Ng Aeryn, Gergel Sarah E, Fromstein Maya, Sunderland Terry, Zerriffi Hisham, Nankaya Jedidah
Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Food Secur. 2025;17(3):625-640. doi: 10.1007/s12571-025-01535-7. Epub 2025 Apr 8.
Forests support food security and nutrition worldwide, especially so for highly forest-dependent communities who collect a variety of food products from nearby forests. While the importance of forest cover to the diets of forest-dependent communities has been well-researched, little is known regarding the role of more specific forest characteristics - information that would be valuable for better identifying the landscapes that support a nutritious and diverse diet. To address this research gap, we linked child dietary data to remotely-sensed geospatial indicators of surrounding forest characteristics - using more nuance than is typically undertaken - by examining forest age, tree density, and forest fragmentation in Kenya's East African Montane Forests. Interestingly, dietary diversity of children demonstrated no or relatively weak associations with forest characteristics. However, by parsing out individual food groups, we exposed the nuance and complexities associated with the forest-diet relationship. Vegetable/fruit consumption was positively associated with open and moderately dense forest cover, but negatively associated with fragmented forest cover. The consumption of meat and vitamin A-rich fruit was positively associated with younger forest cover, and negatively associated with dense forest cover. Older forest cover was positively associated with green leafy vegetable consumption, but negatively associated with other vegetable/fruit consumption. Our findings provide suggestive evidence that there is no single 'ideal' type of forest for supporting food security and nutrition - rather, different types of forests are associated with different dietary benefits. Taken together, these results indicate the need for more in-depth research that accounts for factors beyond the proximity and amount of generic forest cover.
森林对全球粮食安全和营养具有支持作用，对于高度依赖森林的社区而言尤其如此，这些社区从附近森林采集各种食品。虽然森林覆盖对依赖森林社区饮食的重要性已得到充分研究，但对于更具体的森林特征所起的作用却知之甚少——而这些信息对于更好地识别支持营养丰富且多样饮食的景观非常有价值。为了填补这一研究空白，我们将儿童饮食数据与周围森林特征的遥感地理空间指标相联系——通过研究肯尼亚东非山地森林的森林年龄、树木密度和森林破碎化情况，采用了比通常更为细致入微的方法。有趣的是，儿童的饮食多样性与森林特征之间没有显示出关联，或者关联相对较弱。然而，通过剖析各个食物类别，我们揭示了森林与饮食关系中细微差别和复杂性。蔬菜/水果的消费与开阔和中等密度的森林覆盖呈正相关，但与破碎化的森林覆盖呈负相关。肉类和富含维生素A的水果的消费与较年轻的森林覆盖呈正相关，与茂密的森林覆盖呈负相关。较老的森林覆盖与绿叶蔬菜的消费呈正相关，但与其他蔬菜/水果的消费呈负相关。我们的研究结果提供了暗示性证据，即不存在单一的“理想”森林类型来支持粮食安全和营养——相反，不同类型的森林与不同的饮食益处相关。综上所述，这些结果表明需要进行更深入的研究，考虑到除了一般森林覆盖的接近程度和数量之外的因素。
