Fire and timber harvesting can diminish the extent of older forests in the near term. The amount and configuration of mature and regenerating forest in the landscape (landscape structure) influences habitat suitability for mature-forest-associated species. We applied spatial analysis to describe the landscape structure of three wet eucalypt forest landscapes in south–eastern Australia and used the results from empirical biodiversity studies to frame interpretation of possible impacts on habitat suitability.

Reducing uncertainty in forest carbon estimates at local and regional scales has become increasingly important due to the centrality of the terrestrial carbon cycle in issues of climate change. In Victoria, Australia, public natural forests extend over 7.2 M ha and constitute a significant and important carbon stock. Recently, a wide range of approaches to estimate carbon stocks within these forests have been developed and applied. However, there are a number of data and estimation limitations associated with these studies.

In addition to being a global strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from tropical deforestation, Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) intends to protect and improve the well-being and income of local stakeholders. The intention is to provide livelihood support in exchange for local stakeholder involvement in protecting forests.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is proposed as a necessity, as the agricultural sector will need to adapt to resist future climatic change, to which high emissions from the sector contribute significantly. This study, which is an exploratory case study based on qualitative interviews and field observations, investigates the barriers to making a CSA-adjustment in maize production among Maya communities in southern Belize.

Co-management has been introduced into Special Use Forests (SUFs) of Vietnam for more than 10 years. However, the extent to which Vietnamese laws and policies support co-management remains unclear. This paper reviews existing policies and laws from the national to commune levels and assesses their facilitation of co-management in SUFs. The review demonstrates there is support for co-management, albeit scattered and uncoordinated across a range of policies and laws. Modifications to policy on ownership and use rights would support the development of SUF co-management.

Mexico has had a non-state forest certification system under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) since it was initiated in 1993, and developed a new state-sponsored Mexican Forest Certification System (MFCS) that began in 2008. Several analyses have been made of FSC forest certification in Mexico, but none have summarized the new MFCS system or compared its standards with FSC. We compare the implementation of the non-state FSC market forest certification with the state-sponsored MFCS system in Mexico, and review literature on forest certification, focusing on all studies in Mexico.

This study presents for the first time in Venezuela a joint analysis of deforestation and forest degradation processes, including its effects on carbon emissions. The Caparo Forest Reserve, located in the Western Plains ecoregion, in one of the national hot spots of deforestation, served as a case study using three different periods: 1990–2000, 2000–2010 and 2010–2015.

This paper provides an overview of China’s climate mitigation policy related to the forestry sector, with a special focus on the development of carbon forests which are established to mitigate climate change. A total of 3.5 million ha of carbon forest were planted in the past decade. In recent years, the number of Voluntary Emission Reduction forest carbon projects has increased rapidly.

Areas of land abandonment and agriculture expansion usually differ in location and associated environmental characteristics; thus, land-use redistribution affects the provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. In a subtropical region undergoing land redistribution patterns characteristic of Latin America, we estimated 20-year changes in food production, above-ground carbon stocks and soil erosion due to land cover change, and the potential effects of such redistribution of forests on the diversity of birds and mammals.

Land change modeling has become increasingly important in evaluating the unique driving factors and proximate causes that underlie a particular geographical location. In this article, a binary logistic regression analysis was employed to identify the factors influencing deforestation and simultaneous plantation driven reforestation in Bannerghatta National Park, located at the periphery of one of the fastest growing cities in India, i.e., Bangalore.

Academic research on smallholders’ forestland-use decisions is regularly addressed in different streams of literature using different theoretical constructs that are independently incomplete. In this article, we propose a theoretical construct for modelling smallholders’ forestland-use decisions intended to serve in the guidance and operationalization of future models for quantitative analysis.

The REDD+ program provides a mechanism for providing financial rewards to forest owners and users who contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. This paper determines the potential impact of the REDD+ program on poverty reduction by comparing income and poverty rate between two household groups that were willing to participate in this study, but that will not participate in the REDD+. The results showed that carbon payment from forests is a significant contributor to the increase in household income of poor people.