drivers

The type of agriculture practiced around a forest area, type of land users and the long-term agricultural drivers of land use change should inform an effective REDD design.

Forests are recovering in Vietnam, but much of the country’s deforestation is simply being displaced to nearby nations instead, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by P. Meyfroidt and E.F. Lambin In some countries across the globe, tropical forest cover is increasing. The national-scale reforestation of Vietnam since 1992 is assumed to contribute to this recovery. It is achieved, however, by the displacement of forest extraction to other countries on the order of 49 (34–70) M m³, or ≈39% of the regrowth of Vietnam's forests from 1987 to 2006.

Fire is a worldwide phenomenon that appears in the geological record soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants. Fire influences global ecosystem patterns and processes, including vegetation distribution and structure, the carbon cycle, and climate. Although humans and fire have always coexisted, our capacity to manage fire remains imperfect and may become more difficult in the future as climate change alters fire regimes. This risk is difficult to assess, however, because fires are still poorly represented in global models.

In an interview with BBC, Dr William Laurance of the Smithsonian institute, addresses the question of whether tropical forests were recovering due to urbanization. He points to large-scale industrial interests as the main drivers of deforestation, rather than small farmers:

While few dispute that urbanisation is occurring, it may not lead to much forest recovery. ...large-scale corporations - industrial logging, agribusiness, biofuels, and oil and gas industries - and globalisation are increasingly causing more forests to be lost. Indeed, a single bulldozer can clear as much for