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Globally, there is increasing attention among academics, policymakers and development agencies in understanding interactions within forest socio-ecological systems to provide insights on human-environment interactions and how forest ecosystems contribute to human well-being. This is particularly important for biologically diverse dry and sub-humid forest ecological systems where livelihoods are heavily dependent on benefits derived directly from forests, yet human-environmental interactions remain poorly understood. In many developing countries, forests provide various services that significantly contribute to livelihood portfolios’ and generally to human well-being. Although it is widely acknowledged that benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems are fundamentally dependent on ecosystem functions and processes, the role of transforming structures and processes in converting ecological …