Jeju Island, designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site, continues to face the anthropogenic pressures of reckless development for regional tourism and economic revitalization purposes. Because land use/land cover (LULC) affects ecosystem services and human well-being, it is crucial to comprehensively identify the causes of changes in LULC based on long-term analyses. This study examined LULC changes on Jeju Island over 47 years from 1973 to 2019 and quantified changes in four ecosystem services: habitat quality, carbon stock, water yield and cumulative viewshed. From 1973 to 1998, forest land increased from 22% to 56%, but these restoration efforts were conducted in grassland, reducing that land type from 42% to 17%. This process increased the areas of highest habitat quality from 68% to 73%, and carbon stock increased from 20 to 30 million tonnes. Between 1998 and 2009, the area of cropland more than doubled from 21% to 44%. As a result, the areas of highest habitat quality decreased from 73% to 49%, and carbon stock decreased from 3.0 million tonnes to 2.3 million tonnes. Our analysis could help stakeholders and policymakers to develop their management planning and improve ecosystem services through restoration and conservation policies on Jeju Island.

Policies play a pivotal role in determining land change. Uruguay has been subject to first a rise and then decline in plantations of exotic trees as a result of internal Uruguayan government policies, and a recent substantial increase in soybean cultivation that may be attributed to Argentinean policies. To properly assess the relationship between land change and changes in land-use policies, vegetation change for Uruguay from 2001 to 2009 was mapped using MODIS imagery. Between 2001 and 2009, the area covered by exotic tree plantations declined by 1435 km2, and 34 681 km2 of herbaceous cover was converted to agricultural cover, mainly soybean cultivation. Uruguay and Argentina implemented land-use policy changes following the 2002 economic collapse. Rapid increase in exotic tree plantations, mainly in the 1990s, may have been stimulated by Uruguayan government incentives, while their recent decline coincides with the subsequent elimination of these incentives. The rapid increase in soybean production may be largely attributed to recent tax regimes in Argentina and lack of export tax in Uruguay combining to provide a favourable financial climate for Uruguayan soybean cultivation. Soybean cultivation is predicted to continue to expand in Uruguay, while exotic tree plantations should also increase in importance owing to the recent establishment of the world's largest pulp mill.

The ‘arc of deforestation’ of southern Amazonia has one of the highest deforestation rates documented anywhere in the world. Landscape changes in a poorly studied but strategically important region in the Brazilian Amazon were studied using biennial Landsat TM/ETM+ images from 1984 to 2004. Deforestation rate for the period 1984–2004 was 2.47% yr−1 in the 7295 km2 study area, but decreased to 1.99% and 2.15% in 2000–2002 and 2002–2004, respectively. Landscape structure changes were characterized by smaller forest patches that were further apart, but increasingly complex in shape. Deforestation was mainly driven by cattle ranching, which in turn was affected by distance to roads, with forest cover increasing at greater distances from roads. A multi-layer perceptron was used to develop future scenarios based on Markov Chain analysis. Based on current land use, forest cover in the region will decline from 42% in 2004 to 21% by 2016. Results indicate a critical threshold at 51% of forest cover in which landscape structure and connectivity changes abruptly. This suggests that the region requires greater efforts in environmental law enforcement, land-use planning and education programmes to maintain the remaining forest cover near this threshold.