Land use changes in globally important cultural forests. The case of two traditionally managed forests for non-wood forest products (NWFPs) in China and Japan

Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) still have a key role for the economy of many rural areas, for their sustainable development and for preserving traditional culture, landscape and biodiversity. Two sites inscribed in the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are based on traditional forest management devoted to shitake production: the Kunisaki Peninsula System (Japan) and the Qingyuan Forest-Mushroom Co-culture System (China). This study investigated the landscape structure of the two sites, assessing the land use changes in the last 10 years, and identifying the main drivers responsible of changes, through GIS-based spatial analyses of 2008 and 2019 land use maps. An accuracy assessment of the original databases has also been performed to validate the research findings. Results demonstrated that the maintenance of the traditional forest management has effectively contributed to the preservation of two different but both traditional landscape structures, but the methodology also allowed to identify some external pressures. In the Kunisaki peninsula the abandonment of agricultural surfaces (-4.3%) and consequent spread of grasslands (+ 63%) and forests (+ 1.3%) mainly affects areas at lower altitudes; in Qingyuan County deforestation (+ 280 ha/year), expansion of new cultivations (+ 250 ha/year) and urban sprawl (+ 67%), represent the main changes. Traditional forest practices represent effective examples of sustainable forest management, capable of providing high-quality NWFPs and ecosystem services to local communities, contributing to the preservation of local natural resources, of cultural heritage, and of biodiversity at the landscape scale.