"In the Qing period (1644-1912), China's population tripled, and the flurry of new development generated unprecedented demand for timber. Standard environmental histories have often depicted this as an era of reckless deforestation, akin to the resource misuse that devastated European forests at...

Land use (LU) policies exert a profound influence on socio-economic dynamics. However, the intricate relationship between these two aspects has yet to receive comprehensive examination, especially when focusing on specific LU types and smaller-scale geographical regions. We, therefore, elucidate...