Review of drivers of forest degradation and deforestation in Southeast Asia

Even though Southeast Asia is a hotspot of forest degradation and deforestation, thorough reviews of the drivers of forest degradation and deforestation are lacking in the literature. Here we present a review of studies of drivers of forest degradation and deforestation in Southeast Asia, including forest conversion to plantation, shifting cultivation, fire, logging, drought, and pest damage. We calculated the number of studies by country for different drivers and identified the major drivers for each country. We reviewed global and regional datasets of forest degradation and deforestation that cover Southeast Asia, and from which the area of different drivers was calculated. We also reviewed national and local studies of the drivers by country in Southeast Asia. We found that: (1) The major drivers are conversion of forest to plantation, agriculture expansion, shifting cultivation, logging, fire, and drought; (2) The numbers of studies vary greatly from country to country (Indonesia, for example, is much more studied than the Philippines); (3) Knowledge about the different drivers is unequal (conversion of forest to plantation is more studied than other types of change); (4) Fine resolution analyses of drivers in Southeast Asia are lacking in the literature; (5) The temporal dynamics of drivers remain largely unknown; and (6) Attention to estimation of accuracy and area needs to be improved.