Forests are spatially and temporally dynamic, such that forest degradation is best quantified across whole landscapes and over the long term. The European Union’s forest degradation policy, which focuses on contemporary primary forest conversion to plantations, ignores other globally prevalent forestry practices that can flip forests into a degraded state.
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Acknowledgements
We thank A. Balmford, G. Cerrulo, N. Ferrari, A. Fitch, M. Sutton, M. Swanson, and M. Weldy for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant LTER8 DEB-2025755, NSF-DISES 2108354, NASA GEDI Science Team grant 80HQTR21T0013, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) 2022-67019-37130. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US Government determination or policy.
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M.G.B., Z.Y. and S.P.H. conceptualized the work; Z.Y. and M.G.B. performed mapping and analysis; M.G.B. wrote the original draft; and M.G.B., Z.Y., A.S.H, J.H., F.H., D.L., E.S. and S.P.H. reviewed and edited the manuscript.
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Betts, M.G., Yang, Z., Hadley, A.S. et al. Quantifying forest degradation requires a long-term, landscape-scale approach. Nat Ecol Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02409-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02409-5
