LAND USE AND LAND COVER CHANGES, A CASE STUDY FROM NORTHWESTERN UPLANDS OF CAMBODIA

Agricultural expansion, infrastructure expansion, and woods extraction are the major proximate causes for the loss of forest cover. Theses causes namely the agricultural expansion were driven by skyrocketing population that more than 60% were in-migrants. The increase of price of agricultural produces and rapid road constructions were also key factors. The agricultural expansion was strongly linked to the need of economic improvement facilitated by the forest lands allocation and military demobilization policies.

To go further:

Geist, Helmut J., and Eric F. Lambin. "Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation: Tropical forests are disappearing as the result of many pressures, both local and regional, acting in various combinations in different geographical locations." BioScience 52.2 (2002): 143-150

Madelene Ostwald , Victoria Wibeck & Petter Stridbeck (2009). Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of land-use change among small-scale farmers – illustrations from the Loess Plateau, China. Journal of Land Use Science, 4:3, 157-171, DOI: 10.1080/17474230903036642