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Places experience forest transitions when declines in forest cover cease and recoveries
in forest cover begin. Forest transitions have occurred in two, sometimes overlapping
circumstances. In some places economic development has created enough non-farm
jobs to pull farmers off of the land, thereby inducing the spontaneous regeneration of
forests in old fields. In other places a scarcity of forest products has prompted
governments and landowners to plant trees in some fields. The transitions do little to
conserve biodiversity, but they do sequester carbon and conserve soil, so governments
should place a high priority on promoting them.