Despite the overall extension of the Amazon basin (approximately 6,000,000),which encompasses such a complex ecosystem and territories belonging to seven different nations, it is worth mentioning that environmental assessment related to changes in land use and land cover (LULC) in this region are often conducted respecting geopolitical boundaries associated with each country or taking into account the so-called Amazon biome. With the purpose of prospecting the intricate and hidden hydrological patterns, we undertake an in-depth evaluation of the water balance along the 2001-2021 time span across the whole basin, whose behavior depends on the features deriving from the metamorphoses in land use and land cover. To accomplish that task, the influence of the components of the water balance, namely rainfall and evapotranspiration, jointly with the terrestrial topographic mapping, are examined to investigate the interactions among the physical mechanisms that make up the hydrological cycle and the corresponding physical hydrological processes triggered by deforestation and reforestation in the region. More specifically, the modeling approach was rigorously designed to also consider, separately or not Negro, Solimões, Madeira, Tapajós and Xingu hydrographic sub-basins, which are the most important ones of the Amazon basin. The results highlight that, in the southern region of the Amazon, specifically within the Madeira river sub-basin, the lowest forest coverage is observed (56.0%), whereas in the northern Negro river sub-basin, the most notable forest coverage is observed (85.0%).The most preserved forest areas, such as the Negro and Solimões river sub-basins, with percentages of 81.9% and 74.2%, respectively, have higher annual rates of precipitation and evapotranspiration over time. On the other hand, regions that suffered the most intense deforestation along the time period studied, such as the Madeira, Tapajós and Xingu sub-basins, have lower annual rates of precipitation and evapotranspiration, with a preservation percentage of 54.6%, 62.6% and 70, 7%, respectively. As the pace of deforestation slowed between 2003 and 2013, annual precipitation rates increased by 12.0%, while evapotranspiration decreased by 2.0%. The hydrological findings of this paper highlight th predominant role of the forest in the context of the global water balance of the Amazon basin and the potential to also produce distinct impacts within different parts of the basin in terms of having more or less rainfall and evaporation. In addition, those variabilities in the hydrological operational components and mechanisms due to changes in land cover and land use also reveals the potential impacts that could be expected in the surrounding areas, closer or farther, notably beyond the limits of the Amazon basin.

Biodiversity has become an issue of global anxiety over the past decades due to its rapid decline worldwide. Bangladesh as one of the most densely populated countries in the world is no more exception. The country, although, was once very rich in biodiversity, during the last few decades as a consequence of the rapid reduction in forest area, urbanisation, habitat modification, unsustainable natural resources use and collection and overall climate change it has decreased alarmingly. Of late, the government, as a signatory of various regional and international conservation treaties, has taken various initiatives to improve country’s dwindling biodiversity. This paper reviews the present situation of biodiversity in Bangladesh, management trends and major causes of biodiversity loss. A separate statutory body is fundamental to ensure conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits arisen from biodiversity in the country.

The COVID-19 pandemic and increased rates of documented Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs) in human populations over the last century have drawn attention on understanding pathogens spill over to humans and their zoonotic origin. In this paper we argue that we need to change the thinking about the fundamental cause of zoonoses. Our premise is that deforestation is the primary cause of EIDs events and that, to prevent future pandemics, it needs to be addressed without further delays. Therefore, we review recent trends of proximate and underlying determinants of deforestation, forest degradation and related biodiversity losses while seeking to clarify their links to the determinants of EIDs events. Acknowledging the magnitude of the challenge, we propose responses to stop global deforestation from a trans-disciplinary, intersectoral perspective led by indigenous people. While we envisage that stopping deforestation is the most important approach with long term direct and indirect effects on human, animal and plants health, providing climate changes mitigation and preventing otherwise difficult to predict EID events, we argue that such an initiative may usefully be complemented by reducing contacts between humans and wildlife animals and regulating rather than banning markets where wild animals are sold alive.Finally, we discuss transformative changes to improve planetary-wide forests preservation, soil, plants, animal, and human protection, together with a further understanding of EIDs transmission dynamics, public health veterinary and human disease surveillance, for improved global collective preparedness and action for the management of zoonotic EIDs.

Kampala is the capital city of Uganda. Over the years the population growth in the city has more than doubled, and this has increased the demand for energy. However, electricity and gas are not only limited in supply but are also expensive for the majority of the households hence the use of charcoal remains the main source of energy. There is little known about the energy situation in big cities of Africa, and Kampala is not an exception. Therefore, we examine the urban nexus amidst energy poverty, vulnerability, and resilience with a focus on; the role of charcoal in the urban Nexus in Kampala Uganda. Literature review and content analysis of scientific materials such as journal articles and reports were done. Charcoal fuel in Kampala and surrounding urban areas does not only facilitate cooking meals and boing water for over 95% of households but also a source of livelihood for many women in the nexus. This process impacts not only on energy use but also the entire water, energy, and food system in the urban nexus. Even though charcoal fuel doubles as a source of household income, it is greatly responsible for most deforestation. Furthermore, charcoal production also accounts for prolonged droughts hence impacting on water and food supply in the nation. Therefore, we propose subsidizing alternatives such as gas and electricity to reduce the complete reliance on charcoal.

Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) can provide a great environment for using machine learning algorithm for spatial data such as satellite images. Integrating this functionality with artificial intelligence algorithms for analyzing spatial data enables us to predict challenging disasters such as deforestation. Deforestation as an environmental problems has been recorded the most serious threat to environmental diversity and one of the main components of land-use change. In this paper, we investigate spatial distribution of deforestation using artificial neural networks and satellite imagery. We modeled deforestation process using various factors in determining the relationship between deforestation and environmental and socioeconomic factors. Hence, for this purpose, the proximity to roads and habitats, fragmentation of the forest, height from sea level, slope, and soil type are considered in the model. In this research, we modeled land cover changes (forests) to predict deforestation using an artificial neural network due to its significant potential for the development of nonlinear complex models. The procedure involves image registration and error correction, image classification, preparing deforestation maps, determining layers, and designing a multi-layer neural network to predict deforestation. The satellite images for this study are of a region in Hong Kong which are captured from 2012 to 2016. The results of the study demonstrate that neural networks approach for predicting deforestation can be utilized and its outcomes show the areas that destroyed during the research period.

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) continue to be a problem all across the world, but in certain areas the threat is greater than in others. The detection of new diseases will aid in the focus of surveillance efforts. Specifically, identifying a "patient zero" is critical step to help limit further transmission. In fact, several factors have been found to contribute to emerging infectious diseases emergence and transmission. Antigenic drift is an important factor that affects vaccine effectiveness and it is important for scientists and healthcare providers alike to understand how this process works in order to ensure that people receive effective vaccinations against infectious diseases. However, recent advances in biotechnology, immunology and artificial intelligence have enabled us to make progress in diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control of infectious diseases. The fight against infectious diseases will always be ongoing, but the advancement of bioscience offers a promising outlook for the near future. In the last two decades, several high impact zoonotic disease outbreaks have been linked to bat-borne viruses. These include SARS coronavirus, Hendra virus and Nipah virus. In addition, it has been suspected that ebolaviruses and MERS coronavirus are also linked to bats. It is being increasingly accepted that bats are potential reservoirs of a large number of known and unknown viruses, many of which could spillover into animal and human populations. In this article, we discuss the potential risk factors that contribute in emerging infectious diseases. Also, we discuss the management of disease prevention and control.

Deforestation and forest degradation mostly caused by human interventions affects the capacity of forest ecosystem to provide ecosystem services and livelihood benefits. Forest Land Restoration (FLR) is an emerging concept which focuses on the improvement of ecosystem as well as livelihood of the people at the landscape level. Nepal has successfully recovered degraded forest land mainly from the hilly region through forest restoration initiatives especially community based forestry. However, the Terai region is still experiencing deforestation and forest degradation. This study navigated the gaps related to forest restoration in the existing policies and practices and revealed that the persistence of deforestation and forest degradation in Terai is a result of a complex socio-economic structure, limitation of government to implement appropriate management modality, unplanned infrastructure, and urban development. We suggest that forest restoration should focus on ecological and social wellbeing pathways at the landscape level, to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation in the Terai regions of Nepal. The study provides a critical insight to the policy makers and practitioners of Nepal and other countries (with similar context) who are engaged in forest/ecosystem restoration enterprise.

Conventional greenhouse accounting inadequately describes land use/land use change and forestry (LULUCF) emissions, cooling emissions, and sequestration potential. As we enter the age of drawdown, we propose an accounting framework that offers greater consistency and transparency. By unfolding net accounting of LULUCF CO2 emissions; aggregating biosphere sinks; accounting for all emissions (heating and cooling); com-paring sectors with emissions-based Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF) rather than global warming potential; and including drawdown potential of land use carbon opportunity cost (COC), this reveals fresh insight into sector contributions and mitigation potential. Consistent gross emissions reporting of LULUCF CO2 emissions finds these to be at least 3.5 times greater than conventionally understood. Consolidating natural sequestration on ‘managed’ and ‘intact’ land, we find that since 1750 vegetation and the oceans have removed from the atmosphere an amount equivalent to 2.4 times cumulative fossil fuel CO2 emissions, demonstrating the immense drawdown potential of the biosphere. This accounting places deforestation (responsible for 77% of LULUCF emissions) as the main source of historic CO2 emissions, and attributes drawdown potential COC to sectors. The most extensive land use sector, animal agriculture, was found to have contributed the greatest warming (52% of net ERF since 1750) and to offer the greatest drawdown potential COC.

Remote sensing/GIS techniques are a versatile tool for x-raying serial forest structural changes in retrospect. It would be impossible to evaluate past occurrences and changes in forest extents in past decades at Effan Forest Reserve without non-conventional means. Therefore, we adopted remote sensing technology using Landsat images to evaluate land-use change and degradation rates in the area with a view to ascertaining causal factors for possible minimization of forest degradation in Effan Forest Reserve. Land-use/land-cover changes were analyzed using USGS-Landsat TM and ETM images of 1987, 2002, 2014 and 2019. Field-data were collected using handheld GPS receiver and spatial statistical analyses were conducted using the ground control points (GCPs). For inventory data, a systematic sampling technique was adopted using ten 1.05 km-transects at 500 m intervals. A total of 50 sample plots of 50 × 50 m were used. All tree species with Dbh ≥10 cm were enumerated. Nineteen tree species in ten families were encountered with Vitellaria paradoxa as the most-frequently occurring species in the area. IUCN-listed endangered Pterocarpus erinaceus, hitherto abundant in the area, was rarely encountered during the survey, while Vitellaria paradoxa is gradually shrinking, going the relative abundance in the area. The result further showed that primary and secondary forests decreased considerably by 258.03 ha (46.72%) and 9.18 ha (3.63%), respectively, with a total forest loss of 50.3% in 32 years (8.4 hayr-1, 1.6% per annum). While forest plantation size doubled by 369.72 ha within the period. This is worrisome as the remaining fragmented forests appeared to be on the decline, except the riparian vegetation, due to inaccessibility to the riparian by loggers. It thus appeared that forest protection approaches were ineffective. Increased protection efforts could save this forest reserve, and the concerned authority should consider a focused-enrichment planting involving indigenous species for ecosystem-repair.

The evaluation of deforestation by optical remote sensing remains a challenge in the humid tropical region due to high cloud cover. This paper develops a simple and reproducible method for mapping deforestation of the old-growth forest using open access software. A map of old-growth forest depletion was created using composites from three different dates (2003, 2010, 2016). Four models were tested: the first model using spectral bands (nir, swir1, swir2 and red), the second model was based on the association of spectral bands and spectral indices (NDVI, B54R, NDWI and NBR), the third model was constructed using spectral bands and geomorphological indices (DEM, Slope and Roughness) and the last model combined spectral bands, spectral indices and geomorphological indices. The optimal random forest ntrees and Mtry parameters were determined for each model to optimize the mapping in each model. The out-of-bag error for these four models was 2.15 %, 2.05 %, 1.86 % and 1.85 %, respectively. The fourth model had the lowest error and was hence used to predict deforestation of the old-growth forest. The annual rates of deforestation amounted 0.26 % (69861 ha) and 0.66 % (145768 ha) between 2003 – 2010 and 2010 – 2016, respectively. The area of the old-growth forest in 2016 was 3601607 ha and 215629 ha of forest lost between 2003 and 2016. These results showed that the Random Forest Classification (RFC) model was able to effectively map the reduction of old-growth forests.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of protected areas is critical for forest conservation policies and priorities. To evaluate their effectiveness, we used 30-m resolution forest cover change data between 1990 and 2010 for ~4,000 protected areas and analyzed the relationships of the effectiveness of protected areas with socio-economic variables. Our results show that protected areas in the Tropics avoided 83,500 ± 21,200 km2 of deforestation during the 2000s. Brazil’s protected areas have the largest amount of avoided deforestation of 50,000 km2. We also show the amount of international aid received by tropical countries compared to the effectiveness of protected areas. International aid had major benefits in Latin America led by Brazil while tropical Asian countries used the resource ineffectively. Our results demonstrate that protected areas have been relatively more efficient in countries where deforestation pressures were increasing, and governance and forest change monitoring capacity are important factors for enhancing the efficacy of international aid.

Like the rest of the globe, Forests in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continue to play a vital role when it comes to food security from the perspective of forest function of climate regulation, water provision, and soil protection. Nevertheless, most of the recent deforestation practices in various countries indicate that the region could face severe food insecurity in the near future since there are already signs of shortage in food production. This study, therefore, examines deforestation, climate change, and food security nexus in SSA while exploring a wide range of examples of food insecurity in the region. Content analysis and a synthetic literature study were conducted using data from scientific data banks. The study links deforestation, climate change to food security while citing examples from various SSA countries such as Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya to mention but a few. More so, the study investigates how deforestation contributes to climate change, and how such change directly affects agricultural output and hence food security. Lastly, the study discusses the various implication of deforestation in relation to food security.

Monitoring the ratio of forested and deforested areas plays a key role in studying the dynamics of forest areas. Appropriate mapping of anthropogenic forest disturbances is particularly important in the context of sustainable forest management. It provides ecological, social and economic information which is crucial for forest policymakers. In the last two decades, the forest areas of the Moldo-Transylvanian Carpathians have been subject to a high rate of deforestation which at present state lacks proper quantification. We present a novel methodology for monitoring the forest disturbance dynamics in Moldo-Transylvanian Carpathians by use of fractal analysis including entropy, Fractal Fragmentation Index (FFI) and Tug-of-War lacunarity (Λ_(T-o-W)). This was necessary to quantify and identify the disorder (entropy), the fragmentation (FFI) and heterogeneity of the spatial distribution (Λ_(T-o-W)) patterns. Based on satellite images of the forest areas (annually 2000-2014), increased fragmentation was demonstrated by FFI increase, a measure of the degree of disorder (entropy) and heterogeneity (lacunarity). Our results revealed that textural and fractal analysis can be an effective tool for the extraction of quantitative information about the spatiotemporal dynamics of forest disturbance. The methods developed, and results obtained are a complementary approach to forest disturbance mapping (based on traditional image classification) for future development and adaptation of forestry management policies to ensure a sustainable management and exploitation of forest areas.

This study inscribes itself in the global discussion about the issue of environmental awareness, beliefs and behaviors. Here we focus on the role that cultural differences and scientific media dieting play in explaining heterogeneities in students' awareness and expectations about the two environmental issues of deforestation and species (plant and animal) extinction in the Middle East and North America. To this end, we use the cross-sectional survey data of the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, along with seemingly unrelated Bi-variate ordered Probit modeling techniques. The results show that compared to their North American Counterparts, students' in the Middle East are 14.2% less aware of, and 14.5% less optimistic about the issue of deforestation, while 38.9% less aware of, and 59.0% less optimistic about the issue of species extinction. In addition, we found that science club attendance and broad science reading in books are the two most effective communication media for raising students awareness about the two environmental issues. In fact, every one level increase in students' awareness is found to raise their optimism by 20.4% for the issue of deforestation, and 15.0% for the issue of plant and animal extinction. Therefore raising young people environmental awareness and optimism through proper communication strategies, could be invaluable for achieving an economic development in line with our need to preserve the natural environment and ecosystem services for generations to come.

The watershed hydrologic conditions in the Madre de Dios (MDD) basin in the Peruvian Amazon have been irreversibly impacted by deforestation and changes in land use cover. These changes have also had detrimental effects on the geomorphology, water quality, and aquatic habitat within the basin. However, there is a scarcity of hydrological modeling studies in this area primarily due to the limited availability of hydrometeorological data. The primary objective of this study was to examine how deforestation impacts the hydrological conditions in the MDD basin. By implementing the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, this study determined that replacing 12% of the evergreen broadleaf forest area with bare land resulted in an significant increase in surface runoff by 38% monthly, a reduction of evapotranspiration by 1% annually, and an average monthly streamflow increase of 12%. Changes in spatial patterns reveal that the primary impacted watershed is the Inambari River subbasin, a significant tributary of the Madre de Dios River. This area experiences an annual average surge of 187% in surface runoff generation while witnessing an annual average reduction of 8% in evapotranspiration.These findings have important implications, as they can contribute to instances of flooding and extreme inundation events, which have already occurred in the MDD region.

The large areas being targeted for tropical forest restoration as part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration will have major consequences for the flow of water through landscapes. Whilst the prevailing mantra that ‘more forest implies less streamflow’ remains true in terms of annual water yields, we demonstrate that opportunities for increased tree cover to improve seasonal flow regimes of streams, particularly baseflows, are important. We discuss several potential positive feedbacks of forest restoration on hydrological processes at various scales, including ‘trade-offs’ between changes in vegetation water use and infiltration after foresting degraded land; the recovery of the capacity of vegetation to capture ‘occult’ precipitation in specific coastal and montane settings; and enhanced moisture recycling and transport at various scales. Modelled changes in baseflow after foresting all degraded land climatically capable of carrying forest in the tropics suggested a positive effect in 10% of the land. For an additional 8%, the effect was predicted to be about neutral (<2 mm/y). We conclude that a more positive narrative regarding the relationship between tropical forestation and water availability is justified. It is time for greater involvement of hydrologists and atmospheric scientists in the development and assessment of forest landscape restoration efforts.

In its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Brazil committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and restoring its forests. This study examines the challenges of fulfilling these commitments in Brazilian Amazonia. We carry out a detailed assessment of the current status of land tenure in the region and its relation to deforestation. After dealing with conflicts and overlaps between data from various sources, we produce a new map of public and private land tenure in Amazonia. Combining this map with Brazil's official data on deforestation, we find out how much natural vegetation has been preserved in each public or private area. The result is used to estimate how much deforestation is illegal. We also establish how much deforestation is associated with each land tenure type. Our results show that most deforestation inside rural properties is done by a few landowners, a finding that has important consequences for law enforcement. We then assess the challenges for reforestation in detail. To do so, we consider how much forest needs to be rehabilitated according to Brazil's Forest Code. Our analysis provides a comprehensive appraisal of the potential opportunity costs for forest restoration in the biome, considering farm size and land use. This analysis provides insights into targeted land use policies that can meet Brazil’s forest restoration goals.

Agricultural expansion is altering the provision of ecosystem services and seriously affecting the well-being of the indigenous communities still living in forests. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of forest loss and degradation on the indigenous forest dependent communities of Eastern Salta, Argentina, between 2001 and 2015. First, we identified the demand area of ten final ecosystem services for 202 indigenous communities using participatory mapping data. Second, we calculated the remaining usage area using a deforestation geodatabase based on Landsat images. Third, we analyzed the significance of trends in forest productivity processing vegetation spectral indices from MODIS products. By last, we detected changes in the growing season length by evaluating monthly trends in spectral indices. Our results show a reduction of 21% in the area used by indigenous communities for capturing final ecosystem services, and significant negative trends in forest productivity for the demand area of 64% of the communities, indicating that the area of use is not only being reduced, but also remnant forest area is being degraded and the growing season is being shortened. These aspects indicate an important loss in the provision of ecosystem services that deeply affects the wellbeing of indigenous communities.

Deforestation brings vast and detrimental impact on the environment, economy, and social aspects of community. Thus, it is important to assess and analyze deforestation to inform the decision maker that oversees issued policy and development strategies. The present study aims to characterize deforestation in Central Kalimantan between 2006 - 2020. Utilized land cover map issued by Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, we analyzed the change in natural forest cover using Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) to find the rate the trend, location, and land cover replacement of deforestation in Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. The research found that during the period Central Kalimantan lost 1.5 million ha of natural forest with the rate of deforestation 117,000 ha/year. In general, the deforestation shown decrease trend and fluctuated during the period. Deforestation majority takes place at secondary swamp and dry forest that are located at south part of the island. Most of deforestation resulted shrubs, plantations, and agriculture land. The finding of this research could be used as a base to determine the target location for rehabilitation strategy and approach to prevent further deforestation.

Deforestation is an important environmental problem in México and a key promoter of regional climate change through modifying the surface albedo. The objective of this research was to characterize the impact of deforestation and land use changes on surface albedo (α) and climate patterns in the Municipality of Tapalpa, Jalisco, México between the years 2014 and 2021. The main land cover types are coniferous forests (CF), oak and gallery woodlands (OGW), and annual agriculture (AA); which represent more than 88% of the regional territory (1066.03 km2). We used 2014 and 2021 Landsat 8 OLI images with topographic and atmospheric correction, in order to develop an inventory of albedo values for each land cover type in both time scenarios. Albedo images were generated by using the equation proposed by Liang in 2001, which is based on the reflectance of the bands 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. Differences in albedo values were calculated between the years 2014 and 2021, and those differences were correlated with variations in climate parameters, for which we used climate data derived from the WRF model. In addition, the different land use changes found were classified in terms of triggers for increasing or decreasing surface albedo. Results showed that between 2014 and 2021, at least 38 events of land use change or deforestation occurred, with albedo increments between 1 and 11%, which triggered an average increment of 0.57% of the regional surface albedo in comparison to 2014 scenario. From 2014 to 2021, the albedo for CF, OGW, and AA, increased significantly (p&lt;0.001; Mann-Whitney U Test) by 79, 12, and 9%, respectively. In addition, the regional albedo increment was found to be significant and negatively correlated (p&lt;0.01 Spearman’s coefficient) with relative humidity (RH), maximum temperature (Tmax), minimum temperature (Tmin), and diurnal thermal range (DTR). The decrease in the regional values of relative humidity in 2021, occurred even when in that year the annual precipitation levels were higher than those of 2014, hence, reinforcing the fact of a possible climatic effect of the regional albedo changes. Conversion of CF and OGW into AA, perennial agriculture (PA), or grassland (GR) always yielded an albedo increment, whilst the conversion of AA to irrigation agriculture or PA triggered a decrease in albedo, and finally, the pass from GR or AA to protected agriculture caused albedo increase or decrease, depending on the greenhouse covers materials. Reducing deforestation of CF and OGW, conversion of AA or GR into PA, and selecting adequate greenhouse covers could help to mitigate regional climate change.

The severity of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak demand from countries to adopt extreme measurements of social isolation to stop the spread and flatten the curve of contamination. Although social isolation measures may have negative impacts on economy, historically it has been showed to be more effective in saving lives and less damaging to economy than not adopting these measurements during a viral pandemic. In Brazil, despite the positioning of the president against social isolation due to the consequent economic recession, the rapid spread of the virus has worried the governors of the Brazilian states, which are thus managing stringent social isolation measurements to avoid the advance of the virus. Since one of the main strategies to guarantee progress and economic growth in Brazil has been the exploitation of natural resources from the Amazonia biome, here we discuss the importance of this biome to Brazilian economy during the post-pandemic recession and highlights potential strategies to burst the economy without promoting Amazonia destruction. We show that, together with the REDD+ and the Amazon Fund, the Forest bonds represents good strategies to burst Brazilian economy in a sustainable way, showing that it is possible to improve the commodities without increasing Amazonia deforestation or the greenhouse gases emissions. Amazonia is a biome of global importance for the avoidance of another global crisis, which will occur if we reach the climatic tipping point of 1.5°C. Thus, governmental actions should go towards its preservation, not exploitation and depletion. The commitment of the government with environmental conservation is paramount so that these economic strategies have positive results, especially in a post-pandemic scenario, where the economy will be extremely weakened. The COVID-19 brings us a lesson regarding how our attitudes can impact the world, and what we can expect from a global crisis. Perhaps we can apply these lessons and focus on change our economy towards a sustainable direction to avoid another global crisis in the years to come.

Leaders are failing to respond to the climate and environmental urgency the world is facing. A growing action gap, clearly visible during the recent CoP25, has been fueled by leaders' inability to respond efficiently to the mounting threats scientists—and increasingly society—are concerned about. Bridging this gap and tackling the growing polarization within society calls for leaders to accept the full complexity of the issues the world is facing. This will require them to question their understanding of these geopolitical affairs and embrace the dynamics at play, and avoid falling back on simplistic cognitive models. We propose a heuristic to convey the pathways available to decision-makers to make their way out of the current inaction impasse. By breaking free of this deadlock, a social transition will have the potential to take place, helping us to avoid crossing the climate system tipping points.

The increase in tobacco production while ameliorating the condition of the participant households has caused challenges to stakeholders particularly those in the governance of forest resources upon which the sector is hinged. Massive deforestation has proceeded at an alarmingly high level, in a way that threatens the long term viability of the tobacco sector and sustainability of natural forest resources. The entrance of previously disadvantaged majority into the once minority-dominated tobacco sector (and economy) in a quest to improving their livelihoods, is driving forest landscape changes that pose inherent environmental challenges including climate change. This article adopts institutional and landscape approaches to explore and explain the drivers, nexus and implications of smallholder tobacco as a livelihood strategy to the forest landscape changes and the subsequent imperative for governance of the sustainable utilization of forest resources in Zimbabwe. Drawing on documentary evidence the paper concludes that this situation poses a dilemma to forest and livelihood policies, hence the need to examine new institutional and livelihood initiatives.

The flora and vegetation of oceanic islands have been deeply affected by human settlement and further landscape modifications during prehistoric and historical times. The study of these transformations is of interest not only for understanding how current island biotas and ecological communities have been shaped but also for informing biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. This paper compares two oceanic insular entities of disparate geographical, environmental, biological, historical and cultural characteristics – Rapa Nui (Pacific Ocean) and the Azores Islands (Atlantic Ocean) – in terms of human settlement and further landscape anthropization. The similarities and differences between these islands/archipelagos are discussed considering their permanent colonization, the possibility of earlier settlements, the removal of the original forests and the further landscape transformations leading to either full floristic/vegetational degradation (Rapa Nui) or major replacement (Azores). This comparison uses evidence from varied disciplines, notably paleoecology, archaeology, anthropology and history, to obtain a holistic view of the development of the respective socioeconomic systems from a human ecodynamic perspective. The most relevant issues still to be resolved are identified and some prospects for future research are suggested. The cases of Rapa Nui and Azores Islands may help set a conceptual basis for ocean-wide global comparisons among oceanic islands/archipelagos.

The long-term resilience of Pyrenean forests in the face of historical anthropogenic clearing remains largely unknown. The palynological study of the varved sediments from a mid-elevation (1027 m) karstic lake provides a high-resolution record of three major century-scale deforestation/recovery (DR) cycles that occurred in the last two millennia, during Roman, Medieval and Modern times. Each DR cycle is characterized considering three different levels: overall forest trends, by forest type and by individual taxa. Overall, the studied forests exhibited high resilience, as they recovered almost completely after each deforestation event (bulk resilience). The critical point of no return (tipping point) beyond which forests would have irreversibly disappeared from the region was never reached, even after deforestation magnitudes above 60%. The different forest types identified (conifer, sclerophyll and deciduous) persisted over time, showing similar heterogeneous patterns with minor spatial reorganizations (mosaic resilience). Individually, the main forest taxa underwent minor variations in their relative abundances, always within the same attraction domains (community resilience). The high levels of resilience documented in these Pyrenean forests are attributed to the action of metapopulation and metacommunity processes and mechanisms in a highly dynamic patchy environment. Conservation actions should be focused on the maintenance of these spatial patterns and the associated ecological dynamics.

Uganda possesses natural rainforests that serve enormous environmental ecosystems and biodiversity services. Moreover, the country is known for its various tropical rainforest hardwoods, birds, and animal species. Over the years, the trend in the natural forest land has declined at an alarming rate; hence need to investigate the possible drivers. The loss of such biodiversity and ecosystems risks desertification and extreme climatic condition. As the world moves towards Zero Deforestation 2030, understanding the determinants of deforestation and forest degradation is paramount. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to understand the impact and relationships between net forest conversion, energy emission, agriculture, and forest production of Roundwood. We used data from FAO for the period 2004-2016. Using the ADF and KPSS test, we checked for the unit root presence in the variables. Also, the study used two different regression models: multiple linear regression and dynamic linear model. To analyze the determinants of deforestation, we used net forest conversion in Uganda. There was 94 % variation in the dependent variable (Net Forest conversion). The outcome of the dynamic linear regression showed that agriculture and energy emission positively impact net forest conversion. Based on our findings, this study recommended the modernization of agriculture by the government of Uganda to stop cutting down the forests on a big scale. Also, the study suggested that the government strictly legislate Roundwood and wood fuels/charcoal and firewood to reduce huge dependency on forests toward Zero-Deforestation by 2030. If well-structured and implemented, government policies could solve the unnecessary over dependency on the rainforest, the heart of the region's climatic conditions.

This paper compares the Medieval (ca. 400–1500 CE) dynamics of forests from low-mountain (Montcortès; ca. 1000 m a.s.l.) and high-mountain (Sant Maurici; 1900 m a.s.l.) areas of the Iberian Pyrenees, both of which experienced similar climatic forcing but different anthropogenic pressures. The main aim is to identify forest changes over time and associate them with the corresponding climatic and anthropogenic drivers (or synergies among them) to test how different forests at different elevations respond to external forcings. This could be useful to evaluate the hypothesis of general Pyrenean deforestation during the Middle Ages leading to present-day landscapes and to improve the background for forest conservation. The study uses palynological analysis of lake sediments, historical documents and paleoecological reconstructions based on pollen-independent proxies. The two sites studied showed different forest trajectories. The Montcortès area was subjected to intense human pressure during regional deforestation up to a maximum of ca. 1000 CE. Further forest recovery took place until the end of the Middle Ages due to a change in forest management, including the abandonment of slash-and-burn practices. Climatic shifts indirectly influenced forest trends by regulating human migrations and the resulting shifts in the type and intensity of forest exploitation. The highland Sant Maurici forests exhibited a remarkably long-standing constancy and an exceptional resilience to climatic shifts, which were unable to affect forest extension and composition, and to local human pressure, from which they rapidly recovered. The Montcortès and Sant Maurici records did not follow the rule of an irreversible forest clearing during the Middle Ages leading to present-day landscapes. The present Montcortès landscape was shaped after a Medieval forest recovery, a new Modern-Age deforestation and a further forest recovery during the last centuries. The Sant Maurici forests remained apparently untouched since the Bronze Age and were never cleared during the Middle Ages. The relevance of these findings for forest conservation is briefly addressed, and the need for the development of more high-resolution studies on Pyrenean forest dynamics is highlighted.

The Ituri-Epulu-Aru landscape (IEAL) is experiencing deforestation and forest degradation. This deforestation is at the root of many environmental disturbances in a region characterized by endemism in biodiversity. This article focuses on the triangulation of spatialized prospective scenarios in order to identify future trajectories based on the knowledge of historical dynamics through the diachronic analysis of three satellite images (2003-2010-2014-2016). The scenarios were de-signed in a supervised model implemented in the DINAMICA EGO platform. The three scenarios Business-As-Usual (BAU), Rapid Economic Growth (REG) and Sustainable Management of the Environment (SME), extrapolating current trends, show that by 2061 this landscape will always be dominated forests (+ 84%). Old-growth forests occupy 74.2% of the landscape area in the BAU scenario, 81.4% in the SEM scenario and 61.2% in the REG scenario. The SEM scenario gives hope that restoration and preservation of biodiversity priority habitats is still possible if policy makers become aware of it.

Accurate forest reference and emission level (FRL, FREL) with related policies and regulations are the key determinants in establishing sustainable forest ecosystem management programmes (e.g. REDD+). This fundamental is for promoting and sustaining climate smart agricultural practices in a changing climate. With the aim to deliver better knowledge to the scientific community and policy makers on regulations and existing tools for more rigorous scientific communication when it comes to FRL and FREL accountability and policies. Thus, this review investigates forest in the changing climate and policies and underlines the performance of land use transition and intensity analysis towards deforestation with some key examples and achievements (e.g. Togo). Simply put, (i) forest as break of greenhouse gas (GHGs) and ecosystem regulator, (ii) policies and REDD+ actions, (iii) potential drivers and (iv) transition and intensity analysis approach for their accountability are discussed. In sum, impressive studies, policies and regulations are under initiations and implementations regarding the role, place and evaluation of forest losses and its ecosystem functions and services. However, there are still some gaps when it comes to: the choice of the evaluation methods in the real context of a specific ecosystem as well as the firm implementations of formulating policies in developing countries. This paper concludes with some policy measures for forest sustainability, carbon enhancement and accountability.

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) deforestation has traditionally been viewed as a single event, synchronous in time and space across the island and caused by Polynesian settlers. However, recent studies have challenged this idea introducing the concept of spatio-temporal heterogeneity and suggesting a role for climate change. This paper presents a continuous paleovegetation record of the last millennium (~960 to ~1710 CE), based on palynological analysis of a peat core from Lake Kao. During this time interval, deforestation was gradual, with three main pulses at ~1070 CE, ~1410 CE and ~1600 CE, likely driven by drought, anthropogenic practices (mostly fire) or the coupling of both. Some forest regeneration trends have been documented after the first and the second deforestation pulses. Forests were totally removed by 1600 CE, coinciding with the full permanent human settlement of the Kao area. Comparison with other continuous palynological records available for the last millennium (Aroi marsh and Lake Raraku), confirms that forest clearing was heterogeneous in time and space, rather than synchronous island-wide.

Avocado (Persea americana Mill.) plant fruits are well-known for their high nutritional value, unique test, and healthy oil. It has a history of about 10,000 years. Avocado fruit offers many health benefits, and its production is rapidly increasing. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s recent data suggest that the Avocados produced in the world in 2019 was twice that of 2010 (3778010 tons). Avocado’s global Gross Production Value was about 5.812 billion USD in 2018, and it is likely to increase rapidly because of the increasing demand for Avocado fruits. Avocado oil is also used in the cosmetic industry because of its therapeutic properties, and it boosts the economic value of the Avocado industry. Avocado fruits have a rough green-gold skin; however, fruits are called ‘the green gold’ because of their massive global demand in the worldwide market and a lucrative business. The cultivation of Avocado has tremendous potential in increasing the rural economy, rural agriculture-based employment and reducing the poverty rate of growers. On the other hand, the Avocado industry is highly criticised because of deforestation, massive water utilisation, polluting water bodies with insecticides and fertilisers, posing a threat to other plant species, and environmental pollution. However, it doesn’t preclude the importance of Avocado. Cameroon’s average temperature is about 23 °C, which is considered optimal for Avocado propagation and commercial cultivation. Cameroon Association of Active Youths (CAMAAY) want to explore the possibilities of engaging Cameroon youths in Avocado cultivation. This review is aimed to provide an overview of Avocado. The review also highlights Avocado cultivation related issues from one health and sustainability perspective in line with the global goals.

Machine Learning can be used for social good. In this paper, we discuss how it can be used to combat climate change and facilitate land management and farming in developing countries and in particular in Côte d’Ivoire. This paper explores models that improve land and water management and agricultural farming cultivation to contrast climate change. Côte d’Ivoire is the largest producer of cocoa beans (43%) in the world, but deforestation, lack of rainfall, drought, and climate change threaten crops and the already fragile economy of Ivorian farmers. It is important to combat climate change with methods and techniques that are affordable to the local farmers and also induce positive effects in production. We discuss the use of low-cost sensors to collect data on the soil and open data and open source software to develop AI tools. We show that using deep neural networks (YOLOv5m) is effective for detecting healthy plants and pods of cocoa from damaged ones only using mobile phone images. Focusing on a single land is not enough to combat climate change, which has different causes and involves also knowledge at a higher scale. We propose a new method of forecasting for the analysis of remote sensors. Remote sensor data come from GRACE NASA Mission and ERA5 produced by the Copernicus Climate Change Service at ECMWF. We implement a new deep neural network architecture named CIWA-net. It is based on a Fully Convolutional Neural Network (FCN) [ 1] and it is a U-net like architecture [2]. The aim of CIWA-net is to forecast Total Water Storage Anomalies (TWSA). We show the quality of our model with a comparison to a vanilla Convolutional Neural Network. CIWA-net could be used also for the detection of lands that interfere with agricultural work and yields, such as deserted areas, water-soaking soil areas, zones at risk of desertification, and poor land use. The employment of AI at the service of agriculture can decrease crop losses and waste, lower the inputs onto the soil of fertilizers, responsible for the increase of Greenhouse Gases. It could be useful to help the small farmers (at a local scale) and also the policy-makers and farmers’ cooperatives (at the regional scale) to take valid and coordinated countermeasures to improve the correct use of the lands, helping to contrast and adapt to climate change.