Multiple drivers and pathways to China's forest transition

Forest transition theory proposes pathways that countries might follow to experience forest recovery, but countries currently undergoing forest transition do so in a global context fundamentally different from what it was just 50 years ago. Our study analyzes China's ongoing forest transition to extend forest transition theory in three ways. First, we analyze province-level outcomes to disentangle the multiple pathways through which forest transition occurs at the national level. Analysis of diverse drivers and outcomes at the provincial level is an important step toward revealing micro-level causal explanations of forest transition. Second, we investigate specific drivers of the forest transition operating across space and time. Specifically, mechanisms that operated across provinces within China were examined in addition to international factors using appropriate econometric methods. Third, we analyze changes in area, density, and volume of forests to represent different dimensions of forest recovery. The results show that environmental concerns and public investments in forest improvement were important determinants of increased forest area. Increase in forest volume was associated with a complex chain of factors involving China's shift to an export-oriented economy, labor out-migration, and the related reduction in forest dependence for livelihoods.