Compared to the solid understanding of the role of deforestation drivers, related knowledge about transitions in global forests is less developed, although numerous nations and sub-national regions are experiencing ongoing forest recovery. In this paper, the focus is on countries in which forest cover increased between 1990 and 2015. We analyze whether a level of initial economic development can be identified that might explain this positive trend. By combining qualitative and quantitative techniques (ecological modelling and an expert survey), a Forest Recovery Index is introduced that accounts for the fact that dissimilar forest management regimes have different impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The link between the Forest Recovery Index and the 1990 level of GDP per capita is analyzed with instrumental variable regression. The results of our integrated ecological-economic models support the existence of an N-shaped curve in the context of forest recovery, implying that the quality and quantity of new forests in middle-income countries has increased to the least extent. In other words, although the outcomes suggest optimism in the long term, caution is needed as the first turning point (a decrease in forest recovery), unlike the second, may fairly easy to be reached. In spite of overall increases in the extent of forests, negative trends – rearrangements that favor less valuable types of forest – appear to be persistent. While transitions are important in terms of the need to sequester carbon, governments should (in line with the Aichi Targets) place greater emphasis on forest biodiversity during transition management to ensure the provision of a wider array of ecosystem services.

与对森林砍伐驱动因素作用的扎实了解相比，尽管许多国家和地方以下地区正在经历持续的森林恢复，但有关全球森林过渡的相关知识尚欠发达。在本文中，重点是在1990年至2015年之间森林覆盖率增加的国家。我们分析是否可以确定出可以解释这种积极趋势的初步经济发展水平。通过结合定性和定量技术（生态建模和专家调查），引入了森林恢复指数，该指数解释了以下事实：不同的森林管理制度对生物多样性和生态系统服务具有不同的影响。通过工具变量回归分析了森林恢复指数与1990年人均GDP水平之间的联系。我们综合的生态经济模型的结果支持在森林恢复的背景下存在N形曲线，这意味着中等收入国家新森林的质量和数量增加的幅度最小。换句话说，尽管从长远来看结果表明乐观，但仍需谨慎，因为与第二个不同，第一个转折点（森林恢复减少）很容易实现。尽管森林面积总体增加，但负面趋势（有利于价值较低的森林类型的重新安排）似乎仍然存在。虽然过渡对于封存碳的需求很重要，