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标题：The Influence of Accessibility, Local Institutions, and Socioeconomic Factors on Forest Cover Change in the Mountains of Western Honduras
其他标题：The Influence of Accessibility, Local Institutions, and Socioeconomic Factors on Forest Cover Change in the Mountains of Western Honduras
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作者：Jane Southworth ; Catherine Tucker
期刊名称：Mountain Research and Development
印刷版ISSN：0276-4741
电子版ISSN：1994-7151
出版年度：2001
卷号：21
期号：3
页码：276-283
DOI：10.1659/0276-4741(2001)021[0276:TIOALI]2.0.CO;2
摘要：Tropical deforestation poses a threat to ecological sustainability and socioeconomic development in many parts of the world. Information on forest transformations is especially pertinent in sensitive ecological zones such as mountainous regions, where forest cover protects steep slopes and thin soils from erosion. Such areas are frequently unsuitable for agriculture, but inhabitants may have few alternatives to meet subsistence needs. Understanding the relationship between human behavior and forest change poses a major challenge for development projects, policy makers, and environmental organizations that aim to improve forest management. Knowledge of the areal extent of forest cover and the processes of change represents an integral step, but in many areas of the globe, these processes are still relatively unknown. This study addresses forest cover change in a community in the mountains of western Honduras. Between 1987 and 1996, 9.77 km 2 of land was reforested and only 7.48 km 2 was deforested, as determined by satellite image analysis. This reforestation is related to the current institutional, biophysical, and socioeconomic contexts. Forests remain primarily on steeper slopes, at higher elevations, and at a distance from settlements and roads. A county ban on logging has allowed regrowth of previously logged areas. Agricultural intensification appears related to abandonment of some marginal lands. Processes of privatization have been occurring; private forests reveal higher reforestation and lower deforestation rates than communal forests. Privatization, however, has favored the wealthy. Thus, the majority has had to depend on shrinking communal forests.
关键词：Reforestation; remote sensing; privatization; GIS; land tenure; Honduras