The forest restoration frontier.

Forest restoration has resulted in approximately 300 million ha of restored forests until today. During the second decade of the twenty-first century several international initiatives have sprung up which aim to add 350 million ha of restored forest by 2030. The paper reviews the development of the forest restoration frontier. It tracks trends of the increase of restored forests, emphasizing developments since the second half of the last century. It equally reviews past and ongoing policies, programs, and projects to restore forests. Available data show how the area of restored forests has progressively increased since the 1960s. There are three major objectives to restoring forest: (1) to produce forest products (timber and other products) or spaces for recreation, (2) to produce regulatory ecosystem services (sequestered carbon, erosion control) and (3) to achieve improvement of rural livelihoods. The emphasis on each of these objectives has changed over time and each objective implied different policies and arrangements, involvement of actors and use of technology and know-how. The large international programs and projects since the beginning of the twenty-first century promote forest restoration for biodiversity conservation, regulatory ecosystem services and improving wellbeing of resident populations. Some of the findings related to the development of the forest restoration frontier since the mid-twentieth century suggest that some of the ambitious goals may be unrealistic and result in unwanted outcomes.

Prediction of Epidemic Spread of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Driven by Spring Festival Transportation in China: A Population-Based Study.

After the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, we estimated the distribution and scale of more than 5 million migrants residing in Wuhan after they returned to their hometown communities in Hubei Province or other provinces at the end of 2019 by using the data from the 2013-2018 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS). We found that the distribution of Wuhan's migrants is centred in Hubei Province (approximately 75%) at a provincial level, gradually decreasing in the surrounding provinces in layers, with obvious spatial characteristics of circle layers and echelons. The scale of Wuhan's migrants, whose origins in Hubei Province give rise to a gradient reduction from east to west within the province, and account for 66% of Wuhan's total migrants, are from the surrounding prefectural-level cities of Wuhan. The distribution comprises 94 districts and counties in Hubei Province, and the cumulative percentage of the top 30 districts and counties exceeds 80%. Wuhan's migrants have a large proportion of middle-aged and high-risk individuals. Their social characteristics include nuclear family migration (84%), migration with families of 3-4 members (71%), a rural household registration (85%), and working or doing business (84%) as the main reason for migration. Using a quasi-experimental analysis framework, we found that the size of Wuhan's migrants was highly correlated with the daily number of confirmed cases. Furthermore, we compared the epidemic situation in different regions and found that the number of confirmed cases in some provinces and cities in Hubei Province may be underestimated, while the epidemic situation in some regions has increased rapidly. The results are conducive to monitoring the epidemic prevention and control in various regions.

From State-controlled to Polycentric Governance in Forest Landscape Restoration: The Case of the Ecological Forest Purchase Program in Yong'an Municipality of China.

Forest landscape restoration is emerging as an effective approach to restore degraded forests for the provision of ecosystem services and to minimize trade-offs between conservation and rural livelihoods. Policy and institutional innovations in China illustrate the governance transformation of forest landscape restoration from state-controlled to polycentric governance. Based on a case study of the Ecological Forest Purchase Program in Yong'an municipality, China's Fujian Province, this paper explores how such forest governance transformation has evolved and how it has shaped the outcomes of forest landscape restoration in terms of multi-dimensionality and actor configurations. Our analysis indicates that accommodating the participation of multiple actors and market-based instruments facilitate a smoother transition from state-centered to polycentric governance in forest landscape restoration. Governance transitions for forest landscape restoration must overcome a number of challenges including ensurance of a formal participation forum, fair participation, and a sustainable legislative and financial system to enhance long-term effectiveness.