About Sustainable Forest Transitions

The SFT team is studying the changing nature of forest cover and human development at unprecedented scale and detail.

The project is currently working in Mexico, Brazil, India, Nepal, Ghana and Indonesia and is also conducting global-level analyses.

Evidence from these analyses will support the design and evaluation of forest- sector interventions, highlighting feasible options for improving forest cover and human development.

Research approach

The team is combining socioeconomic (e.g., national census) and environmental data (e.g., satellite-based forest data) with state-of-the-art statistical methods to answer three questions:

• What are the effects of reforestation drivers on both forests and rural poverty, and how do these drivers interact?
• How are reforestation drivers affected by socioeconomic, political, and biophysical contexts, both within and between countries?
• Which combinations of reforestation drivers and contexts lead to simultaneous positive forest and rural poverty outcomes?