A 45-year global analysis of the spatial human forest nexus

Abstract Forests play a crucial role in providing important ecosystem services such as biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and biomass production, while supporting the livelihoods of millions of people globally. Understanding the spatial relationship between human populations and forests is vital for assessing how these socio-environmental systems interact and evolve over time. However, a global scale understanding of these spatial relationships remains limited. Here, we address this gap by examining the joint global trends in human population and forest dynamics from 1975 to 2020. We assess two indicators of spatial and temporal trends: forest area per person (FAP) and forest proximate people (FPP), illustrating how the spatial interplay between humans and forests has changed over time. We then introduce the forest human nexus (FHN), a spatial indicator that integrates forest area per capita, forest accessibility, and population density to provide a geospatial assessment of human–forest relationships. Our analysis reveals an uneven distribution of FHN trends worldwide, reflecting severe ecological stress in many tropical regions and highlighting the need for targeted interventions. By offering detailed spatiotemporal insights and a new spatial metric for human–forest interactions, this study aims to inform policymakers, conservationists, development practitioners, and researchers in fostering more sustainable human–forest relationships.