson,
This study found that weak or absent law enforcement was the most frequently reported institutional failure in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. This situation is problematic because enforcement of the rules and laws underlying natural resource management is a prerequisite for conservation success (Ostrom,
Absent policies or political will was the most frequently documented political failure on all continents besides Asia. Political advocacy is necessary to conserve IFs in a democratic society to generate political will, challenge powerful actors, win political debates, and ensure government transparency. An engaged citizenry is also needed to conserve IFs because the ultimate cause of most conservation challenges is human behavior (Schultz,
This study demonstrates that the synthesis of case studies of IF loss worldwide can be used to identify distinct continental patterns of indirect and direct drivers. This knowledge can be used to inform the design of place-based conservation interventions. A key finding from this study is the diversity of reported drivers of IF loss external to the forest-conservation sector. This reality implies that many of the most effective policy interventions will be extra-sectoral (Wunder,
This meta-analysis shows that IFs face a variety of direct and indirect threats around the world. Successful IF conservation efforts require holistic, place-based, and multi-scale approaches focused on priority IF landscapes. Conservation efforts at the landscape-scale cross jurisdictional borders which creates challenges and opportunities for public-private partnerships (Scarlett and McKinney,
JS devised and directed the project. JS, BD, SW-S, and ML extracted the data and conducted the analysis of the results. JS and KV wrote the article. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
This research was made possible through the research support of Beth Lang, Mary D'Amato, Zach Carnegie, Rachael Fox, Jackie Farenholz, Samson Grunwald, Amanda Rasmussen, Russell Tess, and Sam Scullion. A special thanks to the two reviewers whose hard work and comments significantly improved the original manuscript.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: