Designating tree crops as forest: Land competition and livelihood effects mediate tree crops impact on natural forest cover in south China

•The Chinese government designates ‘tree crops’ (jingjilin) as an important component of forest, potentially creating misleading pictures of forest expansion.•Amid recent rural depopulation in China, tree crops with low labor demands may offer a labor-extensive livelihood option for disadvantaged rural residents.•We construct an analytical framework to assess tree crop impacts on natural forests through both land use and alternative livelihood pathways, applying it to panel national forest inventory data for southern China.•Tree crops show a trade-off with natural forest cover and a possible synergy with natural forest density mediated by alternative livelihood processes. The Chinese government applies the term ‘tree crops’ (jingjilin) to a bundle of tree species with uses other than timber production, defining this category as a component of national forest statistics. Tree crops may displace either farmland or forestland, and can be a promising livelihood option for smallholders. The overall impact of this particular policy on natural forest growth remained unanswered. In the general expansion trend of tree cover in southern China, tree crops could compete for land with natural forests, their cultivation may pose environmental trade-offs with natural forest cover. However, in a context of large labor flows from countryside to cities, tree crops could provide promising opportunities for dealing with on-farm labor shortages and generating income for disadvantaged populations remaining in rural communities, then promoting remaining natural forest quality through alternative livelihoods process. There is a knowledge gap to thoroughly investigate tree crops’ impact on natural forest change both conceptually and empirically, especially a mechanism verification of the alternative livelihood hypothesis. Thus, we construct a framework assessing land use competition and alternative livelihood effects together to assess overall impacts of tree crop cultivation on natural forests. Our dataset combines forest resource inventory data and provincial social-economic factors for a panel analysis of contributions to change in natural forest cover, density, and stock in China’s biodiversity-rich southern provinces. Results show tree crop cover is negatively associated with natural forest extent, but positive associated with change in natural forest density, while the relationship with change in natural forest stock is insignificant. Further tests of mechanisms support the