%0 Journal Article %A ZHAN Jin-yan %A SHI Na-na %A YAN Han-ming %A LIN Ying-zhi %T Exploration of the Causes for Forest Area Changes in Jiangxi Province %D 2011 %R 10.11849/zrzyxb.2011.02.017 %J JOURNAL OF NATURAL RESOURCES %P 335-343 %V 26 %N 2 %X Changes of forest area in Jiangxi Province is considered to be one of the major threats to wood security and ecosystem services at regional extent. However, knowledge about the explanation of forest area changes is far from completeness. Therefore, this research integrates natural environmental information with socio-economic processes and policy changes to build the econometric model to explore the driving mechanism for forest area changes from 1988 to 2005. Tobit regression analysis was used to measure socio-economic and natural factors. The estimation results show that the influencing factors for forest area include population, per capita GDP and location factors on forest area changes. The research finds that one possible way to promote the reforestation is to improve the economic development level, particularly to quicken the pace of infrastructure construction, of less developed areas in Jiangxi Province. And promoting transfer of rural surplus labor of Jiangxi Province may also be beneficial to relieve stresses of deforestation for farmland reclamation. The research results could provide decision making information support for land use planning as well as forest protection. %U https://www.jnr.ac.cn/EN/10.11849/zrzyxb.2011.02.017