Understanding the contribution of forests to poverty alleviation and human well-being has never been more important. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are erasing gains in poverty reduction achieved over the past several decades. At the same time, climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters, especially in poor rural communities. In this paper, we review approaches to measuring poverty and well-being finding that standard approaches to measuring poverty and poverty dynamics typically do not adequately consider environmental goods and services, leading to an incompelete understanding of poverty dynamics among policy makers and practitioners. We identify four archetypal poverty trajectories and discuss how subsistence and cash income, assets, and non-material benefits from forests and tree-based systems influence each of them. We draw on the broad literature on forests and livelihoods, acknowledging that the majority of the literature on the topic of forests and poverty relies on static, micro-level, and highly contextualized analyses. Our review suggest that forests and tree-based systems provide a pathway out of poverty only under very specific conditions, when high value goods are accessible and marketed, or when ecosystem services can be monetized for the benefit of people living in or near forests. However, the role that forests play in supporting and maintaining current consumption, diversifying incomes, and meeting basic needs may be extremely important, particularly for those experiencing transient poverty. We discuss negative externalities associated with living proximate to forests, including the special case of geographic poverty traps, which can occur in remote forested areas. To build a strong evidence base for policy makers we recommend that research on forest-poverty dynamics address longer time-frames (up to decades), larger and/or nested spatial scales, and are contextualized within the landscape, region, or national setting where it is conducted. Advancing our understanding of forest-poverty dynamics is critical, particularly in low and middle-income countries where large numbers of people live in or near forests or in landscapes with forest-agriculture mosaics. Policy makers should strive to understand the potential role for forest-based livelihood strategies among their suite of social protection and poverty reduction policies and programs, particularly for addressing transient poverty.

了解森林对减贫和人类福祉的贡献从未像现在这样重要。COVID-19 大流行的影响正在抹去过去几十年在减贫方面取得的成果。与此同时，气候变化正在增加极端天气事件和自然灾害的频率，尤其是在贫困的农村社区。在本文中，我们回顾了衡量贫困和福祉的方法，发现衡量贫困和贫困动态的标准方法通常没有充分考虑环境商品和服务，导致政策制定者和从业者对贫困动态的理解不完整。我们确定了四种典型的贫困轨迹，并讨论了生活和现金收入、资产、森林和以树木为基础的系统带来的非物质利益会影响它们中的每一个。我们借鉴了关于森林和生计的广泛文献，承认大多数关于森林和贫困主题的文献都依赖于静态、微观和高度情境化的分析。我们的审查表明，森林和以树木为基础的系统只有在非常特殊的条件下才能提供摆脱贫困的途径，即高价值商品可以获取和销售，或者生态系统服务可以货币化以造福生活在森林中或森林附近的人们。然而，森林在支持和维持当前消费、收入多样化和满足基本需求方面发挥的作用可能极其重要，特别是对于那些经历过短暂贫困的人而言。我们讨论了与森林附近生活相关的负外部性，包括地理贫困陷阱的特殊情况，这种情况可能发生在偏远的森林地区。为了为政策制定者建立强有力的证据基础，我们建议对森林贫困动态的研究解决更长的时间框架（长达几十年）、更大和/或嵌套的空间尺度，并在景观、地区或国家环境中进行它进行。促进我们对森林贫困动态的理解至关重要，特别是在有大量人口居住在森林中或森林附近或森林农业镶嵌景观中的低收入和中等收入国家。