PROBLEMS OF DECREASE IN LAND AND ITS ASSOCIATED RESOURCES ON SOCIO ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES OF MAN

Land and its uses are essential to all human communities. Every person is shaped in a range of ways by the landscape in which they live, and the products and resources produced on the land. Land and its uses are particularly important for rural communities, where many people are directly dependent on land for their livelihood, and the way land is used has a central role in defining the identity of an area and its community.

Changes in land use can have a profound impact on the personal, family, work and social lives of people living in rural communities, as well as those living in rural and regional towns. Many rural regions have experienced rapid land use change in recent decades. These have included expansion of plantation forestry, increase in rural residential properties, increase in cropping, decrease in wool production in some areas, increase in prime lamb production, and a range of changes to the dairy industry in different parts of the region.

Coupled human–natural systems in general, and land use systems in particular may display nonlinear responses to stressors, cascading effects, and tipping points that can shift systems onto a new trajectory (Liu et al 2007, Scheffer 2010). Land system dynamics may thus be characterized as a sequence of periods of relative stability followed by rapid changes with potentially long-lasting effects (Dearing et al 2010, Lambin and Meyfroidt 2010). The challenge is to better understand the triggers that can reorganize land use systems and modify long-term land use trajectories (NSF 2009, Scheffer 2010). In natural systems, disturbance is considered an intrinsic component resulting in rapid and sometimes drastic change of ecosystem structure and functioning. We ask here whether the same applies to land use systems: to what extent can large socio-economic disturbances such as wars, revolutions, recessions, and changes in political systems trigger a fundamental change in land use systems and how do different institutional settings affect the outcomes of such socio-economic disturbances?

Reorganization in land use systems can be defined as a process whereby the structural character of land use transforms as a result of a set of connected changes. This may be triggered by slow drivers of change (e.g., demographic changes or industrialization), fast ones (e.g., revolutions, wars, disease outbreaks, economic crises, technological breakthroughs), or both (Aide and Grau 2004, Rudel et al 2005, Geist et al 2006, Machlis and Hanson 2008). The effects of fast drivers on land use transitions are not well understood, even though they may strongly affect systems' state and future trajectories (Dearing et al 2010). Moreover, related transitions may result in either higher (Zak et al 2008, Hansen et al 2009) or lower land use intensities (Rudel et al 2005, Yeloff and Van Geel 2007, Pongratz et al 2011).

Irrespective of the duration of land use changes and potential leakage effects, coupled human–natural systems are inherently dynamic (Liu et al 2007) and land use theory needs to account for the effects of socio-economic disturbances to better understand land use trajectories, and thus to identify pathways toward sustainable land use systems. The interactions of socio-economic disturbances and the accelerating and powerful forces, such as climate change and globalization, that increasingly drive land-systems dynamics, will likely bring about 'imaginable surprises' (sensu Schneider et al 1998).

Human societies are rarely prepared for surprises and the rapid changes that socio-economic disturbances entail. Socio-economic disturbances may thus cause grave human suffering (Stuckler et al 2009), and societies should strive to limit their impacts on people and communities. On the other hand, our results suggest that socio-economic disturbances not necessarily put land use systems toward intensification trajectories and may allow landscapes to 'rewild', and as such represent opportunities for conservation. 'A crisis is a terrible opportunity to waste' (P Romer), and understanding socio-economic disturbance effects as both threats and opportunities is scientifically important and highly policy relevant.