Forest change in China

sichuan_village_treesAn interesting new historical study of forest cover change in China from 1700 to present reveals that up to the 1960s, deforestation prevailed, while since the 1960s, forests have been recovering.

Read the paper by Fanneng He et al., in the (Chinese) Journal of Geographical Sciences, here (may require permission): http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11442-008-0059-8

Reference: He, F., Q. Ge, J. Dai, and Y. Rao. 2008. Forest change of China in recent 300 years. Journal of Geographical Sciences 18:59-72.