Social-ecological impacts on forest conservation and restoration in Pan-tropical Asia Karst

Forest conservation (FC) and forest restoration (FR) are beneficial for alleviating land degradation and increasing ecosystem services, especially in ecologically fragile karst areas. Currently, there was a lack of research exploring the driving mechanisms of FC and FR from a social-ecological perspective, and a comparative study between karst areas (KA) and non-karst areas (NKA) is in great need. Based on the structural equation model, this study explored the characteristics of FC, FR, and regional greening in the Pan-tropical Asia Karst with a special focus on their social-ecological driving mechanism. The results indicated that the proportion of regional greening in KA was 43.65 %, higher than that in NKA (36.23 %). The area of regional greening promoted by FC was 164,557 and 351,688 km² in KA and NKA, while the area promoted by FR was 26,023 and 51,698 km², respectively. Regional greening was mainly driven by forest land in KA, whereas in NKA, greening resulted from both forest land and cropland. Additionally, it was found that in NKA, a negative correlation between rural population change and FC as well as FR, while urbanization showed a positive correlation with FR. 47.40 % of the area achieved simultaneous development of economic growth and regional greening in developing karst areas, while 1.86 % of the area showed the phenomenon of vegetation degradation and economic decrease. Our findings highlighted the social-ecological impacts on FC and FR in Pan-tropical Asia Karst and identified the driving factors that could be targeted for sustainable forest management.