Does population growth affect wooded-cover dynamics? (original) (raw)
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Impact of Population Growth on Forest Cover: A Case Study of Tawang District of Arunachal Pradesh
Dera Natung Government College Research Journal
The role of population growth on the forest degradation has been much debated worldwide. There is a reciprocal relationship between population growth and forest cover in large. In other words, population growth turns out to be the main cause of deforestation. Deforestation threatens the well-being and livelihoods of millions of people who largely depends on forest resources. Today deforestation is occurring at alarmingly rates, especially in the regions that are experiencing rapid population growth. Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh has a population density of 22 persons per square kilometres which is higher than the state. The district is inhabited by the Monpa tribes who are living in close association to their forest resources and derive their daily requirements like fire woods, timber, medicinal plants, food and fodder for their animal. The fire wood extraction appears to be causing maximum impact on forest degradation as firewood forms the basic source of heating the houses ...
Patterns and Implications of Land Use/Cover Change
Mountain Research and Development, 2002
Crop-livestock mixed settled farming, the primary occupation of the local people in the central and western Himalaya, is dependent on forests to provide most of the livestock feed and forest leaf litter that is mixed with livestock excreta for use as manure . Agricultural expansion at the cost of forest cover is widespread . However, there are reports of tree cover improvement in the recent decades in a few villages . Agriculture-forest-rural economy linkages have not been as comprehensively analyzed as the spatial extent of land use/cover changes. The aim of the present study was to analyze the patterns, causes, and ecological and socioeconomic implications of land use/cover changes during the 1963-1993 period in Pranmati Watershed in the Indian Himalaya.
Population Growth, Technical Change, and Forest Degradation
A newly-assembled data set that combines national household survey data, census data and satellite images of land use in rural India over a 29-year period is used to obtain estimates of economic growth and population effects on forests, to identify the mechanisms by which these factors affect land use, and to address whether forest areas are efficiently managed where community land management is present.
Population-Environment Dynamics in Lahat, South Sumatera, Indonesia
PEOPLE AND THEIR PLANET (MacMillan Press, London / St. Martin's Press, New York), 1999
This study observing the deforestation in the protected forest areas in Pagaralam (formerly part of the Lahat Regency) of South Sumatra Province in Indonesia. The relationship between population and environment in the case of the deforestation in Pagaralam is modeled on pushing and pulling factors between the rural people and the protected forest areas as follows: Some of the pushing factors include population density pressure, village lands scarcity, coffee production cycle, and farmers' materialistic desires. Meanwhile the pulling factors are ecological and geographical advantages (e.g. fertile soil, appropriateness for plantation, mountainous areas), large area of protected forest, and incentive of coffee market. The deterrent factors include forest patrol, forcible operations, farmers' fears of being treated as criminals, and farmers' feeling of guilty for illegally cultivating the protected forest areas. Meanwhile the facilitating factors are inadequate forest preservation, unenforced forestry law (inconsistent legal process), and local government deficiencies (insensitivity of village-level administrators) Note: This article is based on my MA-thesis from the University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology (1993). I presented a summary of my thesis at the Third International Conference of ICSE (International Consortium for the Study of Environmental Security), held at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tuft University (Boston/Medford, Massachusetts, USA) on May 31 - June 4, 1994. My presentation was then published as Chapter 6 in Baudot and Moomaw (editors), People and Their Planet: Searching for Balance, London—New York: MacMillan Press Ltd./St. Martin’s Press Inc. (ISBN: 0-333-68811-2).
Landscape Ecology, 1998
To assess the role of shifting cultivation in the loss of rainforests in Indonesia, we examined the spatial and temporal dynamics of traditional land-use north of Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan. We analyzed the abundance, size, frequency, and stature (by tree size) of discrete management units (patches) as a function of landuse category and distance from the village. Data were gathered from point samples along six 1.5-km transects through the landscape surrounding the Dayak village of Kembera. Most land was managed for rice, with 5% in current production, 12% in wet-rice fallows (regenerating swamp forest), and 62% in dry-rice fallows (regenerating upland forest). The proportion of land in dry-rice increased with distance from the village; rubber gardens (17% of the total area), dominated close to the village. The size of rubber trees declined with distance, reflecting the recent establishment of rubber gardens far from the village. Fruit gardens accounted for only 4% of the area. From interviews in Kembera and three other villages, we estimated rates of primary forest clearing and documented changes in land-use. Most rice fields were cleared from secondary forest fallows. However, 17% of dry-rice fields and 9% of wet-rice fields were cleared from primary forest in 1990, resulting in the loss of approximately 12 ha of primary forest per village. Almost all dry-rice fields cleared from primary forest were immediately converted to rubber gardens, as were 39% of all dry-rice fields cleared from fallows. The rate of primary forest conversion increased dramatically from 1990 to 1995, due not to soil degradation or population growth but rather to changes in the socio-economic and political environment faced by shifting cultivators. Although the loss of primary forest is appreciable under shifting cultivation, the impact is less than that of the major alternative land-uses in the region: timber extraction and oil palm plantations.
Land Use Policy, 2011
Recent land cover change estimates show overall decline of tropical forests at the regional and global scales caused by multiple social, cultural and economic factors. There is an overall concern on the prevailing land use practices, such as shifting cultivation and extraction of forest materials as agents of forests losses, but also new, emerging land uses are threatening tropical forests. Understanding of the long-term development and driving forces of forest changes are needed, especially at local levels where many decisions on forest policies and land uses are made. This paper addresses the importance of such information for improved estimates of forest dynamics by studying local level land cover and land use changes during the last 50-70 years in the Eastern African tropical island of Zanzibar, Tanzania. The paper discusses the role of traditional and new land uses mainly subsistence farming, tourism and government interference through tree planting, in the long-term development of the forests at the village level. The material for the study is gathered from the interpretation of archival maps and aerial photographs combined with contemporary digital aerial photographs. The analyses are based on the mapping, spatial sampling and spatio-temporal change trajectory analysis (LCTA) of forest land cover, forest land uses and settlement patterns with GIS and statistics. Six distinct forest land cover change trajectories were identified and these illustrate dynamic and heterogeneous nature of the forests. Closed forest cover has dominated throughout due to cyclical land use patterns, but over 70% of the land area has been continuously transforming between closed, semi-open and open land cover conditions. Land use turnover rates indicate that hardly any forest areas are left untouched from the forces, which remove and re-establish forest vegetation in the long run. Land cover and land use change trajectories are spatially fragmented in the studied landscape. Majority of forest loss-gain dynamics is caused by shifting cultivation, while forest losses are most dramatic along the coast, where traditional and new land uses meet and land uses pressures are highest. The study suggests that landscape change trajectory analyses, where contemporary and historical information on land uses and land cover changes are spatially linked, can provide valuable aspects into local level forest land use planning and management strategies. For the case study, the findings suggest the following key forest management strategies for consideration: (1) establishment of a protected forest/scrubland in participation with the local stakeholders, especially the farmers, (2) promotion of areas for permanent agricultural practices, while simultaneously introducing management controls in the traditional slash-and-burn farming areas, and (3) promoting new livelihood opportunities for the farmers, who have traditionally been dependent on forest resources, meanwhile introducing alternatives for fuel wood for cooking.
Land Use-Land Cover Changes and Associated Drivers: A Case of Salooni Block of Chamba
Current World Environment/Current world environment, 2024
Land Use-Land Cover (LULC) changes are the anthropogenic alteration of the natural landscape. The LULC changes have been generated by a variety of factors, including natural, demographic, and economic ones, which put pressure on the land and had a variety of environmental effects. The transformation in Landscape is affecting the livelihoods of people in numerous ways. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the patterns in land use in order to determine how land should be developed, managed, and planned in order to understand the way it will be utilised in the future. In the present study, Salooni Block of Chamba district, Himachal Pradesh was subjected to a first-ever attempt at land-use change detection for the years 2002 and 2022. Satellite imageries of Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) were used for landuse maps of 2002 and 2022 respectively. The classification was completed using a supervised classification technique and the USGS Land use Classification Scheme at Level I classes, including Agricultural Land, Barren Land, Built-up, Forest, Pasture Land, Snow Cover and Waterbody. Furthermore, fifty people aged 50 and above were interviewed to understand the local factors responsible for LU/LC change. The result indicates a rise in the forest cover, which now accounts for 48.2% of the total area. Since 2002, there has been a 2.3-fold rise in built-up land, which is a glaring indication of the pressure on land. The total area of agricultural and pasture land is decreasing, while the percentage of barren land has increased by 2%. To preserve the sustainability and food security of the ecologically vulnerable environment, stringent land use planning needs to be enforced in the mountainous region. The results of the LU/LC dynamics discussed above can be used to establish policies and strategies for restoring and enhancing the sustainability of the environment as well as the carrying capacity of the land.
Population, Income and Forest Growth: Management of Village Common Land in India
2003
A newly-assembled data set that combines national household survey data, census data and satellite images of land use in rural India over a 29-year period is used to obtain estimates of economic growth and population effects on forests, to identify the mechanisms by which these factors affect land use, and to address whether forest areas are efficiently managed where community land management is present. The evidence suggests that increases in the returns to alternative uses of land induced by agricultural technical change and population growth, combined with the difficulty of monitoring forest-resource extraction, are the major contributing factors to deforestation. *The research reported in this paper was supported in part by grants NIH HD33563 and NIH HD30907. We are grateful to Nauman Ilias and Joost Delaat for able research assistance and to two anonymous referees and Edward Glaeser for helpful comments. 9 This results depends importantly on the absence of dynamic effects of current forest use on future output over a long time period. The test can be generalized, however, to take into account different assumptions about saving and/or borrowing opportunities by replacing income with household expenditures as long as any uncertainty is resolved prior to the making of decisions. 10 Note that the signs of the income and family size effects on the demand for forest products are not known a priori, and must be estimated. Because firewood, for example, may be considered an inferior fuel, increases in income may result in lower demand for firewood. Similarly, increases in household size may increase or decrease demand depending on the extent to which firewood serves as a public good for household members as well as the price elasticity of demand for that commodity.