Forest visitation and utilisation along agricultural intensification gradients

Stephanie Tomscha¹Ronju Ahammad^2*Frédéric Baudron³Ian M S Eddy⁴Maya Fromstein⁴Sarah Elizabeth Gergel⁴Rabdo Abdoulaye⁵Stella Asaha⁶Jean-Yves Duriaux-Chavarría⁷Samson Foli⁸Davison Gumbo⁹Kondwani Y. Mumba¹⁰Laurio Leonald¹¹Dominic Samuel Rowland¹²Josh van Vianen¹³Terry Sunderland⁴

• ¹Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
• ²Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia
• ³CIRAD, Paris, France
• ⁴The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
• ⁵Akvo Foundation, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
• ⁶Forests, Resources and People, Limbe, Cameroon
• ⁷Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
• ⁸Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands
• ⁹SNV, The Hague, Netherlands
• ¹⁰Center for International Forestry Research, Lusaka, Zambia
• ¹¹Independent Consultant, Bogor, Indonesia
• ¹²SOAS University of London Centre for Development Environment and Policy, London, United Kingdom
• ¹³Sustainability Tech, Bali, Indonesia

Forests support crucial ecosystem services globally, and contribute to the livelihoods of millions of people, but are threatened by agricultural expansion and intensification. Yet the relationship between forest cover and agricultural intensification, and how it mediates people's access to and use of resources has been seldom studied globally. Using remote sensing imagery and household surveys, we analysed the effects of forest cover change on forest access (visitation) and household use of resources along a gradient from lower to higher land use intensification across seven tropical landscapes in low and middle income countries. We find that increased agricultural intensification lowered forest visitation in the high intensification zone compared to the low to medium intensification zones. Forest types and changes, such as stable forests, forest gains and edge density, positively impact household use of forest-sourced food and construction materials and visitation, highlighting the importance of sustainable forest management. Our results complement the evidence of forest cover change by looking at agricultural intensification zones, which reveal the site-specific trends of forest types, ownership and household demand for ecosystem services. We recommend integrated landscape approaches with context and site-specific solutions to address the variability of forest types and multiple management goals that can be achieved with agricultural production and equitable access to provisioning goods and services in complex multi-functional landscapes.