“Forest transition” and economic change. The case of Spanish forests in the long run (1860-2000)

Abstract

The concept of forest transition analyzes the process of change in forest cover in several countries throughout the world, which have reverted historical processes of deforestation to achieve net gains in forest surface area. The concept was coined in the 1990s and since then has generated a huge amount of social sciences literature, but never has been used to analyze the case of Spanish forests. To fill this gap, this paper presents a critical review of the literature on the concept. Then, using available data, it describes the evolution of forest cover in Spain in the long run and analyzes this in light of forest transition theory. This first approach reveals some gaps in the theory with respect to explaining the Spanish case, and suggests some hypotheses for further research.