Subject:  THE FOREST TRANSITION

A long-term viewpoint is useful in understanding past and
likely future trends in deforestation. While forests are
disappearing rapidly in much of the developing world, those
in most industrialized countries have stabilized or even
begun expanding. This shift from shrinking to expanding
forests is often referred to as the forest transition
(Mather 1992), and the way it has proceeded in developed
countries may shed some light on the likely direction of
forest area change in less developed ones.

In the developed world population growth has been an
influential factor in the forest transition. For example,
the ancient forests of Europe once covered most of the
continent. But they were thinned out and eventually
disappeared over the last millenium as the success of
agriculture fueled population growth and the growing demand
for timber, fuelwood and cleared land for crops and grazing
animals. Centuries of degradation from soil erosion and
over-harvesting transformed huge areas of forest into
rangelands dotted by shrubs and bushes. By the late 17th
century, less than 10 percent of England remained forested
(Morin et al 1996). The United States followed a similar
pattern, with cropland expanding in line with population
growth well into the 20th century.

These sustained and often steep declines in forest cover
were followed by a period of stabilization and then a
gradual increase in forest size. Biologists and
conservationists accurately point out that the new forests
differ from the ancient ecosystems they replace, even though
in some respects--from economic value to protection of soils
and watersheds--the new secondary forests play similar roles
to the original primary ones. In England, the switch to coal
as the Industrial Revolution's fuel of choice greatly
reduced the demand for wood, though by that time most of the
country's forest cover had already been cleared. In the
United States, improvements in agricultural technology
enabled farmers to grow more food on less land, reducing the
need for additional forest clearing.

The transition can also relate to the kinds of forests being
used. Over time, Europe and North America have shifted from
cutting down their old-growth forests to supplying more and
more of their wood needs from plantations, while reserving
the remaining natural forests for conservation. The
traditional "cut-and-run" or "mining" approach to forests
has begun to shift to an emphasis on sustainability and on
ecosystem services, not just commodities. These kinds of
qualitative changes in forest management can be critical to
the success of the transition in ecological terms.

The forest transition occurred at different times and to
differing degrees in England and the United States, but they
shared common factors: dramatic slowing of once-rapid
population growth, revolutions in agricultural technology,
and falling demand for forest products, notably woodfuel.
Today's developing countries are experiencing the pattern of
rising populations and shrinking forests characteristic of
the early phase of the forest transition.

However, the populations of these countries at the end of
the 20th century are much larger than those of Europe and
North America when those transitions occurred decades ago.
It is still early to be confident that developing countries
will be able to complete this transition while escaping
permanent ecosystem damage at the local and possibly global
levels. Ongoing declines in fertility rates in these
countries could hasten the transition, reducing the risk of
ecological disruption and increasing the possibility that
the forests of the tropics will some day begin to expand.

POPULATION CHANGE: A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY

The global trend towards smaller families represents one of
the most hopeful signs for the preservation of the world's
remaining forests. Declining birthrates--the product of
changing ideals about family size and improved access to
family planning services--are slowing population growth
faster than demographers expected only a few years ago. If
governments take action today to make reproductive health
care more widely available and to improve educational and
economic opportunities for girls and women, world population
may peak before the middle of the 21st century and then
decrease modestly. Such a trend would be among the most
positive forces affecting the transition to truly
sustainable development.

Although the United Nations has revised downward its
projections of future population growth, an actual decline
in world population is unlikely any time soon for several
reasons. First, rather than being at the end of the historic
rise in human numbers often referred to as the "population
explosion," we are actually just past the halfway point to
projected population stabilization. The global decline in
fertility from roughly six to less than three births per
woman still leaves fertility above the two-child replacement
fertility level required for population to eventually reach
relative stability in the absence of migration.

In addition, the high fertility levels of the recent past
have produced the largest generation in history of women
about to enter their childbearing years (Bongaarts 1998).
Moreover, death rates overall remain at historic lows. As a
result, births will exceed deaths for the foreseeable future
even if couples have only two children, causing population
to grow well into the next century. This phenomenon is the
result of population momentum, the tendency of a population
to continue past growth trends for some time after fertility
changes occur, simply because today's reproducing generation
is the product of fertility rates of several decades ago.
The UN Population Fund estimates that raising the age at
which mothers have their first child from 18 to 23 would
reduce by over 40 percent the impact of population momentum
on future population growth (UNFPA 1998).

Lower rates of population growth will improve the future per
capita availability of forest resources at the national and
global levels. The trend towards below-replacement fertility
in many developed countries, where consumption levels are
highest, could reduce the amount of industrial logging as
the demand for wood declines. In developing regions,
increases in girls' education and family planning services
can hasten the transition from natural resource-based
economies to those based on human capital. These types of
social investments reduce pressure on natural resources not
only by directly improving human welfare and productivity,
but also by slowing population growth as women postpone and
limit childbearing to pursue economic opportunities.
Strengthening international support for these programs and
policies can help transform the demographic bulge in
developing countries into a demographic bonus that will
greatly enhance the prospects of current and future
generations.

By understanding that sound population policy is founded on
social investments and human rights, we can consider how
population and forestry policy can work together to
stabilize or even increase the availability of trees and
forests for each human being. With the emerging possibility
that world population will peak before the middle of the
next century, the future of the world's forests appears at
least a bit brighter than before.

MESSAGES FOR POLICYMAKERS AND THE MEDIA

-- The world's forests provide a wide array of economically
important goods, such as housing materials, furniture and
paper. Furthermore, the "ecosystem services" they perform--
for free--sustain millions of plants and animal species,
maintain air and water quality on which human life and
health depend, help regulate climate, and counter global
warming.

-- The loss and degradation of forests is most severe in
developing countries, where more than 95 percent of the
world's annual population growth of about 78 million people
occurs.

-- In less than four decades, the forest-to-people-ratio--
that is, the area of forest available to each person to
supply the broad array of goods and services that forests
provide--has fallen by more than 50 percent, from a global
average of 1.2 hectares in 1960 to 0.6 hectares in 1995.
More than 1.7 billion people live in 40 nations with a
scarcity of forest resources.

-- Different kinds of forests satisfy different needs.
Plantations can produce large amounts of wood or paper, but
they cannot substitute for natural forests in protecting
biodiversity.

-- Population-related pressure on forests is greatest in
countries where the existing area of forest cover per capita
is low. Increasing rural populations in developing countries
rely heavily on forests for their daily subsistence needs in
the form of fuel, fodder, timber, and farmland.

-- Each American consumes 15 times as much industrial
roundwood as the average person living in a developing
country.

-- Lasting solutions to the loss of the world's forests must
address both population and consumption levels. The global
trend towards smaller families represents one of the most
hopeful signs for the preservation of the world's remaining
forests.

-- Lower rates of population growth will improve the future
per capita availability of forest resources at the national
and global levels.

-- By understanding that sound population policy is founded
on social investments and human rights, we can consider how
population and forestry policy can work together to
stabilize or even increase the availability of trees and
forests for each human being.

-- The United States made a commitment at the United Nations
Population Conference in Cairo in 1994 to support
international family planning efforts. The United States
should re-establish a leadership role in family planning
funding and set an example for both donor and recipient
countries.

[This information update is based primarily on Population
Action International's 1999 report "Forest Futures:
Population, Consumption and Wood Resources" by Tom Gardner-
Outlaw and Robert Engelman. To order the full text of this
report, please visit the PAI website at
http://www.populationaction.org . Doug Boucher summarized
and supplemented the information. Fred Meyerson, Peter
Frumhoff, Nancy Cole, and Katie Mogelgaard provided review
and comments.]

SOURCES

Bongaarts, John, "Demographic Consequences of Declining
Fertility," Science (16 October 1998): 419-420.

Brooks, David, "Demand for Wood and Forest Products:
Macroeconomic and Management Issues," in Proceedings of the
XI World Forestry Congress (Antalys, Turkey: Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1997).

Brown, Sandra, Estimating Biomass and Biomass Change of
Tropical Forests: A Primer, FAO Forestry Paper 134 (Rome:
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
1997).

Brown, Katrina and David Pearce, ed., The Causes of Tropical
Deforestation: The Economic and Statistical Analysis of
Factors Giving Rise to the Loss of Tropical Forests
(Vancouver, UBC Press, 1994).

Brunner, Jake, Kirk Talbott, and Chantal Elkin, Logging
Burma's Frontier Forests: Resources and the Regime
(Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 1998).

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
FAOSTAT Statistics Database on CD-ROM (Rome: Food and
Agriculture Organization, 1998).

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
State of the World's Forests, 1997 (Rome: Food and
Agriculture Organization, 1997).

Mather, Alexander, "The Forest Transition," Area 24, no. 4
(1992): 367-379.

Mather, Alexander, J. Fairbairn, and C. L. Needle, "The
Human Drivers of Global Land Cover Change: The Case of
Forests," Hydrological Processes 12, no. 13-14 (1998).

May, Robert M, "How many species?" Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 330
(1990): 293-204.

Morin, G.-A. et al, Long-Term Historical Changes in the
Forest Resource, Geneva Timber and Forest Study Papers, no.
10 (Geneva: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe,
1996).

Radka, Mark, Policy and Institutional Aspects of the
Sustainable Paper Cycle: An Asian Perspective (United
Nations Environment Programme, Regional Office for Asia and
the Pacific, 1994).

Saxena, Ashok, Jagdish Nautiyal, and David Foot,
"Understanding the Role of Population in Deforestation,"
Journal of Sustainable Forestry 7, no. 1-2 (1998): 57-107.

Solberg, Birger, ed., "Long-Term Trends and Prospects," in
World Supply and Demand for Wood and Implications for
Sustainable Forest Management, European Forest Institute
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United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), The State of World
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ADDITIONAL SUGGESTED READING

Costanza, Robert et al., "The Value of the World's Ecosystem
Services and Natural Capital," Nature, May 15, 1997, 253-
260.

Vandermeer, John and Ivette Perfecto, Breakfast of
Biodiversity: The Truth About Rain Forest Destruction. (Food
First Books, 1995).

Westoby, Jack, Introduction to World Forestry: People and
Their Trees. (Blackwell Publishers, 1989).