Forest Cover Dynamics and Forest Transitions in Mexico and Central America: Towards a “Great Restoration”?

Abstract

À obtenir lorsqu'il paraîtra, en 2010 A lire This chapter suggests a tripartite framework of forest dynamics that departs from standard approaches to provide explanations for reforestation and other forms of land cover change. The authors draw on hierarchy theory from landscape ecology, notions of adaptive cycles and panarchy from recent thought about complex systems and resilience, and the concept of heterarchy as heuristics for under-standing multi-scale causation behind secondary growth. Hierarchy theory pays particular attention to the scale on which specific processes operate, reconciles many theoretical perspectives by noting the distinct scales on which their favored explanations operate, and allows identification of complex causal pathways to nar-rate indirect and direct causes of forest recovery. Adaptive cycles provides a means of accounting for both fast and slow operations in the agents behind land cover change, and panarchy reveals asynchronies in slow-fast operations that re-sult in short-, medium- and long-term forest cover dynamics. Heterarchy refers to hierarchical as well as non-hierarchical causation, including reorganization of the causal chains influencing land cover, such that certain explanations may become especially important at some moments and not others. A tri-partite framework that incorporates these three components can explain why different mechanisms can best account for secondary growth in different contexts, and provides a basis for incorporating different explanations, comparisons across cases, and recognition of changes in causation over time.